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Rahm Has Ways of Making You Stick to the Talking Points

By ThinkProgress on Jun 13, 2008 at 4:23 pm

Rahm Emmannuel tells the HuffPost that he’s sorting out whatever House Democrats may have had some trepidation about backing Obama. I like this part where he brainwashes David Boren best:

The famously acid-tongued Chicagoan may be right, Democrats like Ellsworth and Boren may not pose a problem. But the Republican National Committee is sure trying to make them one. GOP officials have blasted out press releases highlighting Boren’s claim that Obama has the “most liberal” voting record in the Senate. “You go ask Boren,” Emanuel says, “he’ll tell you his view is that that was taken out of context, that he is going to support the nominee.”

(He was right: “My comments were taken out of context and as I have said from day one I will vote for the Democratic nominee in November,” Boren told The Huffington Post.)

Out of context is rapidly becoming my least-favorite politician tick. It’s possible, of course, to genuinely take something out of context in an abusive way. But increasingly “context” seems to mean “you took the statement I actually made at face value without adding in a lot of caveats and so forth that I did not, in fact, say.”

Climate Progress

Bursting the Oil Bubble: Lower oil prices now with conservation and the “Fort Knox” of oil

By Joe Romm on Jun 13, 2008 at 4:04 pm

fort-knox.jpgThe country has a Fort Knox of oil — some $100 billion in ready to refine petroleum that is just sitting in the ground doing nothing useful whatsoever. Also, we waste another Fort Knox worth of black gold (Texas tea?) driving poorly maintained cars in a very inefficient manner.

Imagine if this country were led by someone who was not a former oil industry executive. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or… Just imagine Dick Cheney was not in charge, but some hypothetical inspirational progressive politician.

What might such a real leader do to cut oil prices in the short term, raise some money for needed clean energy investments (and tax cuts for those hardest hit by oil prices), and in general bring the country together during a time of war in the Persian Gulf?

Dan Weiss and I have laid out such a plan, “Bursting the Oil Bubble: Sell Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Lower Prices.” Combine tapping the oil reserve with a national push for conservation, and you could bring half a million to a million barrels a day of new supply for a year plus the same amount or more of demand reduction. That could, for a while, burst the oil bubble.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one….

Read more

Health

Health Group: Insurance Companies Can Leave Sick Americans Behind

By Igor Volsky on Jun 13, 2008 at 3:58 pm

The Council for Affordable Health Insurance has released a report arguing that health insurance mandates make insurance more expensive because they unnecessarily require “insurers to pay for care consumers previously funded out of their own pocket”:

Mandating benefits is like saying to someone in the market for a new car, if you can’t afford a Cadillac loaded with options, you have to walk. Having a Cadillac would be nice, as would having a health insurance policy that covers everything one might want.

Comparing health insurance mandates to luxury cars is both disingenuous and misleading. While the Council concedes that “just because we list something as a mandate doesn’t necessarily mean it should be excluded for a standard health insurance policy,” its list of 65 benefits contains at least 16 services that prudent individuals would expect insurance policies to cover — these benefits are the wheels in the Center’s car analogy.

Indeed, states have had to require companies to cover the most basic of services: cancer medications, cervical cancer/HPV screening, ovarian cancer screening and prostate cancer screening:

- 44 states: mandate emergency services

- 50 states: mandate mammograms

- 29 states: mandate cervical cancer/HPV screening

- 28 states: mandate colorectal cancer screening

- 31 states: mandate well-child care

As the Center for American Progress’s Peter Harbage explains:

In large part, the reasons the mandates exist is because insurance companies don’t want to know if their enrollees have cancer in the hopes that person will change jobs (and insurers) before surgery is needed…And then, here is the funniest thing about the mandates, most people when they get a policy don’t look to see about well-child visits or cancer screening or anything else because, like most things in life, you don’t look for it until you need it. More than that, most people are crazy enough to think that a maternity stay in a hospital is of course part of their insurance plan. The mandate laws passed for a reason.

Moreover, the council suggests that if insurance companies could market their policies across state lines they could offer cheaper policies “by allowing individuals to get around their state’s coverage mandates and pick a less-comprehensive plan.” But lifting mandates would place the most basic services out of the reach of most Americans.

Without mandates, insurance companies would have no incentive to offer coverage for chronic conditions or expansive procedures, leaving the sickest Americans without any health insurance. In fact, insurers that continue to extend coverage for certain procedures would quickly find themselves at a competitive disadvantage with insurers that provide the least coverage.

Thus, the Council’s message is simple: health insurance should only be available to the healthiest Americans.

Politics

BREAKING: NBC’s Tim Russert dead of a heart attack.

By Ali Frick on Jun 13, 2008 at 3:34 pm

The New York Times is reporting that NBC’s Tim Russert has died of a heart attack, at the age of 58.

UPDATE: The New York Times has more.

UPDATE: Russert’s colleague Tom Brokaw announced his passing away live on the air earlier today:

UPDATE: Statements from President Bush and Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) found here.

UPDATE: More statements, including those from Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and former President Bill Clinton, can be found here.

Media

Request: Ambinder

By ThinkProgress on Jun 13, 2008 at 3:21 pm

A reader wants to know: “I know you read Ambinder’s blog. Do you think it’s balanced? If not, which way does it incline?” I think it’s very balanced. I have no idea what Marc thinks and, indeed, I sometimes think Marc is so committed to reporting and balance that he doesn’t know what he thinks. A lot of his posts are reporting — him telling us what people are telling him, so any given post like that will reflect a bias toward whoever he was talking to, but look at the thing as a whole and it’s extremely fair.

But over the past 40 years the tendency has been for Republicans to win and Democrats to lose and for the Democrats who do win to be moderate Southerners. Consequently, I think real horse-race specialists are instinctively skeptical of the idea that liberalism can or will prevail. That’s a bummer for liberals to read, but it will change if 2006 is followed up by another big year in 2008.

Yglesias

Who Powers The Electric Car?

By ThinkProgress on Jun 13, 2008 at 2:41 pm

I certainly agree with everyone who thinks our policy should be trying to create better plug-in vehicles. Still, an electric car needs electricity to power it. And electricity needs to be made somehow. It strikes me as unlikely that we’re going to simultaneously be able to shift all our electrical production to clean sources while also massively increasing our overall use of electricity to power a nationwide fleet of single-occupancy cars.

Long story short — futuristic electric cars? Good. Futuristic clean electricity sources and smart grids? Also good. But the killer ap is still reduced consumption. We have proven, longstanding technology that drastically reduces carbon emissions. To wit — walking, biking, bus, trolley, light rail, metro, commuter rail, high-speed intercity rail. Unlike plug-in vehicles, there’s nothing speculative about this technology — we know that it works, it just costs money. And there’s considerable reason to believe that investments in non-highway transportation infrastructure combined with a regulatory structure designed to encourage high-density development near key nodes would enhance economic growth rather than detract from it.

Security

FLASHBACK: In 2003, McCain Blasted Administration’s Indefinite Detention Of Detainees

By ThinkProgress on Jun 13, 2008 at 2:41 pm

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts. The Bush administration and its allies quickly criticized the decision:

President Bush: “It was a deeply divided court and I strongly agree with those who dissented. The dissent was based upon those serious concerns about U.S. national security.” [Link]

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): “The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country. Senator Graham, and Senator Lieberman, and I…made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens. They do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have. [6/13/08]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “I am deeply disappointed in what I think is a tremendously dangerous and irresponsible ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. … The court has conferred upon civilian judges the right to make military decisions.” [Link]

McCain and Graham’s objections sharply contrast with their positions in 2003, when they wrote a letter to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, urging him to swiftly resolve the status of Guantanamo detainees:

The treatment of the detainees is not an issue. However, a serious concern arises over the disposition of the detainees – a considerable number of whom have been held for two years. [...]

Yet, we firmly believe it is now time to make a decision on how the United States will move forward regarding the detainees, and to take that important next step. A serious process must be established in the very near term either to formally treat and process the detainees as war criminals or to return them to their countries for appropriate judicial action.

On Dec. 13, 2003, the New York Times also reported that McCain said, “They may not have any rights under the Geneva Conventions as far as I’m concerned, but they have rights under various human rights declarations. And one of them is the right not to be detained indefinitely.”

Five years after their letter, just “one detainee has received a verdict.” Approximately 270 are still detained there and “about half are considered too dangerous to release, even though the government does not have enough evidence to charge them.”

This Supreme Court ruling will inevitably lead to a “flood of new litigation” challenging the Bush administration’s right to hold these detainees. Detainees will then finally get a decision as to their status — exactly as McCain and Graham requested.

In light of these 2003 remarks, it’s unclear why McCain considers this Supreme Court ruling the “worst decision in history,” except for the fact that it isn’t what the Bush administration wanted.

Cross-posted at the Wonk Room.

Security

FLASHBACK: In 2003, McCain Blasted Administration’s Indefinite Detention Of Detainees

By ThinkProgress on Jun 13, 2008 at 2:37 pm

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees have the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts. The Bush administration and its allies quickly criticized the decision:

President Bush: “It was a deeply divided court and I strongly agree with those who dissented. The dissent was based upon those serious concerns about U.S. national security.” [Link]

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): “The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worstdecisions in the history of this country. Senator Graham, and Senator Lieberman, and I…made it very clear that these are enemy combatants, these are people who are not citizens. They do not and never have been given the rights that citizens of this country have. [6/13/08]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “I am deeply disappointed in what I think is a tremendously dangerous and irresponsible ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. … The court has conferred upon civilian judges the right to make military decisions.” [Link]

McCain and Graham’s objections sharply contrast with their positions in 2003, when they wrote a letter to then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, urging him to swiftly resolve the status of Guantanamo detainees:

The treatment of the detainees is not an issue. However, a serious concern arises over the disposition of the detainees – a considerable number of whom have been held for two years. [...]

Yet, we firmly believe it is now time to make a decision on how the United States will move forward regarding the detainees, and to take that important next step. A serious process must be established in the very near term either to formally treat and process the detainees as war criminals or to return them to their countries for appropriate judicial action.

On Dec. 13, 2003, the New York Times also reported that McCain said, “They may not have any rights under the Geneva Conventions as far as I’m concerned, but they have rights under various human rights declarations. And one of them is the right not to be detained indefinitely.”

Five years after their letter, just “one detainee has received a verdict.” Approximately 270 are still detained there and “about half are considered too dangerous to release, even though the government does not have enough evidence to charge them.”

This Supreme Court ruling will inevitably lead to a “flood of new litigation” challenging the Bush administration’s right to hold these detainees. Detainees will then finally get a decision as to their status — exactly as McCain and Graham requested.

In light of these 2003 remarks, it’s unclear why McCain considers this Supreme Court ruling the “worst decision in history,” except for the fact that it isn’t what the Bush administration wanted.

– Ken Gude and Amanda Terkel

Yglesias

College Sex

By ThinkProgress on Jun 13, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Last week, Tyler Cowen linked to some “Data from Wellesley; could be better, could be worse.” Specifically it was a study of virginity rates by major. It put me in mind of my old days at The Harvard Independent and our annual sex survey where I found these factoids:

factoids.jpg

Most clearly, nerds have less fun as high GPA correlates with low levels of nookie. A piece of advice for undergraduates out there would be that no grade I ever received in any college course has ever had the slightest impact on my life. See more sexy data here and here.

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