One of the arguments forwarded during the health bill debate was that the provisions would get stronger over time, as a constituency for new services developed. I thought it a doubtful assertion at the time (consider that no new government program - yes, a public insurance program - was created) and I imagine folks who argued that assertion are thinking it is doubtful now too. From today's NYTimes:

For starters, Republicans say they will try to withhold money that federal officials need to administer and enforce the law. [. . .] “They’ll get not one dime from us,” the House Republican leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, told The Cincinnati Enquirer recently. “Not a dime. There is no fixing this.”

[. . . ] Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, a senior Republican on the Finance Committee, has introduced a bill that would eliminate a linchpin of the new law: a requirement for many employers to offer insurance to employees or pay a tax penalty.

[. . .] Republicans say they will also try to scale back the expansion of Medicaid if states continue to object to the costs of adding millions of people to the rolls of the program for low-income people.

What you will have left is an individual mandate and state based exchanges (with inadequate subsidies.) Would that still be "the biggest progressive accomplishment in 40 years?"

Speaking for me only

In a glancing justification for the lack of reaction to The American Prospect's publication of Robert Kuttner's February 2010 article American Taliban, Adam Serwer writes:

As for Kuttner's piece, I didn't remember it until it was pointed out to me, but plenty of people write things in this magazine I disagree with. Moulitsas' book is considerably more high-profile.

(Emphasis supplied.) Robert Kuttner is a fairly big cheese in Dem circles in the Beltway. Beyond that, in the initial salvo from TAPPED on the subject, Jamelle Bouie wrote:

Now, to be sure, American Taliban is clearly meant for activist consumption. Unlike myself, Moulitsas isn't a journalist, and his job isn't to be an honest broker for ideas; no, it's to rally progressives and score points against conservatives.

(Emphasis supplied.) Now Bouie and Serwer can't have it both ways - either Markos is not their (or Robert Kuttner's) journalistic equal, or he is their "higher profile" superior, with a higher responsibility to be "careful" about his comparisons. Frankly, this continued flailing to justify their strange war against Markos is hard to explain. Having started the fight, they seem unable to extricate themselves from it. Here's a suggestion for them - let it go.

Speaking for me only

I've been out all day and am just getting to the day's news. Did anyone watch Bristol Palin on DWTS? How did she do?

The Justice Department has asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for en banc review of its decision holding a warrant is required for GPS surveillance. In August, a 3 judge panel reversed a conviction and life sentence in a drug case because the defendant was tracked through a GPS device installed on his car without a warrant. The earlier opinion is here.

Paris Hilton was placed on a year's unsupervised probation on two misdemeanors today. The judge gave her a strong warning: [More...]

Think Progress:

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

[H]ad a writer for The New Republic, in the midst of asserting that blacks should not enjoy constitutional protection, argued that "Black life is cheap, particularly to blacks," and then doubled down on the assertion, I don't think we'd be having this debate--emphasis on "think."

How about a former TNR writer and current Atlantic writer? Stephen Metcalfe on Bell Curve Sully:

I now point readers to an Aug. 26 post by Andrew Sullivan on his blog, which is worth quoting at length -- "One of my proudest moments in journalism was publishing an expanded extract of a chapter from "The Bell Curve" in the New Republic before anyone else dared touch it. [. . . T]he book held up, and still holds up as one of the most insightful and careful of the last decade. The fact of human inequality and the subtle and complex differences between various manifestations of being human - gay, straight, male, female, black, Asian - is a subject worth exploring, period. [. . .] I'm proud of those with the courage to speak truth to power, as Murray and Herrnstein so painstakingly did.

In a townhall today:

“I can’t give tax cuts to the top 2 percent of Americans” and “lower the deficit at the same time,” the president said during an hour-long town-hall discussion on jobs and the economy on CNBC television from the Newseum in Washington. To give “tax relief primarily to millionaires and billionaires” would be “ an irresponsible thing for us to do,” Obama said. “Those folks are least likely to spend it.”

[. . .]Obama is challenging congressional Republicans to make only middle-class tax cuts permanent. He wants lawmakers to find agreement on initiatives to spur economic growth and hiring and on extension of Bush-era tax cuts for individuals who make less than $200,000 a year and couples earning less than $250,000.

On this issue, the President has been solid. Obviously, there is room for complaint though.

Speaking for me only

Via Digby and Howie Klein, Heh:

Harley Farger, a leading Delaware masturbator and planner of the Million Masturbators March, said it was difficult to organize masturbators “because they’re used to acting alone.” Mr. Farger, the executive director of the pro-monkey-spanking group MasturNation, said that the “wank and file” of his organization believe that masturbation is an inalienable right guaranteed by the Constitution.

“Our country was founded by rugged individualists,” he said. “And you know what individualists like to do.” He said that Ms. O’Donnell’s anti-whacking position was “ill-timed,” adding, “In this economy, masturbation is one of the few simple pleasures people still can afford.”

[. . .] A spokesman for the Wilmington Police Department, Crandall Darlington, said that the Million Masturbators March could cost the city tens of thousands of dollars, “especially when you include the cost of cleaning up afterwards.

Open Thread.

In the other race I am following very closely, a PPP poll (PDF) has Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) up by 8. That's good news. This ad (Fiorina "Proud" Of Outsourcing Jobs While At HP) is no doubt helping:

You can donate here.

Speaking for me only

Need a sense of urgency? Russ Feingold is well down in his re-election race:

New PPP results for dkos, will post tomorrow -- Feingold down by double digits, MASSIVE intensity gap. W/o gap, it'd be tied race.

This should be the fight of the election for progressives (along with the Boxer race). I'm donating again. Feingold sends this video:

Fight for Russ. He fights for progressives.

Speaking for me only

Paul Krugman:

[W]hen the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices. But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.

I was reviewing the Peter G. Peterson Foundation's website and their fancy brochure from their "Fiscal Responsibility" summit to see if there was anything there on the rich sacrificing by NOT getting a tax cut. A big nothing. But that silence won't last. Wait till after the election when they demand cuts in Social Security benefits.

Speaking for me only

Do we need to get one ready for weenie liberals? Apparently the Post Partisan Unity Schtick will be nothing but a bad memory -- Obama aides mull calling GOP extremist:

President Obama’s political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a range of ideas, including national advertisements, to cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said. [. . .] “We need to get out the message that it’s now really dangerous to re-empower the Republican Party,” said one Democratic strategist who has spoken with White House advisers but requested anonymity to discuss private strategy talks.

(Emphasis supplied.) Weenie liberals are worried:

The party’s House and Senate campaign committees are resistant, not wanting to do anything that smacks of nationalizing the midterm elections when high unemployment and the drop in Mr. Obama’s popularity have made the climate so hostile to Democrats.

That's why Dems will get creamed in November.

Speaking for me only

HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" premieres tonight. I sure hope it lives up to its billing. My earlier description of the show is here. The episode description for tonight:

January 1920. On the eve of Prohibition, Atlantic City’s Treasurer, Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), condemns alcohol at a Women’s Temperance League meeting, where he is noticed by Margaret Schroeder (Kelly Macdonald), a pretty, pregnant housewife who comes to him for help in getting her abusive husband Hans (Joe Sikora) a job. Later that evening, the duplicitous Nucky privately tells his ward bosses about the opportunity to make huge profits selling bootleg liquor.

[More...]