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O’Reilly Gripes That Haiti Benefit Organizers Are Ignoring Him — After His Network Refused To Air The Event

By Amanda Terkel on Jan 26, 2010 at 8:31 pm

Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly bashed the Hope for Haiti Now global benefit, which aired live on Jan. 22. The telethon has so far raised $61 million in donations from the general public for Haiti relief efforts. O’Reilly said that he had concerns about how the money was going to be distributed, and the fact that the telethon “could not or would not supply us a spokesperson” to go on his show was “not a good sign”:

O’REILLY: Factor Follow-up segment tonight, getting charity to Haiti. As you may know, a TV telethon last Friday raised nearly $60 million to help the folks at Factor, but now comes the hard part: getting the money to the people who are suffering. Now, we tried to get someone attached to the telethon to speak with us tonight. We were not successful, and that is not a good sign. [...]

I want to be very careful in this discussion. I want Americans to be charitable to the Haitian people. I think they need it. I, myself, have given money to that island nation for a long time. We called up the telethon, which was based out of MTV, and said, Look, we just need somebody to just run through the process where the money goes, how it’s distributed, what the time frame is, all of that. We’ve got DVD albums in play. We’ve got all kinds of stuff coming in.

They could not or would not supply us a spokesperson tonight. And that just worries me.

Watch it:

As Crooks and Liars points out, O’Reilly griping that the Hope for Haiti organizers are ignoring him rings hollow, considering that Fox News was one of the few networks to not air the benefit concert; both CNN and MSNBC did. Ironically, today on Fox News, Neil Cavuto did a whole segment praising the benefit, saying that it made him wonder whether “the best way to raise aid for all the disaster victims is from celebrity-hosted television shows and not from the government trying to get it from taxpayers.” Too bad his network didn’t agree.

Health

How Transparent Was The Health Reform Process?

By Igor Volsky on Jan 26, 2010 at 8:00 pm

During yesterday’s interview with ABC News, President Obama admitted that the process of passing health care reform had not been as transparent as he would have liked. “Part of what I had campaigned on was changing how Washington works, opening up transparency and I think it is — I think the health care debate as it unfolded legitimately raised concerns not just among my opponents, but also amongst supporters that we just don’t know what’s going on,” Obama said. “And it’s an ugly process and it looks like there are a bunch of back room deals”:

OBAMA: Now I think it’s my responsibility and I’ll be speaking to this at the State of the Union, to own up to the fact that the process didn’t run the way I ideally would like it to and that we have to move forward in a way that recaptures that sense of opening things up more.
SAWYER: A lot of people think you must say at the end of the day, this is not who I was in 2008, these deals with Nebraska, with Florida…
OBAMA: Let’s hold on a second, Diane. I mean, I think that this gets into a big mush. So let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals. There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked. So that’s point number one.

Obama is right to recognize that the process of forcing 60 Democrats to support something as ambitious as comprehensive health care reform required some serious arm twisting. But Washington deal-making isn’t the only factor behind the popular dissatisfaction with the “process”; Republican obstructionism and repeated Democratic concessions deserve at least some of the credit.

In the Senate, Democrats wasted a lot of time reaching out to the GOP and conservative Democrats. They watered down their legislation — removed the most popular elements of reform — and when Republican support still failed to materialize, they found themselves at the mercy of the Democratic hold-outs. Members like Ben Nelson, could not be convinced to vote for reform for reform’s sake and were brought on board with extra Medicaid funding. This drawn out process of missed deadlines and back room negotiations in the majority leader’s office tugged on the public’s patience and did more to dilute reform than improve it.

The process wasn’t pretty, but it was a far cry from the kind of arm twisting the GOP engaged in during their push to pass Medicare Part D in 2003. Democrats held months of committee mark-ups and debate. They provided Republicans with ample opportunity to contribute to the legislation, allowed Max Baucus to hold nine months of bipartisan negotiations and included Republican-friendly provisions in their bills. But Republicans undermined this process. House Republicans shouted down Democrats as they tried to introduce the measure for debate, Republican Senators tried to prevent health care reform from reaching the Senate floor, forced the clerk to read thousands of pages of legislative language, routinely lied about the bills, and introduced a stream of message amendments designed to derail reform.

On the whole, the process produced a fairly conservative piece of legislation in a moderately transparent manner. The GOP’s success in painting the bill and the debate as a left-wing power grab while they got away with talking about ‘death panels’ and successfully obstructing “the legislative process” every step of the way, says more about the GOP’s communication efforts than it does about Ben Nelson’s Cornhusker kickback.

Politics

Lawmaker who sponsored resolution honoring O’Keefe says he doesn’t ‘condone’ unlawful investigations.

By Amanda Terkel on Jan 26, 2010 at 7:45 pm

In October, Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) and 31 Republican co-sponsors offered a resolution praising Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe for their “investigation in the fraudulent and illegal practices and misuse of taxpayer dollars” by ACORN. In light of O’Keefe’s arrest for allegedly attempting to wiretap Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) office in New Orleans, ThinkProgress contacted Olson’s office for comment and received a statement that further praised O’Keefe’s ACORN work, but also offered mild criticism of the allegations:

Individuals who lawfully expose wrongful activities by an entity like ACORN receiving federal tax dollars should be praised. However, if recent events conclude that any laws were broken in the incident in Senator Landrieu’s office – that is not something I condone. Citizens have an important role in helping to expose waste and/or fraud when their tax dollars are being spent, but it must be done in a lawful manner.

James O'Keefe and Stan Dai

Update

Dave Weigel notes that Olson’s office refused to tell him whether the congressman would be withdrawing his resolution.

Climate Progress

Bill Gates disses energy efficiency, renewables, and near-term climate action while embracing the magical thinking of Bjorn Lomborg (and George Bush)

By Joe Romm on Jan 26, 2010 at 7:42 pm

Coincidentally, Gates is funding geoengineering research

Gates1

Billionaires say the darndest things!  The above screen shot of a nonsensical Bill Gates piece dissing energy efficiency came from his website, The Gates Notes, which turned into a HuffPost piece, and then Yahoo News.

Yes, even the very rich are very confused about energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate policy, and global warming — mainly because they keep bad company (see “Error-riddled ‘Superfreakonomics’, Part 2: Who else have Nathan Myhrvold and the Groupthinkers at Intellectual Ventures duped and confused? Would you believe Bill Gates and Warren Buffett?“):

  • The Gates’ Foundation mostly ignores global warming (see here)
  • Warren Buffett are so wrong “” and outspoken “” about cap and trade (see here)
  • Gates and Buffett visited the Athabasca tar sands “” the biggest global warming crime ever “” to satisfy “their own curiosity” but also “with investment in mind” (see here).

Now Gates has launched an amazing series of myth-filled missives and misfires this month, many of which channel Bjorn Lomborg (aka the Danish delayer) in their disdain of near-term climate action and embrace of, yes, geo-engineering.  If you have the stomach for a rambling discourse mostly dissing renewable energy, clearly inspired by the uber-confused Myhrvold, start with his “Podcast Series: Energy and Climate Change” here.

You’ll learn that wind power is competitive only because of subsidies — nary a mention of the massive subsidies for nuclear, a Gates favorite, or fossil fuels, let alone the devastating climate impacts of continued use of fossil fuels.  In his discussion of renewables, you’ll learn that “solar is the cutest of all these things” — yes, “cutest.”

You’ll learn “the biggest issue that is often missed is the storage issue.”  Apparently absent Gates’ genius, none of us have ever thought about the issue of storage.  Gates seems unaware of the major advances occurring in storage (see “The Holy Grail of clean energy economy is in sight: Affordable storage for wind and solar“), which is probably why he worries about it so much, saying that the biggest problem is the “seven-day periods with no sun” and “seven-day periods with no wind,” which lead him to ask, “In the 1% case are people willing to freeze to death“?  Yes, apparently 1% of the time the country is without any wind or sun for 7 straight days.  Seriously, listen to the podcast (this is at the end of the first one).

Oh, but nuclear is great — “it’s as good as renewable.”

Now apparently someone told Gates that attacking insulation (!!!) looked stupid, because a few days later someone rewrote the above headline, adding a “just” after “not” at his website and HuffPost — though he missed here.  But even the rewritten piece is laughable:

Read more

Politics

AZ Sen. candidate Hayworth panders to birthers: ‘We all had to show our birth certificates’ to ‘play football.’

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Jan 26, 2010 at 6:40 pm

This past weekend, right-wing shock jock and former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth announced he is planning to run against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for U.S. Senate. In an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews this afternoon, Hayworth joined the chorus of far right-wing “birthers” who continue insisting that President Obama may have been born in another country:

MATTHEWS: Are you as far right as the birthers? Are you one of those who believes that the President should have to prove that he’s a citizen of the United States and not an illegal immigrant? Are you that far right?

HAYWORTH: Well, gosh, we all had to bring our birth certificates to show we were who we said we were and we were the age we said we were to play football and youth sports. Shouldn’t we know exactly that anyone who wants to run for public office is a natural born citizen of the United States and is who they say they are? [...]

MATTHEWS: Should the Governor of Hawaii produce evidence that the President is one of us, an American? Do you think that’s a worthy past time for the Governor of Hawaii?

HAYWORTH: No, look…I’m just saying the President should come forward with the information, that’s all. Why should we we depend on the Governor of Hawaii?

Watch it:

However, Obama has in fact, presented a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate that includes a raised seal and the signature stamp of Hawaii state registrar. During the 2008 presidential election, the McCain campaign investigated and dismissed claims that Obama is not a natural born citizen. Nonetheless, stubborn right-wingers have continued incessantly demanding Obama provide a long-form version of his birth certificate. Mother Jones reports that birthers are spending exorbitant amounts in legal fees to pursue this conspiracy.

Economy

Shelby: A Commission Of ‘Citizens’ And ‘Presidential People’ Can Balance The Budget By Cutting Programs

By Pat Garofalo on Jan 26, 2010 at 6:30 pm

Today, a proposal by Sens. Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) to create a statutory commission charged with proposing ways to rein in the country’s deficit failed to garner sixty votes in the Senate, despite the endorsement of President Obama. This comes after the news last night that Obama’s State of the Union tomorrow will include a proposal to freeze “non-security” discretionary spending at 2011 levels for 2012 and 2013.

A few Republicans have voiced cautious support for Obama’s spending freeze (including, of course, Sen. John McCain), but on Fox News today, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) criticized the move for having no substance. Shelby would prefer a deficit commission, and his version is possibly the most bizarre that I’ve heard yet:

I think [the spending freeze is] more politics than substance. What we really need is a meaningful, citizens, presidential people to put together a commission, not to raise taxes to balance the budget but to cut programs. Everything should be involved. But that’s going to take a lot of political will, it has to start with the President, and it would have to end up on Capitol Hill. We’re not there, this proposal there, goes nowhere like that.

Watch it:

Yikes. So real action on the deficit will come from a commission of “citizens” and “presidential people” (whoever that might be), who set out to balance the budget solely by cutting programs? And “everything should be involved,” except revenue? This is the epitome of an idea that is more politics than substance.

Even though balancing the budget with spending cuts alone is simply impossible, Shelby is just the latest in a line of Republican lawmakers and conservative activists who want to see a commission that is explicitly barred from considering tax increases. In an interview with CNS News, former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) actually chided Republicans for taking this view. “I’m sorry that some Republicans think otherwise, but I was there [in the Senate] a long time, and I don’t think you can do spending [cuts] alone…It’s got to be a package, and – to my way of thinking – it’s got to have taxes on the table,” he said. Former Reagan official Bruce Bartlett agreed, writing “the idea that revenues should be completely off the table is simply insane.”

Exempting entitlements and defense spending, “the rest of the budget needs to be cut by 51 percent to have a balanced budget in 2014, or by 27 percent to get [the deficit] to 2 percent of GDP.” So it’s really no wonder Shelby wants to outsource that kind of drastic gutting to somebody else, rather than pin his own name on it.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Jan 26, 2010 at 6:14 pm

You hit me once, I hit you back. You gave a kick, I gave a slap. You smashed a plate over my head:

— Defense procurement is nuts.

— Walkable communities are healthier.

— Collin Peterson is bad.

— The Obama re-election strategy.

— Vänsterpartiet takes a stand against “the onslaught of neoliberal economic policies in Sweden.”

— FOMC needs optimists.

Florence and the Machine’s “Kiss With a Fist” reminds me of Obama’s recent treatment of his base.

Politics

Why Is Nelson OK With Using Reconciliation For Tax Cuts For Millionaires But Not For Health Care For Americans?

By Zaid Jilani on Jan 26, 2010 at 5:46 pm

ben-nelson Following the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in the Massachusetts special election, Democrats have been discussing ways to pass a comprehensive health care bill that will not be killed by a GOP-led filibuster. One idea that has been floated is for the House to pass the Senate’s health care bill and also immediately amend the bill to make it more progressive and acceptable to members in the House via a reconciliation bill, which requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) rejected this path, telling the Politico that he does not support the reconciliation process and that the health care bill should be broken up and voted on “a piece at a time, as opposed to a comprehensive approach.” He explained, “We’ve tried a comprehensive approach and it’s clear that it won’t be possible.” While Nelson rules reconciliation out of the question for health care, he was singing a different tune in the past. The Nebraska senator has voted in favor of four of the five bills passed through reconciliation since he came to office in 2001, including Bush’s tax cuts for the super-wealthy:

– Nelson voted to use reconciliation to pass Bush’s 2001 tax cuts for the wealthy. The senator was one of twelve Democrats who voted for the $1.3 trillion in tax cuts contained in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which included billions of dollars of tax cuts for the super-wealthy. [5/26/2001]

– Nelson voted to use reconciliation to pass Bush’s follow-up tax cuts for the wealthy in 2003. The senator was one of only two Democrats who voted for the The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, which contained an additional $330 billion in tax cuts. The tax cuts would not have passed without Nelson’s vote. [5/23/2003]

– Nelson voted to use reconciliation to pass an extension of the reduced tax rates on capital gains. The senator was one of three Democrats to vote to shield wealthy investors from an increase in their capital gains tax with a vote in the affirmative for the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 . [5/11/2006]

– Nelson voted to use reconciliation to pass a bill helping students afford college tuition. The senator joined the rest of the Democratic caucus to vote for the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007 [9/7/2007]

Given the fact that three out of four of the reconciliation bills Nelson has supported mostly benefited the wealthiest Americans, the logical question to ask is why the reconciliation process he has supported in the past is apparently appropriate for siphoning wealth to the richest Americans but not to get health care for tens of millions of Americans who lack it.

Update

Sens. Bayh (D-IN) and Lincoln (D-AR) have also said they are against reconciliation. Lincoln has previously voted for a reconciliation bill that gave massive tax cuts for the wealthy, while Bayh voted for the College Cost Reduction Act of 2007, which was passed via reconciliation.

Climate Progress

The Spending Freeze And Clean Energy Reform

By Brad Johnson on Jan 26, 2010 at 5:31 pm

WildfireDeficit peacocks like Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Sen. John McCain are behind President Barack Obama’s call for a multi-year spending freeze on “non-security discretionary spending.” But these same politicians who want to impose austerity measures on a struggling economy have opposed plans which would cut the deficit while strengthening the economy. My colleague Igor Volsky has explained how stalled health care reform — while dramatically expanding coverage and saving people’s lives — would also cut the deficit. As it turns out, President Obama’s signature push to limit global warming pollution is also a deficit-slashing measure:

The Congressional Budget Office – the arbiter of the federal budget impact of all legislation – just released an analysis that the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733, “would reduce budget deficits (or increase future surpluses) by about $21 billion over the 2010-2019 period… In years after 2019, direct spending would be less than the net revenues attributable to the legislation in each of the 10-year periods following 2019. Therefore, CBO estimates that enacting S. 1733 would not increase the deficit in any of the four 10-year periods following 2019.”

The Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs Act itself is limited in its deficit and jobs impact, because it gives 70 percent of pollution credits — worth $625 billion — away for free in the first decade. We can get faster clean energy reform and a bigger deficit impact by restoring Obama’s original budget plan for a full auction of pollution credits, so that industries pay the American taxpayer for the privilege of polluting our air. These increased revenues would hasten job creation, clean energy investment, and the clean up of the deficits created by George W. Bush.

Congress is blocking not only health care reform but also clean energy legislation that would clean the air, create millions of green jobs, and eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

Instead, we get a spending freeze as the planet burns.

Yglesias

The Puzzling Bank of Japan

By Matthew Yglesias on Jan 26, 2010 at 5:30 pm

Mr

When you read about the heads of the world’s other major central banks, Ben Bernanke looks better by the day:

Masaaki Shirakawa, governor of the Bank of Japan, said that upside and downside risks to the economy were “roughly balanced”.

The median of forecasts by the BoJ’s policy board is now for inflation of minus 0.5 per cent in 2010 and minus 0.2 per cent in 2011 compared with October’s forecasts of minus 0.8 per cent and minus 0.4 per cent.

The BoJ made clear, however, that deflation would be weaker “due mainly to the rise in crude oil prices” while its statement continued to say that “substantial slack in the economy as a whole” was weighing on the consumer price index.

What on earth is balanced about this? Rising energy prices and falling non-energy prices is a recipe for disaster. The Japanese growth fiasco is really remarkable. If you think we have debt problems, note that they’re at 200 percent of GDP. And since their population is shrinking, it’s extremely hard to shrink the debt-GDP ratio even if the economy grows in per capita terms.

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