A grand jury in Philadelphia has returned an Indictment against Dr. Kermit Gosnell and several of his staff, charging them with first degree murder, racketeering and other crimes. Gosnell owned and operated a clinic that performed abortions. His patients were mostly poor and minorities. He allegedly performed late-term abortions, past 24 weeks (the legal cut-off.) During these procedures, he allegedly would induce labor, extract the allegedly viable fetus, and sever the fetus' spinal cord using scissors. The Indictment alleges the fetuses were viable babies born alive, and Dr. Gosnell's actions were murder.

It alleges his unlicensed staff administered labor inducing drugs and narcotics for pain relief in his absence (he only showed up at night after the women had been writhing around in pain all day), and then, amidst squalid conditions and re-using unsanitized equipment, he extracted the fetuses.

The District Attorney has released the Grand Jury's report of its findings. You can read it here. (Don't read it if you are squeamish.) [More....]

In a piece that provides broadstroke background on the legal issue surrounding the challenges to the health bill, Jonathan Cohn spends the lion's share oh his argument on the individual mandate.

Like Cohn, I find the arguments for the unconstitutionality of the mandate "unpersuasive," to say the least. But I wonder if this is a fight a progressive wants to have. Cohn asks:

The GOP has argued that because of the doc fix, the health bill costs more than Dems say. Krugman responded:

First of all, says the analysis, the true cost of reform includes the cost of the “doc fix.” What’s that? Well, in 1997 Congress enacted a formula to determine Medicare payments to physicians. [. . .] Instead of changing the formula, however, Congress has consistently enacted one-year fixes. And Republicans claim that the estimated cost of future fixes, $208 billion over the next 10 years, should be considered a cost of health care reform. But the same spending would still be necessary if we were to undo reform.

Today, Ezra Klein touts the idea that the fix of the donut hole in the Medicare prescription drug benefit was how 4 million people benefit from the health bill. But isn't this basically the other side of the coin Krugman is condemning? The fix of the donut hole was hardly the point of the bill (and certainly not what the GOP is objecting to) and could have been done without "reform," just as the "doc fix" is not really part of the health bill either. More . . .

“The public didn’t sense that everyone in the White House was waking up thinking about how to create jobs,” said John Podesta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff and president of the Center for American Progress who directed Obama’s transition. “It seemed like they were waking up every day thinking about how to pass more bills."

Via Atrios, this Peter Baker NYTimes Magazine story is depressing:

The path from crisis to anemic recovery was marked by turmoil inside the White House. The economic team fractured repeatedly over philosophy (should jobs or deficits take priority?

How about neither. No significant progress on unemployment and a record deficit! Capped off with The Deal! Just terrible. More . . .

Via AllahPundit, Sheila Jackson Lee makes a ridiculous statement on the GOP proposal to repeal the health bill:

The Fifth Amendment speaks specifically to denying someone their life and liberty without due process [. . .] That is what H.R. 2 does and I rise in opposition to it. And I rise in opposition because it is important that we preserve lives and we recognize that 40 million-plus are uninsured. [. . .] Can you tell me what’s more unconstitutional than taking away from the people of America their Fifth Amendment rights, their Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the right to equal protection under the law?

I can think of many things that are "more unconstitutional" than repeal of the health bill because repeal of the health bill would not be unconstitutional. Congressional debate is always ridiculous.

Speaking for me only

Submitted for your consideration.

I think the answer is no. Pretty sure Fred Hiatt answers in the affirmative.

Open Thread.

The Hill:

In two years, the president has repeatedly shown that he is more interested in results than ideological purity, and he has never hesitated to trade Democratic ideals for passable legislation.

(Emphasis supplied.) This reflects the Beltway mentality that passing laws is the end, not the means, of governing. Consider the assertion that Obama "never hesitated to trade Democratic ideals for passable legislation." I'm prepared to trade Democratic ideals for GOOD passable legislation. But, generally speaking, I am a Democrat because I think Democratic ideals are at the heart of good legislation and governance. At the least, a little hesitation in trading off good "ideals" (read policy) in order to pass bad legislation would be in order. See The Deal.

Speaking for me only

This is why Obama's critique of government regulation was stupid:

President Barack Obama's government-wide review of federal regulations will have little effect on two of the president's major regulatory victories: an overhaul of Wall Street and the health-care market, according to a White House budget official. The review focuses on old, outdated regulations so new ones written as part of the health-care and financial overhaul likely won't be affected, an official at the White House Office of Management and Budget said.

The argument is indefensible. What makes a "new" regulation less likely to suffer from infirmities than an "old" one? Darryl Issa will, rightly, have a field day with this.

Speaking for me only

The big claimed achievements of the Obama Administration are largely the paper creation of new regulations for the health insurance market and the financial markets. Matt Yglesias extravagantly claimed:

TARP gave Barack Obama a once-a-century opportunity to transform the American economy through state control over the commanding heights, an opportunity he deliberately declined [. . .]

Actually, what the Obama Administration claimed, not only with regard to financial markets but also the health insurance market (and what it seems to claim about everything) is that regulation is "the third way." As Ed Kilgore wrote:

Joe Lieberman will announce tomorrow he won't seek re-election in 2012.

I doubt he'll be missed.

Krugman writes:

I don’t think [the wonk gap] this is unique to health care, or especially unusual. Monetary policy, fiscal policy, you name it, there’s a gap, although not quite as large as on health. [. . .] I’m surprised that Chait doesn’t refer to Upton Sinclair’s principle: it’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. In fact, in general right-wing think tanks prefer people who genuinely can’t understand the issues — it makes them more reliable.

[. . .] Wouldn’t the right be better served by better wonks? No. For one thing, they’d be unreliable — they might start making sense at an inappropriate moment. And, crucially, the media generally can’t tell the difference.

(Emphasis supplied.) Is this really so hard to understand? Yet there is this pretend world of "wonk debates" which legitimizes for the clueless Media the very dishonesty Krugman describes. And then Ezra Klein thinks Dems are going to win the health bill debate this time around. There is more than one deficit being described here. Which reminds me of this 2006 post.

Speaking for me only

Jack Balkin:

[I]f total repeal is not on the table, the insurance industry's interest is in keeping the individual mandate and thus opposing any attempt to hold it unconstitutional.

It will therefore be interesting to see whether, as the litigation develops, members of the insurance industry begin to file amici supporting the constitutionality of the individual mandate. [. . .] The Tea Party may despise the individual mandate, but the health insurance industry does not. [. . .]

Actually, this one is easy. No brief from the insurance industry is needed. Just the right signals. The Supreme Court will know what to do. No appellate circuit will strike down the individual mandate. Cert. denied. GOP can tell the Tea Party, we need a more conservative "originalist" Court!! Wins all around for the GOP.

Speaking for me only