It seems incredible to me that a historic victory for Dems in 2008 will likely end up with a permanent extension of the disastrous Bush tax cuts. Definitely NOT the most progressive 2 years in a generation. Kevin Drum writes:

Obama wants to pass DADT repeal, New START, and raise the debt ceiling. Conservatives want permanent extension of all tax cuts. That sure sounds like fertile ground for a deal to me. [. . . P]ermanent extension of the tax cuts isn't that big a deal for Dems. I'd trade it away for those other three things and live to fight another day on taxes.

Simply incredible. The lack of understanding contained in those sentences is simply incredible. Live to fight another day on taxes? What day century would that be? Pathetic. I hope these Beltway bloggers enjoy watching social programs get cut to the bone in the name of "deficit reduction" after they urge rolling over on tax cuts for the rich.

Speaking for me only

Thought for the day:

Liberty -- the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government -- is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.

--United States v. $124,570,
873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989).

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

While I have previously written about what Obama can do as President (especially regarding tax cuts), there are of course things he can not do alone. Ezra Klein focuses on a couple of them - extending UI benefits and raising the debt ceiling (Obama can block tax cuts for the rich):

Getting rid of the tax cuts for the rich is not as important as extending unemployment benefits or protecting the Affordable Care Act. [. . .] The right outcome here is not the end of the tax cuts for the rich, though that might be nice. It's an extension of unemployment insurance and an increase in the debt ceiling. Democrats shouldn't vote with Republicans to extend the tax cuts -- which is, of course, the only way the tax cuts can be extended -- unless Republicans will simultaneously vote with them to extend UI and lift the debt ceiling.

This is a TERRIBLE idea. Ezra seems to think that the $700 billion given up for tax cuts for the rich will not be taken out of programs for the less well off down the line. It is an old problem with Beltway bloggers - they never understand how important tax policy is. It is why they have spent the past 2 years denigrating the Clinton tax plan of 1993 and pretending the ACA was the greatest progressive achievement in a generation. UI extension is of course critical, but this is a matter of political bargaining imo. Tax cuts for the rich is too high a price. As for the debt ceiling extension, I can see trading THAT now (it is in the GOP's interest that it happen now, not in February contrary to Ezra's bizarre belief to the contrary) in exchange for extending UI benefits. Ezra seems to think raising the debt ceiling now should be a Dem priority. That makes no sense. Does the GOP REALLY want to shut down the government in February, 2 months into their control of the House? No way.

Speaking for me only

Regarding the Ghailhani "terror trial" result, Glenn Greenwald writes:

But even had [Ghailiani] had been acquitted on all counts, the Obama administration had made clear that it would simply continue to imprison him anyway under what it claims is the President's "post-acquittal detention power" -- i.e., when an accused Terrorist is wholly acquitted in court, he can still be imprisoned indefinitely by the U.S. Government under the "law of war" even when the factual bases for the claim that he's an "enemy combatant" (i.e. that he blew up the two embassies) are the same ones underlying the crimes for which he was fully acquitted after a full trial.

This is a long running disagreement I have with Glenn - I do believe the President has pre- and post- acquittal detention power, subject to the Laws of War (the Geneva Conventions), as Commander in Chief, regarding enemy combatants. The key remains, as I have written many times, a fair and open status determination process as required by the Geneva Convention. I've been remiss on following the progress of President Obama's vaunted review for recommendations regarding a status determination process. To me, it remains the key issue regarding the terror suspect detainees.

Speaking for me only

Atrios, pointing to this article on Ireland's precarious financial condition, says "they should just default. Tell the continent to bail out its banks directly if they want." There is actually a very interesting precedent for this, Argentina a decade ago. I wrote about it 2004:

For 14 years, from 1994 to 2008, I flew somewhere every ten days, if not more frequently. Between the five legal boards I served on that met quarterly or every four months, there were 17 trips (34 flights) a year to board meetings in cities around the country. Add to that the task forces I served on which met every other month in cities around the country, the six or eight criminal defense lectures I gave every year to out of state organizations, the blogger events I went to, in Amsterdam, NY, DC, Las Vegas and San Francisco. Even covering the Scooter Libby trial meant 3 weeks of going back and forth between Denver and D.C.

Add to that my out of town cases: In 2007, I added another 12 trips to the other 18, just going to Omaha and Telluride, where the courts were.

By the end of 2007, I was fried. The 2007-8 Iowa caucuses in late December, early January were the final straw. [More...]

Kevin Drum writes:

Chris Beam says a bipartisan effort to reduce the deficit is probably doomed. So the only answer is a partisan effort to reduce the deficit[. . . .] Have we forgotten about the filibuster already? This idea would be lovely if either party manages to win 60 seats in the Senate — or close to it — but that seems pretty unlikely in the near term for either side. This strikes me as little better than a fantasy.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . . .

Via dday, 18 Senators write a letter asking for "changes" to the HAMP program. That's nice I guess.

Here's my letter - Fire the incompetent and corrupt Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner.

Speaking for me only

One of those days. More Thread.

Open Thread.

Brandy got robbed by Palin supporters on Dancing With the Stars. Unbelievable. Bristol improved over the season but that's not saying much since she began like a piece of wood and ended with only an ember. She's no dancer and does not belong in the finals. She didn't even belong in the semi-finals.

What a crock, and a disappointment. Brandy was a "10" dancer and second only to Jennifer Grey. In fact, Brandy vs. Jennifer would have been a close contest in the finale. She may not have the most friendly personality, but it's a dancing contest.

Kyle belongs in the finals more than Bristol. He has more musicality in his tush than Bristol has in her whole body.

Tea partiers mobbed the phone lines, voting for Sarah Palin's child. No one who was voting on the dancing as opposed to politics would have voted for Bristol, except her family and friends. And that doesn't add up to the hundreds of thousands of votes she got. Bristol of course is in denial.

Shame on DWTS for not having figured out how to have a judges' override when the votes so clearly have no relationship to dancing or talent. [More...]

The TSA says it doesn't store the body images its agents scan. But the images leak out anyway.

Joel Johnson and Gizmodo have obtained a hundred improperly stored body scan images through a Freedom of Information Act request. And, of course, they promptly published them.

The scans were made by U.S. Marshals in Orlando and were apparently improperly stored. Though this particular machine does not offer the cringe-inducing resolution that some others do, it highlights a major problem with the machines more generally: these photos will leak out. Or, as Johnson puts it, "That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future."

It's not just airports using the scanners. It's courthouses around the country. U.S. Marshals in Orlando stored 35,000 images from the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner, made by Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc.

Based on each organization’s specific policies and procedures, GEN 2 offers the ability to turn on or off its recording features. In recording mode, up to 40,000 events can be recorded and stored by date and time, along with a snapshot image of the subject that shows the detection boxes, as well as the correlating millimeter wave images, for easy recall of event details. The system also offers the ability to manually initiate a video capturing session, used independently from the detection engine, such as to record the search of a specific individual for future reference.

[More...]