Update: (TL): I had a good day in court but am now headed out to dinner. Best part of the day: My motions hearing today was in a federal multi-defendant case. And guess who turned up to argue on behalf of a co-defendant? The TL Kid. He was great. Coolest feeling ever to argue in court next to your kid. And we all won our motions.

*****

By BTD

I've had a lousy day. Hopefully my night will be better. This song always made me feel better:

This is an Open Thread. One additional thought -- Kevin Drum quotes Yglesias saying you can't understand America without reading Moby Dick. Drum disagrees and I am agnostic on that. But I do believe you can not fully understand this country until you have visited Las Vegas. Reading Robert Venturi's book Learning From Las Vegas will help too.

TPMDC reports:

According to Martin Paone, a legislative expert who's helping Democrats map out legislative strategy, a more robust public option--one that sets low prices, and provides cheap, subsidized insurance to low- and middle-class consumers--would have an easier time surviving the procedural demands of the so-called reconciliation process. However, he cautions that the cost of subsidies "will have to be offset and if [the health care plan] loses money beyond 2014...it will have to be sunsetted."

And there the irony continues: Some experts, including on Capitol Hill, believe that a more robust public option will generate crucial savings needed to keep health care reform in the black--and thus prevent it from expiring. But though that may solve the procedural problems, conservative Democrats have balked at the idea . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) That's not irony. That is a farce.

Speaking for me only

aimai wrote:

Time was a journalist wanted to be read, and remembered for what he'd written. A “public intellectual?” Even more so. But to want that is to be determined to stand behind what you've written or what you've said. . . . But Klein doesn't want to do that—he's said too many stupid things at this point. Too many venial, corrupt, weak, vile, bought and paid for political puff balls. He said things he knew his interlocutor wanted him to say. He's said things he knew one party wanted him to say although he knew that they were untrue, or dangerous, or foolish, or just partial. He's not a public intellectual—he's a [effing] wind sock. And he knows it.

Markos wrote:

At the Vuelta today, the peloton did an imitation of the Dems on health care reform:

[Sorry, You Tube pulled the video. Update -- Inspector Gadget found a new video. The crash starts at the 3:25 mark.]

This is an Open Thread.

If Ezra Klein is to be believed, this is irrelevant:

This time, the President is going to be specific. Next week, President Obama is going to give Democrats a health care plan they can begin to sell. He plans to list specific goals that any health insurance reform plan that arrives at his desk must achieve, according to Democratic strategists familiar with the plan.

The specifics: (1) anti-discrimination restrictions on insurance companies; and (2) minimum subsidy levels. On the public option?

Obama will say that his preferred mechanism remains a government-subsidized public health insurance option, but he will remain agnostic about whether the plan must include a robust public option.

Hmmm. This seems a rehash to me. Ezra is right. This is irrelevant.

Speaking for me only

Ezra's title - "Has Obama Played Health Care Exactly Right? Does It Even Matter?. His answer? No.

Boy did Ezra waste a lot of time the past two years analyzing the health care proposals of the Presidential candidates. And then I wasted a lot of time reading his analysis.

Those are hours of my life I'll never get back. Who could have imagined that the new pro-Obama line on health care would be that he is irrelevant? One merit this argument does have is that it does describe transformative change. From the time of FDR, the President of the United states has been the leader on issues in our country. He did not always get his way. but he was able to set the agenda.

President Obama, his supporters say, has changed all that. Now the President does not matter in the debates on what policies to enact. Perhaps this can be a good thing. Except when Republicans are President, it will not be so. Obama is going the way of Jimmy Carter if Ezra is to be believed.

Speaking for me only

Kos writes:

With Independents potentially sitting this next election out (as the numbers hint at), we're in bad shape in a base election. Core Republicans are engaged and solidly home. Democratic constituencies are wavering (look at those African American numbers). The only key Democratic constituency to have moved more Democratic are young voters -- from +30 Democratic to +37, but only because they are abandoning Republicans at a bigger rate than Democrats. And even those gains are threatened by the (non) geniuses in DC seriously contemplating a health care mandate without cost controls (like the public option).

At current rates, any 2010 losses would not stem from any resurgence in conservative ideology -- Republicans are simply not making any significant gains anywhere -- but in a loss of confidence in Democrats. There's a way to change that dynamic -- deliver on the promises made the last two election cycles. . . . Seems pretty obvious out here, outside the Beltway, and the numbers bear it out, but there's no indication that Democratic Party leaders in DC -- from Obama to Reid -- are fully aware of how dangerously close they are to setting the stage for an electoral drubbing in 2010.

What Kos said.

Speaking for me only

I wondered for a moment if Richard Cohen wrote his column today as a favor to Joe Klein, to distract one Villager's imbecility with another's. But then I remembered that Cohen is the worst columnist in America:

This business of what constitutes torture is a complicated matter. [Patrick Fitzgerald]managed to put Judith Miller of The New York Times in jail -- a wee bit of torture right there.

I defended Judy Miller's invocation of the reporters' privilege at the time. But I never confused her detainment for civil contempt as torture. But for imbeciles like Cohen, the issue of torture is "complicated." It is not enough to say that Cohen is immoral, which of course he is. It must be said he is an idiot. There is no better example of the white man's privilege than Richard Cohen, who should not have a job writing for anybody.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald:

Last year, after I wrote critically about a well-known journalist who frequently appears on the TV and is considered "liberal," he emailed me (after first asking me to agree that our conversation would be private) to warn that I should be more "careful" about attacking "allies" if I wanted to expand my platforms and get on television. That's how the culture works. Those are the weapons which politicians -- and journalists -- use to try to punish those who criticize them and reward those who refrain from doing that. But for people who are indifferent to those "rewards" and affirmatively want to be without them, establishment journalists can't control or otherwise deter them from shining a negative light on what they do. It's natural that they're angry about that and bitterly resent those who do it, but that's just the nature of accountability.

Glenn swims in the ocean where he must be paid for his writing so of course he can't be perfect on this - but more so than any other paid writer I know, Glenn writes what he thinks without concern for logrolling. For that alone, he is to be treasured. Of course, his meticulous research is another part of his work that is invaluable. I disagree with Glenn a fair amount on issues and have criticized him when I think he is wrong. Unlike Joe Klein, Glenn addresses the substance of the criticism, whether he thinks it is correct or incorrect. He does not hold a grudge against those who render substantive criticism of his views. We need more Glenn Greenwalds. We need less Joe Kleins. I fear we got more Kleins than Greenwalds in the progressive blogs the past few years.

Speaking for me only

JOE KLEIN: Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether I am a bad journalist who has no idea what I am talking about, or took a few liberties with the facts and merely regurgitated what Bush Administration officials told me - I did.

But you can't hold me responsible for the sick, twisted, false columns I wrote. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole Beltway Establishment? And if the whole Beltway Establishment is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our military institutions in general? I put it to you, Glenn - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to me, but I'm not going to sit here and listen to Glenn Greenwald badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen! [Leads the Villagers out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]

Source - Joke Line.

Speaking for me only

Washington and Oregon have assisted suicide laws that were passed by voters' referendums.

Montana is different. It rewrote its Constitution in 1972, and here are some of the rights it spelled out:

• All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights. They include the right to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life’s basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways.

[More...]

I've been at work all day and have a motions hearing tomorrow. Actually, I got back two hours ago and am just now caught up with: the news, e-mail, twitter and facebook. It's exhausting reading all these things every day. Not to mention weeding out the latest comment spammers from England, Australia, the Philippines, India and Malaysia.

Which reminds me, the season finale of "Weeds" is tonight. What a fast season. I hear there's a bit of a "shocker" at the end. Update: I heard right, the last two minutes were completely unpredictable and now we have a huge cliffhanger. Great scripting.

And, TalkLeft occasional poster Ethan Brown's new book Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans --is in stores tomorrow. Hope you'll check it out, Ethan is a great writer.

Here's an open thread for you, all topics welcome.