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While Still Whining About Obama Snub, Chris Wallace Calls White House ‘Thin-Skinned’

By Ben Armbruster on Sep 20, 2009 at 11:06 am

President Obama is appearing on five Sunday talk shows today, including the Spanish-language Al Punto on Univision. However, Obama’s media blitz doesn’t include Fox News. Since the news broke, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace has been whining about the snub, calling the White House the “biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with” and saying that Obama is petty and childish.

Wallace continued his whining this morning on Fox News Sunday. In a teaser to a discussion of the snub, Wallace asks, “What ever happened to reaching out to all Americans?”

But ironically, later during the panel discussion, Wallace cited a recent report showing that Obama has done more one-on-one interviews than both Presidents Clinton and Bush up this point and wondered if Obama is “overexposed” (despite wanting to interview him on his show). In another bit of irony, Wallace, who has been complaining for the past few days about the snub, accused the White House of being thin-skinned:

WALLACE: Every president is thin-skinned but I wonder whether this administration, this White House has a particular problem with criticism. … Not talking about just us but just the attitude of this White House. Whatever happened to reaching out to all Americans?

Watch it:

It seems odd that Wallace would complain about not reaching out to all Americans when his own network decided not to broadcast Obama’s speech to Congress on health care last week (the cable network, not the broadcasting company, aired the speech).

During one of Wallace’s whining sessions this week, another Fox host complained that Obama is skipping out on “the highly rated Fox News Sunday.” But as Media Matters points out, Fox News Sunday is “in dead last, where it has remained pretty much since its inception.”

Climate Progress

Cultivating A New Generation Of American Family Farmers

By Guest Blogger on Sep 20, 2009 at 10:49 am

Our guest blogger is Sheilah Goodman, co-founder of Cedarbrook Farms, a diversified organic farm located near Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. Sheilah can be found every Thursday until the end of October 2009 at the Cedarbrook Farm stall at the FreshFarm Market near the White House, and on Sundays throughout the year in Dupont Circle.

Michelle Obama at the White House Farmers MarketMichael Pollan wrote “An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief” in October 2008 arguing that food policy will and must play a central role because it affects so many other national priorities: energy, health care, climate change, and even national security. Pollan advised the yet-to-be-elected president that one way to bring about the needed changes — local sustainable farming instead of subsidized agribusiness — would be to use the power of the White House as example. Pollan said the president would be wise to choose a White House chef who was “committed to cooking simply from fresh local ingredients”:

Besides feeding you and your family exceptionally well, such a chef would demonstrate how it is possible even in Washington to eat locally for much of the year, and that good food needn’t be fussy or complicated but does depend on good farming.

This week a new FreshFarm Market opened by the White House. Every Thursday afternoon through the end of October there will be 18 vendors just steps from the White House offering milk, cheese, flowers, meats, baked goods, and even yarn. As with all FreshFarm Markets, the vendors must produce what they are selling from the land that they farm and they must be local—no more than 150 miles from downtown Washington, D.C.

Our farm, Cedarbrook, is one of the vendors at the new market. Starting any new market is exciting, but this one is even more so. This market has a high profile, and it can help hasten the demise of the old model of conventional, subsidized industrialized food production by showcasing local, sustainable agriculture. Hopefully the market’s visibility will help create a new generation farmers. The challenges of operating a small sustainable farm are numerous, but a little creativity and perseverance will take them a long way. Here’s a primer to help them get started: Read more

Yglesias

The Irving Kristol Legacy

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 20, 2009 at 9:57 am

When a major figure from the other ideological camp dies, I think the common thing to do is to praise the dead guy and disparage his modern-day co-ideologues by comparison. But as Brad DeLong points out, Irving Kristol’s own account of his role in popularizing nutjob anti-tax politics is sufficiently damning that I don’t think that strategy will really fly:

Among the core social scientists around The Public Interest there were no economists…. This explains my own rather cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit and other monetary or fiscal problems. The task, as I saw it, was to create a new majority, which evidently would mean a conservative majority, which came to mean, in turn, a Republican majority – so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government…

National-Debt-GDP

The presence of a major ideological movement in the United States of America dedicated to the dual propositions that taxes must never go up, and that government expenditures don’t need to relate to government revenue in any real way as long as the Republican Party is in charge simply makes it almost impossible for the country to be governed in a responsible manner. If we had a different political system, it’s possible that such an ideological movement would marginalize itself, lose elections, and the other guys would run the show responsibly. Maybe. You could at least imagine it happening. But in our system even a defeated minority gets a ton of influence over policy and becoming completely dogmatic and irrational actually enhances that level of influence.

Health

Republicans Amend Baucus Bill To Lower Affordability Standards, Stop Funding For ACORN

By Igor Volsky on Sep 20, 2009 at 9:08 am

Members of the Senate Finance committee have submitted 534 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ (D-MT) health care mark. Democrats introduced several amendments re-instating the public insurance option, expanding Medicare to Americans 54 to 65, striking the network of consumer driven cooperatives, and improving affordability standards. Multiple amendments lowered the threshold for subsidies, limited out-of-pocket expenses, increased subsidies for individuals making 300-400% of poverty and narrowed the so-called ‘age-band’ (the variation that allows insurers to charge older beneficiaries higher rates).

Democrats exempt workers in high risk professions from the excise tax on insurers, replaced the free rider provision with an employer mandate, and even proposed tax equity for domestic partnerships.

And while Republicans have proposed several compromise amendments — Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) offered an amendment to ‘trigger’ the public option if affordable coverage was not available to at least 95 percent of state residents — most of their provisions seek to delay the mark-up process and undermine the bill.

Republicans offered two separate amendments prohibiting funding for ACORN, reduced affordability credits, and eliminated “all industry fees.” Here are some of the most outrageous:


Amendment/Sponsor Provision Offset
Kyl 371 Prohibit the federal government’s takeover of health care. None required.
Ensign 409 Transparency in Czars. None required.
Hatch 511 Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under the Mark from being distributed to or used by ACORN. No offset.
Ensign 543 Strike the word “fee” everywhere it appears in the bill and replace with the word “tax” . No offset.
Roberts 137 To prevent Medicare payment policies which discourage physicians from fulfilling their Hippocratic Oath to maintain the good of their patients as their highest priority, and instead encourage the rationing of health care. none.
Roberts 144 To ensure that if people like the hometown hospital they have, they can keep it. To be determined.
Ensign 156 To ensure that the financial well-being of future generations is not compromised by the activities of the current generation. none.
Cornyn 163 Ensuring seniors have access to physicians beyond 2010. Strike the premium tax credit for individuals between 300-400 percent of FPL under Title I, Subtitle C of the Chairman’s Mark.

The Senate Finance Committee begins mark-up this week. Below are some of the most important amendments, categorized into Coverage, Financing, and Delivery reforms. To see the complete list, click here. Read more

Yglesias

Rick Perry Doesn’t Know Texas is in a Recession

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 20, 2009 at 8:28 am

Lee Fang reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry doesn’t realize there’s a recession in his state:

PERRY: Why is Texas kind of recession-proof, if you will? As a matter of fact, just today I think, Michael, you said someone had put a report out that the first state that’s coming out of the recession is going to be the State of Texas. I told him, I said, ‘We’re in one?’

Texas is doing better than many other states, but it’s very much in a recession. Governor Perry might want to consult such newspaper articles as “Texas unemployment hits 22-year high in August”

SA-Area-employment-091909 1

Below average unemployment is better than above average unemployment, but Texas unemployment is still much higher than it’s been in a long time. That’s a recession.

Climate Progress

NYT: Senate Dem leaders “are pressing colleagues to vote with the party on procedural matters … and against any filibuster … even if they intend to oppose the measure in the end when simple majority rules.”

By Joe Romm on Sep 20, 2009 at 8:09 am

Okay, so that is a New York Times story on the “uphill battle” to pass health care reform:

Senate Democratic leaders have begun to make another argument to lawmakers. They are pressing colleagues to vote with the party on procedural matters related to health care legislation and against any filibuster “” a 60-vote issue “” even if they intend to oppose the measure in the end when simple majority rules.

But the point is we should have the same exact strategy on the clean air, clean water, clean energy jobs bill.  After all, two key swing senators have already said they would vote for cloture on that bill:

And, according to the NYT, there is at least a glimmer that this strategy might work for some on health care:

Read more

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