Time Magazine reports on The Fall of Greg Craig:

Obama quietly killed the Gitmo plan in the second week of May; Craig never got a chance to argue the case to the President. "It was a political decision, to put it bluntly," says an aide.

...The White House realized it had to start over on a signature issue....First to go was the release of the pictures of detainee abuse. Days later, Obama sided against Craig again, ending the suspension of Bush's extrajudicial military commissions. The following week, Obama pre-empted an ongoing debate among his national-security team and embraced one of the most controversial of Bush's positions: the holding of detainees without charges or trial, something he had promised during the campaign to reject.

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Via FDL, David Broder:

While the CBO said that both the House-passed bill and the one Reid has drafted meet Obama's test by being budget-neutral, every expert I have talked to says [. . . t]hese bills, as they stand, are budget-busters. Here, for example, is what Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group of budget watchdogs, told me: "The Senate bill is better than the House version, but there's not much reform in this bill. As of now, it's basically a big entitlement expansion, plus tax increases."

(Emphasis supplied.) Tax increases bust the budget according the Wise Old Men of the Village.

Speaking for me only

You can watch it on C-Span2 or online.

Update (TL): The cloture vote is expected at 8 pm. Firedoglake has a "semi live blog" up.

This is a debate about whether to allow the bill to come to the floor where it can be debated and amended. The Republicans are threatening to use the Senate’s unlimited debate clause to prevent the bill from coming to the floor where it then can be debated. They are threatening to never stop debating (this is what a filibuster technically is) the vote on the motion to proceed. This is how the Republicans plan to use their right of unlimited debate to actually stop any debate on health care reform. When trying to explain how the Senate has become a broken, undemocratic, unconstitutional perversion of its original self, I recommend using this as an example.

We are so screwed:

This recession has taught us that we can’t return to a situation where America’s economic growth is fueled by consumers who take on more and more debt. In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control. We also need to place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell to other nations – exports that can help create new jobs at home and raise living standards throughout the world.

This is insane. Either Obama is a fool or he is listening to fools. If he really believes this and acts in consistent fashion, the country will soon see 13% unemployment, the Democratic Party will be doomed to defeat and Obama could well be a one term President. My gawd, Hoover could not have said it better.

Speaking for me only

While the Big 3 (Florida, Alabama, Texas) won't be tested today, there are plenty of interesting games on the slate. Let's start with the Oregon Ducks traveling to Arizona. Both Oregon and Zona can win the Pac 10 by winning out. If neither win out, it becomes a free for all. Oregon is a 6 point favorite. I like Zona (+6).

In the Big Ten, Rose bowl bound Ohio State travels to Ann Arbor to face Michigan. Michigan spit the bit on this season a month ago. For all the talk about Rodriguez not having talent (which is true), the indictment I would make against him is his team quit on him. I think they quit for good. I like the Buckeyes (-12.5). More . . .

Bob Dylan singing Santa? Levjoy says on Twitter it sounds like a Yiddish folk song, and he's got a point.

Here's Digby on Luke Russert's reporting on health care. Firedoglake has today's highlights.

Fernando Bermudez left Sing Sing prison today, after serving 17 years for a murder he didn't commit. More here.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

McJoan at Daily Kos explains what needs to be fixed in the Senate version of the public option in the health care bill: It's the date on which the states can opt out. First,

There's no requirement of a waiting period before states can opt out, which in this political environment means the battle is taken directly to the states, because insurers will have until 2014 to get state legislatures to pass those laws. That could lead to as much as a third of country being left out, according to CBO estimates [pdf] (h/t Jon Walker).

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President Obama, upon the recommendation of Colorado's two U.S. Senators and others, has nominated former Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephanie Villafuerte for Colorado U.S. Attorney.

Republicans are having a hissy-fit. The brouhaha is over the criminal case of former ICE agent Cory Voorhis. Voorhis was acquitted of misdemeanor charges that he improperly accessed the restricted NCIC database and passed information contained in it to Gov. Bill Ritter's then opponent for Governor, Bob Beauprez, who used it in an ad to attack Ritter as being soft on undocumented residents while District Attorney.

Voorhis' didn't deny accessing the database or passing the information on to the Beauprez campaign. His defense was that he did nothing wrong by doing so and that the charges were politically motivated. [More...]

Another busy day ahead.

This is an Open Thread.

James Comey and Jack Goldsmith, high-ranking Department of Justice officials under Bush, have an op-ed in the Washington Post defending Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees in federal criminal court instead of a military commission proceeding. The conclusion is fine:

But Holder's critics do not help their case by understating the criminal justice system's capacities, overstating the military system's virtues and bumper-stickering a reasonable decision.

In reaching that correct assessment, however, there's a few statements I take issue with. They posit that Holder made the decision to keep the U.S.S. Cole detainees in a military proceeding not for the reasons he said (that the attack happened outside the U.S.) but because the case against them is weak and the chance of conviction is greater in a military commission trial. In other words, Holder forum-shopped (as, they say, Bush's DOJ did before him) and there's nothing wrong with that. I think when it's done hoping to skirt the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt because you know you can't meet it, there's definitely something wrong with it.
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Just finished participating in a call with Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) regarding Afghanistan. I imagine Senator Specter was a bit surprised by my questions from the more hawkish view on Afghanistan. Senator Specter's position is that he opposes troop increases in Afghanistan and even questions maintaining troops in Afghanistan unless the effort is "indispensable" to the conflict with al Qaida. (See Spencer Ackerman's coverage of the call) Senator Spector's primary opponent, Representative Joe Sestak supports troop increases in Afghanistan.

Senator Spector responded to my question regarding the connection with Pakistan and Afghanistan and how an effective Pakistan policy related to adequate troop levels in Afghanistan by turning the question around to me, asking how does increased troop levels in Afghanistan help us with the situation in Pakistan? A fair question, which I will try to address more comprehensively in another post. But on the issue of Pakistan, I believe Senator Specter demonstrated understanding of the issue and when I pressed for an answer on what type of initiatives he would support, he made a good point - promoting peace between India and Pakistan would be an important breakthrough that could lead to a more cooperative and responsible Pakistan. Which could lead to a more successful policy against the Taliban and al Qaida in the region. More on this discussion in a later post.

So, in my fantasy football league, I lost Ronnie Brown for the season and have nothing good at running back. What do I do? I offered up my best player, Peyton Manning, for the best deal I could get. The result? I got Tony Romo, LaDainian Tomlinson and Roy Williams for Manning (plus two throw ins.) What do you think?

In other fantasy news, Maurice Jones-Drew's non-TD had a big effect in FFL World:

I was one of at least two dozen non-Jaguars fans who screamed at the screens when Maurice Jones-Drew took a knee at the Jets’ one-yard-line instead of easily scoring. I can assure you we weren’t lamenting that play’s impact on the betting line. But you have to give MJD credit. In his post-game interview, he actually apologized to his fantasy owners for the play, saying he was instructed not to score so the team could run down the clock, and he had to do what was right for the Jaguars. How cool is that?

Actually it is kind of sick. Grown men and women - all of us - doing this? It's nuts.

This is an Open Thread.

Firedoglake is against it:

It is encouraging that Senator Reid respected the will of the American people and included a public option in the merged Senate bill. However, the addition of a state opt-out provision threatens to leave millions of Americans at the mercy of private insurance monopolies, with the federal government acting as enforcers for a product with no competition to keep prices down. [. . .] [W]hile 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.

If you can get a public option passed without an opt out, then let's do it. But if we can not, then I believe an opt out that requires enactment of a state law through regular procedure is acceptable. My view remains that the only real reform in this bill (as I have stated, there are other good features in the proposal - specifically the expansion of Medicaid coverage, but they are not meaningful reform imo) is the public option. Indeed, if given a choice I would rather have an opt out Medicare +5 public option available to more persons with an opt out than a level playing field national public option without an opt out. Neither seems politically possible at this time, even through reconciliation. More . . .

(Warning: This post is going to be controversial and expresses my views only.)

Both the House and Senate bills would create a voluntary federal program to provide long-term care insurance that pays small cash benefits to people with severe cognitive or physical disabilities. Like the elderly.

I don't think most people understand what long term care insurance covers. It covers nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and for the cognitively or physically disabled, some home health care costs in lieu of going to a facility. This isn't medical coverage but coverage that assists those who can't feed, clothe, toilet or bathe themselves. You aren't eligible until you can't do at least two of the above. The payments cover a fraction of the actual cost of the services. In other words, you have to be basically physically or mentally dysfunctional to qualify for what is a paltry amount of benefits. [More...]

The Wall St. Journal reports the new Senate health care bill imposes a 5% tax on receipients of elective plastic surgery.

The tax would fall on the individuals who undergo the procedures. If they don’t pay it when they’re billed for their surgery, then it falls to the provider who performed the procedure.

Who gets the most plastic surgery? It's not the young.

Then there's the tax on "Cadillac health plans" defined as health care plans with premiums over $8,500 a year. The insurer pays it, but to recoup it, won't they just reduce benefits the plan provides? Anthem already sent out a letter that when renewed, my plan will no longer cover 100% of prescriptions. I bet this tax on Cadillac plans results in the plans becoming Chevys. [More...]