Jean Edward Smith, who wrote one of the best biographies of FDR, writes:

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S apparent readiness to backtrack on the public insurance option in his health care package is not just a concession to his political opponents — this fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.

This was not true of Franklin Roosevelt and the Democratic Congresses that enacted the New Deal. With the exception of the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 (which gave the president authority to close the nation’s banks and which passed the House of Representatives unanimously), the principal legislative innovations of the 1930s were enacted over the vigorous opposition of a deeply entrenched minority. Majority rule, as Roosevelt saw it, did not require his opponents’ permission.

[MORE . . .]

California's parole board yesterday denied parole for Susan Atkins. Atkins has served more than 40 years in prison for her role in the Sharon Tate/LaBianca murders. She has served more time than any other female inmate in California history.

She is dying of cancer, paralyzed and several years ago had a leg amputated. She's no threat to society. Susan Atkins was sentenced to life with parole -- not life without parole. They are not the same thing. [More...]

The Obama Adminstration says enough to disclosure of CIA-detainee documents in the ACLU's FOIA lawsuit. The ACLU is not pleased.

Susan Atkins, paralyzed and dying, is up for parole again. She wanted to appear in person:

Atkins, 61, is riddled with cancer, paralyzed over most of her body and has had her left leg amputated. "She is kind of poor condition -- poor, but stable condition." Atkins is able to speak, but is not capable of entering the hearing room on her own....

Enough already. It's been 40 years. Let her out. Update: She was denied parole today.

The SEC's Inspector General has a report saying the SEC bungled the Bernie Madoff probe for years. [More...]

Levi Johnston rips Sarah Palin in a new article he's written for Vanity Fair.

For “Me and Mrs. Palin,” Johnston tells Vanity Fair his story about life with the Palin family—with whom he lived for two months after the election—over the course of his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Bristol. He turns a number of commonly held beliefs about the former governor—the purportedly loving mother, devoted wife, and prolific hunter—upside down.

Levi starts out mild, but then heats up, particularly as to her post-election loss conduct: [More...]

The store is in the process of being given away by a particularly inept White House. We can hope I suppose for a miracle, but the handwriting is on the wall. Ezra Klein will tell you whatever comes out will be great, no really, it is. But you know better. My series on the Madman Theory of Political Bargaining has been presented with a classic counterexample - a President we were thinking could be an FDR is quickly becoming a Jimmy Carter. Steve Benen's retelling of the Van Jones kerfuffle explains it all:

In the exchange, Jones was asked why a Republican president working with a Republican Congress can pass more of its agenda than a Democratic president working with a Democratic [Congress]. "Well, the answer to that is, they're a**holes," Jones said. He added, "Barack Obama is not an a**hole. Now, I will say this: I can be an a**hole, and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama, are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity."

(Emphasis supplied.) That tells the tale. Our last hope is that the Progressive Block gets uppity. Obama won't do the political bargaining for us.

Speaking for me only

The Obama Administration's Don Draper, David Axelrod, is working on the pitch for the Obama Administration's capitulation on the public option. Here's his first pass:

White House adviser David Axelrod tells ABC News that what remains of Obama's desire for a public option is largely theoretical. "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice."

(Emphasis supplied.) Hmm. Not bad. But needs a little work, Ax. You'll be working on this over Labor Day Weekend I take it? Let's see some artwork on that as well.

Speaking for me only

The Constitutional Accountability Center has a post on what's at stake:

The case involves a film, Hillary: The Movie, that was produced by Citizens United, a conservative, non-profit corporation, to coincide with the 2008 presidential primary season. The case began as a fairly sleepy challenge to the Federal Election Commission’s (FEC’s) decision to treat the film’s production and release as corporate electioneering subject to campaign finance regulations, but was transformed by an order issued by the Supreme Court on June 29th. Here are five reasons why Citizens United is now a truly momentous case:

[More...]

About those doctors who attended the CIA interrogation sessions at which enhanced technigues, aka torture, were used:

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a non-profit group that has investigated the role of medical personnel in alleged incidents of torture at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and other US detention sites, accuses doctors of being far more involved than hitherto understood.

....The most incendiary accusation of PHR's latest report, Aiding Torture, is that doctors actively monitored the CIA's interrogation techniques with a view to determining their effectiveness, using detainees as human subjects without their consent. The report concludes that such data-gathering was "a practice that approaches unlawful experimentation".

The report cites the recently released 2004 CIA Inspector General's report. [More...]

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to seek a stay of the federal appeals court order directing California to reduce its prison population by 40,000 prisoners and appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Schwarzenegger backed a state senate bill that would have made reductions, and included provisions such as releasing elderly and severely ill prisoners, increased use of home detention for some inmates and, for low level offenders, reduced parole supervision and some minor sentencing reductions. But, the state assembly passed its own, weaker measure on Monday. [More...]

The AP reports Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, age 89, has only hired one law clerk for the next term, prompting speculation he is retiring.

Usually by now, justices have hired four clerks. Retired justices are alloted one clerk.

In response to a question from The Associated Press, Stevens confirmed through a court spokeswoman Tuesday that he has hired only one clerk for the term that begins in October 2010. He is among several justices who typically have hired all four clerks for the following year by now. Information about this advance hiring is not released by the court but is regularly published by some legal blogs.

Stevens did not say whether he plans to hire his full allotment of clerks or whether he will leave the court at the conclusion of the term that begins next month. Retired justices are allowed to hire one clerk.

While some say the hiring of law clerks is not a sure-measure gauge of future plans, others say in this instance, it could be significant.

There is always a tension for Democrats regarding how to treat Democratic politicians. Republicans are always so much worse, thus the impulse is to defend or go easy on Dem pols. The thing is, we really want to support them in the most vociferous way. But most of the time they make it hard. Commenting on the story I wrote about here, Digby writes:

This [beat up the progressive base strategy] makes perfect sense because [Obama's] problem is that he's been kow-towing to the left so much that he's lost the country, what with all the war crimes investigations, the tax hikes for the rich, the crackdown on the banks, the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" and the thumbing of his nose at the Republicans every chance he gets. Not to mention the plans for full withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan by 2012 and his full blown assault on the health care industry and insistence on a Canadian style health care system. You'd think Obama would have been far, far more cautious so as not to give the Republican freakshow any possible path to demonize them as "far left." It's not like they could just make stuff up and a lot of people in America would believe it, right?

[MORE . . ]

Joseph Abbitt, age 49, was sentenced to two life terms for murder and rape. He served 14 years.

Today, he leaves prison a free man, as DNA saved by the Winston-Salem police department but only re-tested recently, has proven he was not the culprit.

A joint motion to vacate the convictions against Abbitt filed by the Forsyth County District Attorney's Office and the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence is scheduled to be heard at noon today by Judge A. Moses Massey in Forsyth Superior Court.

[More...]