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Rep. Ellison: ‘I Am Skeptical Of The Troop Escalation In Afghanistan’

By Satyam Khanna on Apr 1, 2009 at 8:00 pm

Roll Call reports today that “anti-war Democrats have been largely mum on President Barack Obama’s recently unveiled policy for Afghanistan — partly because leading liberals don’t yet know where they stand.”

But Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim member of Congress, is clear about his position on the issue. Yesterday, Thinkprogress interviewed Ellison and asked where he stands on President Obama’s plan to send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Afghans have “seen a lot of foreign powers come to their country — whether it’s the Soviets, the Brits, and now the Americans — and I think they want to see their country finally have peace,” Ellison replied. Ellison told ThinkProgress that he is “skeptical” of the troop increase:

I am skeptical of the troop escalation in Afghanistan. I have my doubts about whether that’s what’s needed. But if troop escalations is what’s going to happen, and if it may in fact be the right thing, the real question is, what are they going to be doing? If they’re just going to be taking it to the “enemy,” I am confident that it will be a failed effort. And I don’t say that with any relish. … The best course of action, I think, is to have an increase in civilian efforts to improve the lot of the average Afghan, with a clear goal to move things into the Afghans as fast as possible.

“We should be trying to exit Afghanistan, too,” he emphasized. “I don’t think we should have any long term plans there either.” Ellison said the U.S. should work to develop agriculture and provide basic security in the area. Watch it:

Ellison was also critical of Obama’s policy of launching “Predator strikes” — or bombing suspected terrorists through remote-piloted aircraft — in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The attacks regularly inadvertendly kill civilians and are deeply unpopular among the public. Ellison said the strikes inflame anti-American sentiment:

I think Predator strikes have not contributed positively. We’ve just heard so many bad things about them. They must really be killing the American image in the mind of the average Afghan. … I think that you need a human being to go see whether or not the strike is actually targeted at a true hostile enemy, rather than a wedding party — which has happened all too often.

“So really, it’s like you cut one head off, and three pop up,” Ellison said of the Predator strikes’ effect on terrorism.

Security

President’s Pakistan Aid Plan Represents Dramatic Shift

By Guest Blogger on Apr 1, 2009 at 8:00 pm

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, research associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

food-aid-pakistan.jpgIncreasing long-term economic and development aid to Pakistan is a key component of the combined Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy President Obama announced last week. Aid would “focus on long-term capacity building, on agricultural sector job creation, education and training, and on infrastructure requirements,” funded by $7.5 billion over five years as proposed by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). This shift in focus and resource allocation represents a dramatic shift in the United States’ traditional relations with Pakistan, aimed at establishing a long-term partnership with a democratic Pakistan rather than a transactional security relationship with military dictators. The United States has repeatedly cozied up to authoritarian Pakistani generals like Zia ul-Haq and Pervez Musharraf to serve U.S. security interests, only to find itself shocked –- shocked -– that these generals play double games by dealing with militants and developing nuclear weapons.

Congress must be wary of repeating this pattern as it considers President Obama’s request to pass the proposed Kerry-Lugar legislation. With Pakistan fitfully democratizing while facing a growing militancy problem, the United States once again will appear like it is bailing on Pakistan once the generals have supposedly served its interests if the Kerry-Lugar proposal fails. Still, Congresspersons like Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) have expressed quite legitimate skepticism over the aid package endorsed by President Obama, stating he did not “have a lot of confidence in Pakistan being a solution to the problems in Afghanistan… I don’t think [aid is] effective unless the recipient of the support sees where the threat is to them.”

While Levin’s reservations are reasonable, especially given the Pakistani government’s repeated double games with and capitulations to militants, they remain couched in a transactional view of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. “If I thought we could buy stability, I would buy it,” Levin explained, “I have no reluctance in purchasing stability if it’s effective.” But the point of the Obama strategy is to move away from a purely transactional relationship largely with the Pakistani military and toward a long-term partnership with the Pakistani population. Performance conditions should be placed on military aid, but economic and development assistance should not be viewed through the lens of the historically transactional relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

Read more

Yglesias

Beck: We’re Marching Toward Fascism

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 1, 2009 at 7:26 pm

Every time I watch Glenn Beck I think to myself, “the next time I watch Glenn Beck he’ll be saying something less crazy than this; he’s hit the bottom of the barrel.” And yet:

Ali Frick notes “Though Beck claimed he didn’t mean ‘Adolf Hitler kind of fascism’ and that he was talking about ‘fascism with a happy face,’ he illustrated his point with more than a minute’s worth of Nazi footage, played dramatically on the full screen behind him.”

Beck not only manages to get good ratings, but serious players in the conservative movement appear on his show regularly. It’s enough to make you pine for Rush Limbaugh.

Politics

DHS wasted nearly $16,000 publishing book of Chertoff’s speeches.

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 1, 2009 at 7:10 pm

speechesweb4.jpgOn January 28, ThinkProgress reported that the Department of Homeland Security published and distributed an entire book (315 pages) honoring former Secretary Michael Chertoff’s “Select Speeches” despite the fact that most — if not all — are likely available online. Moreover, this particular homage was not given to his predecessor, Tom Ridge. Days later, a DHS spokesperson told ThinkProgress that the “project cost approximately $11,200 and came from DHS Chief of Staff funds.” However, ThinkProgress has now obtained a FOIA request filed by TP reader Michael Ter Avest which reveals that the actual cost of the entire production, including CDs, books, layout and design, totaled $15,965.26:

This is the final response to your January 28, 2009, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), for records reflecting the cost of editing, publishing, and distributing the DHS publication Select Speeches, a volume of public statements of then Secretary Chertoff from 2005-2008. Your request was received in this office on March 16, 2009. […]

[T]he following information is provided, which is responsive to your request:

CD – $1,549.37
Books – $9,097.15
Layout and design – $5,318.74
Total — $15,965.26

Health

Administration Releases Regulations To Scale Back Unfair Insurance Practices

By Igor Volsky on Apr 1, 2009 at 7:01 pm

Last year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report revealing that Medicare Advantage Private-Fee-For-Service Plans (PFFS) — which are responsible for nearly half of the recent growth in MA enrollment — have exposed beneficiaries to serious financial risks. If beneficiaries in PFFS plans did not contact their plans before obtaining services to ensure that the service was covered, they may have had to “pay for the entire cost of the service if the coverage was later denied” and PFFS plans charged exorbitant cost-sharing to beneficiaries who did not “prenotify” a plan before obtaining services.

On Monday, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released new rules that would limit some of these predatory practices. Insurers participating in the Medicare Advantage must:

- Cap out-of-pocket charges

- Have more than 10 beneficiaries or they will be eliminated

- Scale back their charges if they do not cap beneficiaries’ annual out-of-pocket costs at $3,400 or less, or if they charge beneficiaries more than traditional Medicare for services such as dialysis and home health care.

- Not charge sick, low-income beneficiaries more than what they would contribute under traditional Medicare

The administration has proposed eliminating the government’s 13-17 percent overpayments to private insurers participating in Medicare Advantage, noting that the companies are funneling the extra money into profits, and failing to improve care quality. This might encourage bloated private plans that can’t compete with Medicare to pull-out. But then, why should the federal government continue over-paying private insurers, if that same level of care could be provided at a cheaper rate?

Opening up the process to competitive bidding might require some seniors to switch policies, but only if their plan chooses not to bid or cannot provide services at the the market-driven rate. Even then, beneficiaries wouldn’t lose their Medicare benefits (they will continue to receive Medicare, albeit with some disruption as they move back to fee-for-service or find another MA plan), just the extra benefits that some Medicare Advantage plans provide.

Update

For more on the new regulations, click here.

Politics

Glenn Beck: I was wrong. We’re not marching to socialism, we’re marching toward fascism.

By Ali Frick on Apr 1, 2009 at 6:15 pm

For almost a year, Glenn Beck has been warning with increasing panic that America is headed toward socialism. Tonight, he issued a correction: “They” are not marching the United States toward socialism, Beck explained, but actually fascism:

It all adds up to me, having to admit that I was wrong. Our government is not marching down the road towards communism or socialism. … But now I have to tell you that they’re not marching us that direction. They’re marching us to a non-violent fascism. Or to put it another way, they’re marching us to 1984. Big Brother. … Like it or not, fascism is on the rise.

Though Beck claimed he didn’t mean “Adolf Hitler kind of fascism” and that he was talking about “fascism with a happy face,” he illustrated his point with more than a minute’s worth of Nazi footage, played dramatically on the full screen behind him. Watch it:

Climate Progress

U.S. News & World Report: Romm is one of the 8 “most influential energy and environmental policymakers in the Obama era”

By Joe Romm on Apr 1, 2009 at 6:14 pm

In terms of his cachet in the blogosphere, Joe Romm is something like the climate change equivalent of economist (and New York Times columnist) Paul Krugman.

Okay, I am tooting my own horn here. But hey, this is a weblog — and I do bill this as “an insider’s view of climate science, politics and solutions,” so I think readers should know when a credible independent source validates my claim.

[Note: If anyone has come here from the U.S. News link, be sure to read "An Introduction to Climate Progress."]

“Green Economy” is the focus of the April issue of U.S. News and World Report. Their website describes the piece I’m featured in as:

8 Top Washington Players
The most influential energy and environmental policymakers in the Obama era.

Inside, they list Lisa Jackson, Barbara Boxer, Lisa Murkowski, Steven Chu, Al Gore, Henry Waxman, Carol Browner, and me.

My profile (here) begins with the over-the-top Krugman comparison above, and continues with a pretty fair description, I think (with maybe one tiny asterisk): Read more

Yglesias

Andy McCarthy’s Tax “Knowledge”

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 1, 2009 at 5:58 pm

image_1.jpg

Andy McCarthy writes, in what I understand is not an April Fool’s Day post, that:

We know that lowering marginal tax rates can increase federal revenue, but it’s clear that the President won’t cut taxes (not even for “95 percent of Americans”). So we need a Plan B.

Every time I read this kind of thing I wonder: Why on earth does McCarthy think that Obama is stubbornly refusing to cut taxes when doing so would raise revenues? Tax cuts are broadly popular, and with the increased revenue Obama could reward his supporters in the public employees’ unions. Shouldn’t AFSCME, NEA, and AFT be constantly clamoring for lower taxes and higher revenues? I mean, how stupid are we supposed to believe Democrats to be? They’re just all in the pocket of big accountant, I guess.

Economy

MSNBC’s Brewer Hits Lack Of Stimulus In GOP Budget: Your Answer Is To ‘Damage The Environment’?

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 1, 2009 at 5:45 pm

As we noted earlier, amongst its myriad other problems, the budget that Republicans proposed today involves a five year spending freeze that would directly counteract the economic stimulus package. In fact, the GOP budget explicitly calls for the “repeal of ‘stimulus’ funding beyond this year, excluding unemployment insurance.”

MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer questioned Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) about this, asking “if you are cutting your tax revenue and cutting spending, how is that going to stimulate the economy?” Shadegg’s response was that drilling for oil offshore and in ANWR would be stimulus enough:

SHADEGG: Well there are lots of ways to stimulate the economy without spending money. [...] For example, a group of us proposed the “no cost stimulus” bill a few weeks ago, in which we said if we would streamline many of the regulations that are slowing down for example a lot of the industrial work that could occur in this country, if we would streamline some of the regulations and expedite some of the processing of environmental challenges so we could be drilling off of our coast or drilling in ANWR…

BREWER: So your answer here is to allow damage to the environment, in order to create jobs?

Watch it:

The “no cost stimulus” Shadegg is referring to was a plan to create jobs “by opening up additional coastal areas for oil drilling and stripping oil companies of federal regulations.” As Steve Benen noted, “it’s almost as if [Rep. Paul] Ryan and his Republican colleagues are trying to destroy the economy.”

Indeed, the Republicans have proposed a stimulus killing spending freeze, while counting on a continuation of the Bush-Cheney energy disaster to fill the GDP gap. It’s an alternative that relies on supply-side tax cuts to spur economic growth, even though we’ve just emerged from an era of supply-side cuts that delivered the fewest job opportunities since the business cycle from August 1957 to April 1960, and the slowest job growth on record for those ages 25-54. In light of this, is it even worth calling their budget an “alternative” at all?

Politics

At Least 11 Republicans In Congress Advance False Claim That Green Economy Bill Imposes $3,100 Tax On Families

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 1, 2009 at 5:30 pm

Yesterday, the Wonk Room’s Ben Furnas noted that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have been attacking a cap-and-trade proposal before Congress, falsely claiming that the measure would cost American families over $3,000 per year in extra taxes.

They base their claim on a 2007 MIT study. However, after interviewing one of the study’s researchers, MIT professor John Reilly, PolitiFact reported on Monday that the GOP claim is false, giving it a “pants on fire” rating on the website’s “Truth-O-Meter.” According to Reilly, the report actually finds that any tax burden resulting from the bill’s enactment wouldn’t be felt until 2015 — at $31 per person and $79 per family per year, not $3,100.

Regardless of the facts, at least nine other Republican members of Congress have made this false claim since PolitiFact’s report. However, some haven’t exactly nailed down the talking point. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) said the tax would be levied on “every living American,” not tax-paying families, while Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) upped the tax to $4,560 per family. Watch the compilation:

Congressional Republicans haven’t been the only ones advancing this myth. As Fox News usually does with GOP talking points, the network ran with the false claim. Chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle reported last night that the MIT study says the price on taxpayers for the cap-and-trade measure “will be substantial.” He then quoted — without challenge — Gregg’s false claim:

GREGG: And their estimate is it will generate over, over $300 billion in new taxes every year. It works out to about $3,000 per household.

ANGLE: Some say less, some say more. And in states relying the most on coal, it could be a lot more.

Gregg continued to repeat the $3,000 false claim this afternoon on Fox, saying that “every time you turn on your light switch, you’re going to be paying a tax.”

Reilly told PolitiFact that some House Republicans had contacted him two weeks ago about the study but he “had explained why the estimate they had was probably incorrect and what they should do to correct it.” Clearly, the GOP did not take his advice and Reilly has now written a letter to Boehner and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to denounce the GOP’s distortion of his study.

Transcripts: Read more

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