Paul Krugman writes:

So here’s the situation. We’ve been through the second-worst financial crisis in the history of the world, and we’ve barely begun to recover: 29 million Americans either can’t find jobs or can’t find full-time work. Yet all momentum for serious banking reform has been lost. The question now seems to be whether we’ll get a watered-down bill or no bill at all. And I hate to say this, but the second option is starting to look preferable. ...

The problem, not too surprisingly, lies in the Senate, and mainly, though not entirely, with Republicans. The House has already passed a fairly strong reform bill, more or less along the lines proposed by the Obama administration, and the Senate could probably do the same if it operated on the principle of majority rule. But it doesn’t — and when you combine near-universal Republican opposition to serious reform with the wavering of some Democrats, prospects look bleak. ...

That said, some Republicans might, just possibly, be persuaded to sign on to a much-weakened version of reform — in particular, one that eliminates a key plank of the Obama administration’s proposals, the creation of a strong, independent agency protecting consumers. Should Democrats accept such a watered-down reform?

I say no.

• • • • •

Yet another thing we can thank Republicans for can be found in gjohnsit's diary: 1.2 million Americans lose unemployment benefits today.

Tonight's Rangers are YatPundit, ItsJessMe, BentLiberal, dadanation, Alfonso Nevarez, and vcmvo2 as reader and editor.

The diaries up for rescue are:

• zenbassoon shares with us an extraordinarily rich account of musical history from Harry Burleigh to Duke Ellington in Sunday Concert--Black History Edition. (BentLiberal)
• James Renruojos gives us an example of "practical" liberalism in the US in Liberal Nationalism - Interstate Highways. (YatPundit)
• Daveparts invokes FDR in decrying what he sees as inaction in Washington D.C. today, in 'Yes, but where's Mr. Hoover?' (BentLiberal)
• GrayRiv tells us about The Puerto Rican Birth Certificate Problem You Haven't Heard About, Yet. (ItsJessMe)
• In Just Love: pushing back against ex-gay movement (conference), I T reminds us how the ex-gay movement has been exposed as being behind the Ugandan hate, and the attempts to criminalize homosexuality. (vcmvo2)
• High school student dandaman6007 describes A Positive Experience with Sexual Education in High School. (ItsJessMe)
• Clarknt67's excellent documentary review stays true to its title: The Art of the Steal. (dadanation)
• Aaron Michael offers a lawyer's perspective on reading terrorists their rights in How Critics of "Mirandizing" Terror Suspects Misunderstand Defense Lawyers. (YatPundit)
• Marcion develops a tale of a medieval private war machine in this second installment: Free Company, a history of terrible freedom- Part Two, the Catalan Grand Company. (vcmvo2)
• Embracing War Bonds, and the (war-time) Death Tax can reduce the deficit and US military intervention, argues Dem Bones. (Alfonso Nevarez)

sardonyx brings tonight's Top Coments: Deductions Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries from the past twenty-four hours in this Open Thread!

National Journal, just this past week, released their annual rankings, always eagerly anticipated among the political chattering classes because they are used to crown the "most liberal" and "most conservative" members of each chamber.

For 2010, it is hard to find qualms with the winner of the most conservative crown, which was bestowed on the head of Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe.

(Although, rest assured that Jim DeMint is probably demanding a recount, even as we speak).

The "most liberal" crown actually was divvied up among a quintet of Democrats: Sherrod Brown (OH), Roland Burris (IL), Ben Cardin (MD), Jack Reed (RI), and Sheldon Whitehouse (RI). No real shockers there, either.

However, the National Journal rankings have a quirk to them, and that quirk comes up when one considers the 55th most liberal Senator in the Senate:

This guy.

That's right...in the #55 slot comes Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, just a smidgen more conservative than Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, to say nothing of "Independent Democrat" Joe Lieberman.

You probably buy that about as quickly as you buy the notion that Dennis Kucinich is actually the 160th most liberal member of the House, or that California's Maxine Waters is scored as "less liberal" than two of her California House mates that are commonly viewed as moderates: Jane Harman and Loretta Sanchez.

What gives? National Journal's own Brian Friel offers the explanation:

When maverick liberals stand on principle and vote against others on the Left because they don't think a bill is liberal enough, or when maverick conservatives buck the Right because a bill includes too many compromises with moderates, the vote ratings system sees only the vote, not the reasons behind it.

There is another potential liability to the National Journal ratings that is not applicable this year, but pops up every four years or so.

You might recall that the ratings were flogged mercilessly by conservatives in both 2004 and 2008 when they showed John Kerry and Barack Obama as the most liberal members of the United States Senate in the years immediately before their presidential runs.

Many on the Left cried foul, but, given the proper context, they were almost certainly legit. After all, both gentlemen were in the midst of preparing for presidential runs, runs which inevitably begin with a march through the Democratic Primary cycle. Therefore, a smart Senator/Presidential aspirant is going to be very wary of casting apostate votes in Congress that can be exploited by primary rivals.

Again, a very easily explained quirk in a member's voting record, but a quirk that will not be picked up by a ratings system like the one employed by National Journal.

So, as we acknowledge the imperfections of the formula employed by the folks at National Journal, the question must be asked: is there a bug-free way to rate the partisan or ideological leanings of members of Congress?

Ratings such as those employed by Congressional Quarterly have a flaw in that it seems to take into account all roll call votes. This is going to tend to exaggerate things like partisan support. If a member breaks with his/her party on half of the critical votes, but sticks with the party on the rest of the more generic votes, their "party support" ratings will become surprisingly high. And that, in short, is how a conservative Democrat like Dan Boren of Oklahoma scores a 91% party unity rating from CQ in 2008. Nobody, not even Boren himself, would accuse the distinguished gentleman from Oklahoma of being that loyal to the Democratic House majority.

Other ratings services try to delineate between generic votes and more highly charged voting opportunities. Progressive Punch, for example, grades members both on "all votes" and so-called "crucial votes". The difference can be critical: the aforementional Dan Boren scores a somewhat respectable 70.73 lifetime rating for all votes cast, but a much more equivocal 44.76 lifetime rating for "crucial votes."

Of course, these ratings are also going to be hamstrung by the same maverick vote quandary that confronts the National Journal ratings system. The votes subjectively selected by Progressive Punch are clearly different from NJ, however, which might explain why Dennis Kucinich ranks in top third of Democrats in the Progressive Punch ratings (slotting in at #71). Furthermore, a quick glance of the top 70 show few people that are, on the surface, obviously more conservative than Kucinich.

So, while it is entertaining political conversation to pore over ratings like the ones released by NJ or CQ, it is also helpful to understand their inherent flaws, and place them into the proper context.

That, or one of those two publications will have to come up with an entirely separate set of calculations for "principled/smugly self-righteous (depending on your perspective)" votes with the other party.

That might involve some pretty tricky math, though.

You have to hand it to the conservative movement. For the utter hypocrisy if nothing else.

For months, conservatives have been crowing about the election of Scott Brown in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a sign of an impending conservative re-ascendancy. After all—if a true conservative like Senator Brown could win Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, there was proof that the anti-Obama movement sweeping the country could result in a return to Republican (or perhaps, tea-party conservative) control of Congress in 2010, and a defeat of President Obama’s re-election bid in 2012. And perhaps, the logic went, the charismatic Senator with the least seniority of anyone in the Senate would be part of the ticket that did it.

And then this man of the hour, this newly-minted conservative icon, voted with the majority on the recent jobs bill--thus engendering a swift and dramatic turnaround of Senator Cosmo's popularity with the right wing.

It ought to have been rather innocuous—a relatively small $15 billion package designed to stimulate employment, in large part comprised of tax incentives for small businesses. But that didn’t prevent the freepers from going utterly apoplectic.

There are plenty of reasons for conservatives not to be attacking Scott Brown over this vote. First, he was not the only Republican to defect in this instance: Senator Voinovich of Ohio, as well as both "moderate" Senators from Maine, also joined Democrats in ensuring the passage of this bill. In addition, Scott Brown is the latest Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is a region of the country that conservatives love to despise--along with Hollywood, San Francisco, New York, California in general, and any other region of the country that people around the world identify most strongly with the essence of America.

Now, before continuing, there’s a fact that needs to be set aside for the purposes of this discussion. Normally, a jobs bill that consists primarily of tax cuts for small businesses ought to be something that at least some Republicans support. But we now live in a world where Republicans oppose anything that Democrats are trying to get done, regardless of whether it’s something that would be entirely palatable to any previous mold of the GOP, no matter what the consequences are for our country. This is somewhat akin to a four-year-old "accidentally" burning his family’s house down because his mom said no to the latest toy. But for what follows to have any merit, we have to set aside the well-documented fact that the GOP is currently acting like a capricious child and at least pretend that opposition to the jobs bill was based on some principle of conservative orthodoxy. So let us move forward with that pretense in mind.

First, let's consider this: why is this great pile of execration seemingly heaped on Scott Brown alone? Well, this could explain it.

Being a conservative politico is apparently something like being in a play by Samuel Beckett--except instead of waiting for Godot, they're constantly waiting for the next incarnation of Ronald Reagan. And so desperate is Fox News and Neil Cavuto to apply that mantle to somebody that they were willing to bestow the label on someone who won a special election for a Senate race against an opponent who ran an incompetent campaign at the best time for a conservative to be running that we have seen recently.

And while Saint Ronnie strayed on very rare occasions from his ultra-conservative line on certain issues, this more radicalized version of the movement will brook no dissent or deviation from the current orthodoxy (which at this point, of course, isn't so much about advancing policy as it is about preventing Democrats from being able to claim any success.)

But how on earth could anyone expect even a Republican Senator from Massachusetts to be a conservative ideologue? That question can only be answered by another aspect of the conservative mindset.

Many Democrats certainly don’t admire Ben Nelson, Gene Taylor, or many of the other Democrats who vote with conservatives on certain major issues of the day—but we can’t profess not to understand them. Fundamentally, Representatives and Senators are elected to do one fundamental task: represent their constituents. So if Nebraskans don’t want a public option, it’s harder to critique Senator Nelson for simply representing their desires. Conservatives, however, don’t seem to be troubled by the idea that actual Americans may not share their views—and also think that anyone who doesn’t share their views isn’t a real American, as Sarah Palin and George Allen have been eager to claim in recent years.

The inability of Republicans to believe that the country might not actually be with them has come a long way since Nixon talked about the so-called “silent majority” that actually supported him. These days, over half of self-identified Republicans literally don’t know if the 2008 landslide by President Obama was legitimate—and over a fifth are convinced that it wasn’t.

In some short-term cases, this makes the job of the progressive movement easier. Democrats may be more apt to tolerate the divergences of Blue Dogs in redder districts who only vote with the Party two-thirds of the time. But some conservatives actually seem to believe that a silent majority of hard-working taxpayers supports them while ACORN steals elections from them. And consequently, they are far less forgiving of the politician who strays--even in Massachusetts, where they apparently feel that the silent majority has finally spoken.

As time goes by and other important issues come before the Senate, the newest "liberal Senator from Massachusetts" will be forced to make a series of choices between pleasing his base and not alienating the more apathetic constituency he will need to win an uphill re-election fight. Despite the Cornhusker Kickback, many Democrats will value Ben Nelson because in Nebraska, the two options for Senator are between someone who votes with Democrats half the time, or none of the time. The Republican base is so deluded that they don't feel Scott Brown has to make that choice--and in 2012, Republicans in Massachusetts will be back in the unenviable position of once again having half of zero.

But while that may be a comfort in the short term, it is still a problem. The radicalization of the conservative base--combined with its absolute certainty in its moral and political rectitude--will engender a self-correction when an anomaly happens such as a Republican winning a Senate race in our nation's birthplace. But in a media environment where objectivity is more important than truth, the long-term effects can be deleterious. The movement of conservatism toward its extremist tendencies runs the risk of gradually shifting the center further to the right as long as the talking heads not named Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are afraid to say, "actually, these people are crazy liars."

There's nothing we can do to stop conservatives from being hard-line conspiracy theorists. But there might be something we can do to make sure that everyone else knows that's who they are.

It was in 1983, one of the most tense years of the Cold War, when the Reagan administration was deploying Pershing II missiles in Europe, and the arms race with the Soviet Union was at a fevered pitch, that a young man at Columbia University wrote a rather interesting article discussing the nuclear freeze movement, student activism, and what it all signified. He concluded that:

[The nuclear freeze movement] is at once a warning to us that the old solutions of more weapons and again more weapons will no longer be accepted in a Europe that is already a powderkeg waiting to go off; and it is an invitation to work towards a peace that is genuine, lasting and non-nuclear.

Twenty-two years later, this same man would become a US Senator and begin to put words into action via significant nuclear non-proliferation legislation. Nuclear arms reduction became a top-tier issue of his presidential campaign; when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, he kept nuclear weapons as a central issue of his administration.

Obama speaking in Prague, April 2009. Click the image to watch the video.His April 2009 speech in Prague was a much more sophisticated version of his musings as a student. In it, he laid out his goals for the US nuclear posture as well as a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START. He  emphasized that though the US would maintain a "safe, secure, and effective" nuclear arsenal, his goal was to reduce the role nuclear weapons play in our national security strategy. He also indicated that he hoped the US and Russia could negotiate a New START treaty by the end of 2009.

Well, the reality is that both the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and New START have been delayed considerably. The NPR will probably not be out until late March or April; New START negotiators have taken a break and will meet again sometime in the first two weeks of March.

Understandably, given the administration's ongoing emphasis on nuclear weapons issues, the pundits, wonks, and national security reporters are all trying to read the tea leaves regarding these delays. Commentary on the NPR has ranged from tersely worded reprimands to constructive attempts to discover reasons for the delay, as well as a number of thoughtful "what next?" pieces.

Most significant were a couple of pieces on New START, published by Josh Rogin at The Cable (a Foreign Policy blog). The pieces were significant because, despite their questionable sourcing, they were snapped up with very few questions asked. The lack of response by the Obama administration was also significant, and I'll get to that in a moment.

The first of Rogin's two articles made classic use of the FOX News Question Mark with the title: "'New START' dead on arrival?" The article's title seems to be derived soley from quotes from the Senate's most strident arms control opponent, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), and a statement from Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) that he doesn't have a vote count yet.

I spoke with John Isaacs, who is the Executive Director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. I asked him what he thought of the "dead on arrival" implication. He said:

I think Josh Rogin took a couple of quotes, including from unfriendly sources, and wove it into a story that goes beyond what, certainly, a lot of people feel.

Let me start off with this. There's certainly a lot of uncertainty. We don't know when the treaty will be signed. Without knowing when the treaty will be signed, we don't know when it might be considered. There's also uncertainty because the Senate schedule is always uncertain, 365 days a year, assuming they're meeting.

So it's certainly possible that the treaty does not get considered by the Senate this year. But to treat it both as a given that the treaty won't be considered this year, or, alternatively, the treaty is "dead on arrival", both are wrong. One is definitely overstated, and one is simply wrong on the facts, as far as I'm concerned.

I know I'm more optimistic than most people, but on the New START agreement, you have Republicans such as McCain of Arizona and Lugar of Indiana and Corker of Tennessee have already more or less endorsed the treaty. You also have ten Senators who signed a letter in 2009 telling the Obama administration not to [weaken] missile defense, but saying it's important to negotiate a New START treaty. Among the signers are people like Jon Kyl, and Sessions of Alabama, and Lieberman of Connecticut, and others.

But again, it is true that things could get delayed. The Nuclear Posture Review has been delayed. The signing of the New START agreement has been delayed, and Senate consideration of the treaty is [therefore] delayed.

Rogin's second article regarding New START again had a provocative headline that was barely held up by the contents of the article. The headline claimed that "Hill sources" say there won't be a New START treaty in 2010, period, but only cites vague statements by (clearly) opposition sources. Again, it's a huge overstatement of whatever thin facts there are.

Most importantly, as Kingston Reif over at the Nukes of Hazard blog notes, Rogin updated his article with a statement from Harry Reid's office, stating that the Senate is expecting to have the New START treaty under consideration in 2010, and that they "have seen nothing to this point to alter this expectation...".

Reif points out that:

Reid's statement demonstrates that the judgment expressed by Rogin's "multiple Hill sources" was premature and that these sources may have come from only one side of the aisle.

Rogin's tendency to rely on opposition sources for information, anonymous or otherwise, should be a red flag for the White House. Rogin has proven time and again that he likes to talk to Senator Kyl in particular. Allowing one of the fiercest opponents to nuclear arms control to dominate the debate is dangerous in so many ways.

In fact, Max Bergmann at the Center for American Progress nailed it when he pointed out that Kyl et al. will try to obstruct arms control treaties in much the same way that the Republicans have obstructed health care legislation. Specifically:

Kyl may now try to avoid outwardly opposing START, using instead Senate processes to covertly gum up ratification. Kyl knows that delaying START by even a year would be a significant setback to the entire arms-control agenda. Delaying may not ultimately defeat START, but it would effectively kill all the momentum behind Obama’s global zero vision, something that Kyl is very much opposed to.

Yet we haven't heard a single word from the White House in response to anything Senator Kyl and his friends have been saying. I'm pleased that Harry Reid's office responded to one of Rogin's articles, but given the fact that the Obama administration has given such top-tier billing to nuclear weapons issues, you'd think it would be wise to respond and debunk some of the spin, especially at this crucial moment when so many delays are giving an opening for attacks, whether they're warranted or not.

The Obama administration needs to look back at how Jon Kyl helped crush ratification of the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty in 1999, and learn a lesson from that example. In a recent conversation I had with the nuclear weapons historian Richard Rhodes, he described it this way:

Jon Kyl managed to subvert [the test ban treaty] before, in a really diabolical sneak attack, where he conned the Democrats into raising the issue of ratification after he was sure he had the votes to defeat it and then took them up on it.

The lesson to the Obama administration is this: do not let the opposition get the upper hand here. They know what they're doing, and they will get their way. Come out with a statement before it's too late.

This is Obama's "dream", if you will, this dream of a world where nuclear weapons play a more diminished role, where our national security is less dependent on nuclear deterrence than ever before.

It's time to step up to the plate and win the nuclear PR war.

This thread has not come to praise February, but to bury it. To the links.

• The tsunami waves generated by the massive quake in Chile drew a large crowd on the West Coast--but nothing really happened.
• President Obama got his physical yesterday:

  The physician, Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman, says he saw nothing in his examination of the president on Sunday that would prevent Obama from fulfilling his term as president.

  He recommends that Obama "continue smoking cessation efforts" and modify his exercise regimen to strengthen his leg muscles to overcome occasional pain from chronic tendinitis in his left leg.

  The 48-year-old Commander-in-Chief is "fit for duty."

• Social media has revolutionized the way we experience the Olympics. Now if only someone would revolutionize NBC.
• An interesting conservative perspective on Ron Paul's dominating perfomance at the recent CPAC straw poll.
• Michael Steele: imperial chairman. --Angry Mouse
• NRA safety instructor FAIL. --Angry Mouse

Carl Wimmer. Husband. Father. Former SWAT team leader. Chairman of the Utah Family Action Council Team. Republican in the Utah House of Representatives. Glenn Beck sycophant and proud 9/12er. Also a proud teabagger and founder of the new Patrick Henry Caucus, whose goal is to "restore and uphold the sovereignty and rights of the individual States as guaranteed by the tenth amendment of the United States Constitution."

What does that actually mean?

The Patrick Henry Caucus adopted a unanimous position Wednesday, December 23, 2009, to oppose the Health Care Reform Bills, and to support a lawsuit against the federal government in order to stop the national health care bill from becoming law.

Carl's standards for deciding whether to support a bill are very straightforward. He always asks himself these questions:

"Is this something that the government should be involved in?"

"Does this law enhance freedom and strengthen the constitution, or does it restrict it?"

"Does this bill uphold traditional family values?"

That’s why he opposes the new bill in Utah to ban smoking in cars when children are present.

Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, said the Legislature this year is passing other bills and resolutions to get the federal government out of people's lives and should not now create greater state impositions.

"To think that we are smarter, or know more, or even care more about other people's children is absurd," Wimmer said.

Carl doesn’t want the government to regulate guns. Or schools. Or water conservation. Or health care for children of documented (that means “legal”) immigrants. ’Cause lord knows that the state has no interest in ensuring that other people's children receive health care -- once they’re born.

Carl doesn’t want the government to touch a damned thing. Liberty, and all.

But Carl does want to see women thrown in prison for "recklessly" endangering or harming their fetuses.

Like the 17-year-old girl in Utah who was seven months pregnant and paid a man $150 to beat the shit out of her to induce a miscarriage. It didn’t work; the baby was born and put up for adoption. But the local authorities investigated her and tried to charge her with soliciting murder. The case was thrown out because "a woman who is seeking to have or obtains an abortion for herself is not criminally liable."

Carl was "absolutely outraged." Not because this scared kid found herself unexpectedly pregnant at 17. Or because the laws in Utah require parental consent for a minor to obtain an abortion. Or because she was so desperate to terminate her pregnancy that she was willing to be beaten. No, Carl was "absolutely outraged" that this girl is not rotting in prison for her crimes.

And Carl wants to make sure that never happens again. So he’s written a bill:

This bill amends provisions of the Utah Criminal Code to describe the difference between abortion and criminal homicide of an unborn child and to remove prohibitions against prosecution of a woman for killing an unborn child or committing criminal homicide of an unborn child.

His bill won’t stop girls from seeking to end unwanted pregnancies. It won’t prevent those unwanted pregnancies either. It won’t provide resources for those girls once their babies are born. Carl doesn't vote for that sort of thing.

But he does want to make sure that if anything ever happens to a fetus -- not a child, of course -- but a fetus, well, the mother just might be to blame. And she should have to pay.

What could be more pro-family than that?

The purpose of this bill, like all the other bills, is perfectly clear. Carl says so himself, on his issues page.

This year, through my leadership, we began to chip away at Roe v. Wade by passing HB222 and HB90. I sponsored HB222 entitled, THE UNBORN CHILD PAIN PREVENTION ACT. This law required that Doctor’s who are going to perform an abortion on a child, shall inform the mother that the child may feel pain, and requires that the Doctor to offer an anesthetic to alleviate the pain. I also co-sponsored HB90 which made an illegal abortion the equivalent of a 2nd degree homicide.  

Both of these bills create some basic human rights for the unborn, and thus chips away at the nation's abortion laws...We are continually working to pass pro-life legislation which will weaken Roe v. Wade.  

Because Carl believes in life. He believes in it so much that women’s sovereignty and liberty be damned. It’s life, after all. What is more important than preserving life?

But Carl doesn't really give a damn about life. He's outraged by the "excessive appeals that criminals on death row receive."

Carl is a hypocrite and a liar -- and he’s in a position of power to make his will the law of the land, even when he knows it’s unconstitutional. But Carl is really no different from those who came before him to criminalize women.

Women like Regina McKnight:

Her crime? Giving birth to a five-pound, stillborn baby. As McKnight grieved and held her third daughter Mercedes's lifeless body, she could never have imagined that she was about to become the first woman in America convicted for murder by using cocaine while pregnant.

Women like Kawana Ashley, a pregnant teenager who shot herself in the stomach and was charged with murder.

Women like Brenda Kay Peppers, who was arrested and charged with child endangerment for using cocaine while pregnant.

Women like Tayshea Aiwohi, who was convicted in Hawaii of manslaughter because she smoked crystal meth while pregnant.

The list goes on. There are plenty of cases of women -- overwhelmingly young, poor women of color -- charged with the crimes of endangering their children while pregnant. Their prosecutions were supposedly in reaction to the inevitable epidemic of crack babies who, according to President Reagan, would one day overrun and destroy America.

Except that never happened, as studies have shown that "the hysteria over crack babies was more a product of the media than of scientific data."

But controlling and punishing women for their reproductive decisions didn't start with Reagan's racist fearmongering either.

In Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, Dorothy Roberts details the horrifying history of the forced sterilization of black women. Between 1970 and 1980, there were more than half a million cases of sterilization, largely performed without the patient’s consent or even her knowledge. They were so common in the South, they were called "Mississippi appendectomies."

Carl Wimmer's latest effort to "chip away" at Roe v. Wade is nothing new. From forced breeding of slaves, to sterilization without consent, to murder charges for crack cocaine users, to restrictions on access to safe abortion -- these are all part of the same long and ugly pattern of men with power making decisions about women's bodies. The fight over abortion has never really been about protecting life, as the so-called "pro-lifers" make clear again and again, by opposing laws to provide health care to children, advocating for the death penalty, or terrorizing patients and murdering doctors.

Carl and his predecessors don't care about children. And they don't care about women. They care about controlling women. And the laws they pass are part of the obscene belief that women's reproductive organs are somehow unique and therefore necessitate government control.

The laws Carl fights for, and all the laws that came before Carl set foot in the Utah House of Representatives, are intended to deprive women of their sovereignty. They tell women, again and again, throughout history, that they do not own their bodies. Their reproductive organs make them the property of the government, subject to the distorted beliefs of people like Carl. And any woman who dares to assert control over her own body will be punished. She will be made a criminal.

Because Carl believes that the government should stay out of the decisions of private citizens -- unless those citizens are women.

Carl is wrong. He is part of the problem, as is every other elected official who supports this sexist, racist, draconian system of controlling women. The right to women's bodies does not belong to Carl. It does not belong to the government.

It belongs to women.

3.27 pm: Republican House leader John Boehner speaks: "This bill is a dangerous experiment with the best healthcare system in the world." What, this bill also affects Japan?
White House healthcare summit liveblog, The Guardian UK

This Republican talking point is parroted by the segment of our society most at risk – those who feel they are “entitled” only to their own healthcare because they’ve worked all their lives and paid into their insurance, and those who cannot afford insurance have no right to others’ "hard-earned" money. As long as they have a job, they are safe.

Unreal.  Ask any of the 49 million who are uninsured, or any of the almost equal number who are underinsured. There is no safety in numbers.

If I could have lifted the damned TV screen on Summit day, I might have thrown it out the window. Boehner’s "best healthcare system in the world"?

It’s possible to make the case that some elements of health treatment function better here than many places. Arguably, the quality of cancer care I’ve received (and the research behind it) has increased my own lifespan by a few months, thanks to aggressive chemotherapy treatment. Much of the success I've had so far is related more to my geographical location, access to an excellent facility, and the pure luck that I happen to be insured, than it has to do with any U.S. "healthcare system". If I had no insurance and no health-disposable income, you wouldn't be reading this.

As for cost? My most recent session covered five days in the hospital in January, with every-three-hour monitoring of my vitals, urine tests, blood draws, and the periodic checking of my chemo port for leaks – all done by nursing staff whose shifts are 12 hour shifts three to four days a week. I had an early morning visit from resident doctors on their rounds for five minutes once a day. This five day cruise is billed at a bit over $21,000. The final cost negotiated by my insurance is around $15,000. Every 21 days.

Factor in $2000 for each CAT scan every six weeks. $3000 to $4000 for bone scans every eight weeks. Add in doctor bills assessed for each follow-up visit outside the hospital. There is the Neulasta shot each cycle at around $5000 a shot which keeps my white blood cells from bottoming out.

Why should I care? I’m insured. For now.

As of 2007, "about one in 26 Americans have had cancer. By 2020, roughly one in 19 will have been diagnosed with the disease".

The typical price of family coverage now runs about $13,000 a year (employer-sponsored health benefits), but premiums are expected to nearly double, to $24,000, by 2020. Commonwealth Fund. This represents an average median increase to 24% of family income by 2020.

The number of uninsured individuals are expected to increase from about 49 million today to between 57 million and 66 million by 2019. Currently, “almost 21 million uninsured individuals—45% of the total—have a full-time job".

I’ve spent nearly six hours since the televised Healthcare Summit plowing through reader comments to articles in some of the nation’s major papers, listening to several iReport videos CNN’s website featuring viewer opinion on the Summit and on healthcare in general, and scanning blogposts. I spent another two hours going through my own packet of information on Long Term Disability from Prudential, a benefit offered through my employer. And another hour or two has been lost forever reading up on COBRA coverage and applying for Social Security Disability Insurance, a requirement of my long term disability coverage to offset benefit payments so that I will still receive a portion of my current income.

I've discovered that if I don't die within the next two years, I won't be able to afford to live.

Those who think the status quo is sufficient, or the best, or that they are entitled to what they’ve earned through a lifetime of work and that they shouldn’t have to pay for anyone else (public option or single payer or expanded Medicare, or any one of the other options), seem to think they have what they don’t have. Security in things staying as they are.

No one in this country has health security. It doesn’t exist.

Social Security statistics indicate that a “ 20-year-old worker... faces a 3-in-10 chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age".

No one can be assured of adequate health care unless they happen to be one of those in the top 1 to 2% of income bracket in the Unites States and can afford any procedure at any price. Why?

This post from The Baseline Scenario gives four reasons:

• Your company could drop its health plan. According to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of the population covered by employer-based health insurance has fallen every year since 2000, from 64.2% to 59.3%.
• You could lose your job...
• You could voluntarily leave your job, for example because you have to move to take care of an elderly relative.
• You could get divorced from the spouse you depend on for health coverage.

We can all add to this list.

• Your company asks you to carry a higher employee portion of your premium and you can’t afford the additional premiums.
• Your company has contracted with a health insurer that is effectively a “junk" insurance company – few procedures actually covered, high deductible for the insured.
• You become disabled, remain medically insured while in long term disability coverage offered by your company, but those benefits end per the policy written after a certain period of time (often between 6 and 24 months) and your company lays you off if you can’t return to work. Most long term disability insurance carriers move you towards Social Security Disability Insurance and COBRA if you remain disabled for a longer term than 6 months.
• You are covered under COBRA for any reason and the premiums are more than you can afford.
• You were employed with a pre-existing disease and the contract between your insurance carrier and your employer allows denial of coverage for your condition.

The most fearful, insecure voters in the United States, those who move farther right with each invocation of terrorist, deny the inherent instability, insecurity, of our healthcare system.

Representative Boehner might have a hard time covering his own health costs should his current employer become unable to cover employee benefits due to budgetary concerns in this, our "best healthcare system in the world".

As we watch the battle over health reform play out against the backdrop of an H1N1 pandemic, I am reminded of many of the political lessons learned over the years ("don't get mad, organize", "all politics is local") including the exhortations of many posters here ("are you going to complain, or are you going to do something?") to work for change, real change that you can measure and see and feel.

As it happens, my home state of Connecticut is also home to a campaign to improve ordinary people's lives by highlighting a local legislative battle to mandate paid sick days for employers of larger companies. This is legislation that's come close to passing before (it's passed each chamber, but not in the same year), and this year, there's a concerted push to get it done.

Who doesn't have paid sick days? Among others, day care and nursing home workers, bus drivers, grocery workers and very likely your neighbors or someone you know. And from a societal and public health perspective, coming to work sick for these folks is a great way, for example, to spread flu and other illnesses, exactly what you don't want.

Here's a paragraph from the Connecticut Working Families Party blog:

Why paid sick days? Here’s my reason:

According to a new study (pdf) , 8 million Americans went to work infected with swine flu. And 7 million caught H1N1 from a sick co-worker. And don’t forget, 24 people in Connecticut actually died from swine flu.

There are a thousand reasons we need a basic workplace standard to allow Connecticut workers to earn paid sick days. But like clockwork, corporate lobbyists are already trotting out the same old canard that it’s too expensive for businesses. (As if it’s really profitable to make sick employees come to work.)

Here's local coverage of a hearing this week on the topic in Hartford:

Jon Green has been the Executive Director of Connecticut Working Families since 2002. Working Families is a coalition of neighborhood activist, community organizations and labor unions that is united to fight for the ‘kitchen table’ economic issues that matter most to working class and middle class families in Connecticut, like affordable healthcare, good jobs and fair taxes. He's kindly consented to answer a few questions on the issue of paid sick days in terms of practicality, affordability, politics and more.

Daily Kos: What’s the CT Working Families Party? Are you a political party? Do you endorse candidates?

Connecticut Working Families Party http://www.ct-workingfamilies.org/  is a independent progressive party formed by formed by union leaders and grassroots activists to fight for 'kitchen table' economic issues like affordable healthcare, living wage jobs and progressive taxes. We’re deeply troubled by the growing gap between the rich and just about everyone else. We work to hold elected officials in all parties accountable on issues of economic fairness for working and middle class families.

It’s important to point out that Working Families is very different from typical third parties. We operate in states that allow cross-endorsement http://www.ct-workingfamilies.org/... (also called "fusion voting") which means candidates can be nominated by a major party and a minor party like ours. For every office, from City Council up to Governor, Working Families studies the records of the candidates and endorses the ones who are most committed to fighting for our progressive values. Then we work our butts of to help them get elected.

In 2008 in Connecticut, our top priority race was helping to elect Democrat Jim Himes in CT-4. We knocked on tens of thousands of doors, talking to mostly unaffiliated suburban voters, asking people to vote for healthcare and jobs by voting on the Working Families line for Jim Himes - we delivered over 9000 votes on the Working Families ballot line to help push him over the top in an extremely tight race. Statewide, Working Families garnered about 85,000 votes for cross-endorsed Democratic Congressional candidates.

But Election Day is just the beginning. After Election Day, we work year-round to hold them accountable to their progressive promises on our issues. The paid sick days campaign is our top legislative priority this year.

Working Families is now a ballot-qualified party in 6 states -- New York http://workingfamiliesparty.org/ , Connecticut http://www.ct-workingfamilies.org/ , Oregon http://www.oregonwfp.org/ , South Carolina http://www.oregonwfp.org/ , Delaware http://www.delworkingfamilies.org/  and Vermont http://www.vtworkingfamilies.org/ . So look out for Working Families on a ballot near you.

Daily Kos: Who has responded to your call for new legislation?

The issue of paid sick days has been debated in the State Legislature for the past few years and has gained a fair amount of traction. The bill has actually passed in each of legislative chamber, but not in the same year. 

The majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate support the bill and have voted for it. In the Senate, the bill has even received support from two Republican State Senators. 

Some state legislators have made the bill a very high priority and have worked very hard to persuade their colleagues. There are still some nay-sayers – most of the Republican caucus and some Democrats as well. But we’re optimistic that the bill will pass – hopefully this year.

I should add that we're not alone in this fight. This year, we've built a broad coalition, including public health professionals, including the Connecticut State Medical Society <https://www.csms.org>  and the Academy of Pediatrics <http://www.ct-aap.org> , women's advocacy organizations including Momsrising.org <http://momsrising.org> , NARAL <http://www.pro-choicect.org> , Planned Parenthood <http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ppsne> , CT Sexual Assault Crisis Services <http://www.connsacs.org>  and CT Coalition Against Domestic Violence <http://www.ctcadv.org> , unions -- particularly those who represent service sector employees -- like SEIU locals 32BJ <http://www.seiu32bj.org>  and CSEA <http://www.csea-ct.com>  and UFCW <http://www.ufcw371.org> , anti-poverty organizations like CT Assocation for Human Services <http://www.cahs.org> , and more, and even a handful of small business owners.

Having a broad-based coalition, including a few who are not the usual suspects, has been instrumental, not to mention gratifying.

Daily Kos: Some might be surprised at who doesn’t have paid sick days. What kind of people in CT need this kind of legislation passed, and why?

According to research by the National Partnership for Women and Families (pdf) <http://everybodybenefits.org/psd_study.pdf> , an estimated 600,000 workers in Connecticut lack paid sick days. That includes lots of people in jobs with a high level of public interaction, people who prepare and serve our food, work as retail clerks, drive our children to school and take care of the sick and elderly as home health aids. More than 80% of restaurant workers lack paid sick days. In other words, the very people who have the highest chance of spreading illnesses are generally those most likely to lack paid sick days.

But to answer the question of who needs this legislation, the answer is all of us. Workers without paid sick days would of course by most impacted. Especially in a tough economy like this, we don't think people should be forced to choose between their livelihoods and their health or the health of their families.

For the rest of us, this is also a serious public health issue. Especially in the wake of the H1N1 outbreak, it should be clear that when people have no choice but to go to work sick, it puts us all in danger. According to research by the Institute for Women's Policy (pdf) <http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/B284sickatwork.pdf> , an estimated 8 million people went to work with the H1N1 swine flu virus. And workers without paid sick days were much more likely to do so. As a result, 7 million people caught the virus from a sick co-worker.

And it's not just about the swine flu. Do you ever go out to eat and catch a 'stomach flu'? According to the Center for Disease Control <http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/norovirus-factsheet.htm> , about half of the 23 million annual 'norovirus' infections are linked to an ill food service worker.

Allowing workers to take paid sick days could really take a bite out of the skyrocketing cost of our healthcare system. When employees can’t get time away from work to go to the doctor, they are less likely to get the kind of preventive care and early treatment of illnesses that we all know lowers overall healthcare costs. Without paid sick days, people are more likely to wait until a problem gets very serious (and very costly) and end up in our overcrowded emergency rooms.

Daily Kos: Does this actually have a chance to pass?

It does. Last year, our bill passed in the State House, but wound up deadlocked in the State Senate. The prior year, it passed in the Senate, but wasn't called for a vote in the House. We're building a massive grassroots campaign to make sure both houses do it this year.

If you live in Connecticut, you can ask your state legislators to support the paid sick days bill here:
http://action.workingfamiliesparty.o...

It certainly won't be easy: as you can imagine, our opponents, the CBIA (Connecticut's Chamber of Commerce) are trotting out the same old 'bad-for-business' canard. It’s fear tactic without a lot of evidence, but there are some legislators who are more motivated by fear than by facts.

Of course, if we could pass a law to stop people from ever getting sick, we surely would. But in fact, people do get sick. And if they face a choice between staying home and losing pay (maybe even losing their job) or going to work sick, more often than not people will go to work sick. That’s not good for anyone, including their employer. They are less productive employees, they take longer to recover, and by spreading their illnesses to others they simply compound the productivity loss.

Serious academic analysis actually suggests that businesses save money in the long run by enacting a paid sick days policy, mostly because of reduced spread of illness at the workplace and lower turnover.

And the experience that San Francisco had after enacting a paid sick days policy in 2007 confirms this research. According to the IWPR (pdf) <http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/B264_JobGrowth.pdf> job growth in San Francisco remained a strong as, or stronger than, any surrounding county. And in the restaurant industry, job growth actually ticked up following the implementation of the paid sick days policy.

Sunday opinions and flights of fancy. And hockey (men's) gold at noon 3:15 ET. For noobs, remember hockey is the only game with only three quarters (they quit after the third, unless it's tied.)

Dan Balz:

The health-care debate, at times, has seemed petty and small. But the endgame shapes up both as a major test of leadership for the president and his party and then a big national debate about the consequences of the outcome. If bipartisan compromise is out of the question right now, then a midterm election fought over big ideas and genuine philosophical differences seems entirely appropriate.

David Broder: But Newt Gingrich and Bill McInturff told me that Republicans are winning the argument. They said it, so it must be true.

Gallup:

President Barack Obama averaged 49% job approval from Americans for the week of Feb. 15-21. His recent approval ratings, based on Gallup Daily tracking, have shown a high degree of stability, with the weekly averages ranging between 48% and 51% since mid-November.

Have I mentioned recently that what Republicans think doesn't matter?

Frank Rich:

The leaders embraced by the new grass roots right are a different slate entirely: Glenn Beck, Ron Paul and Sarah Palin. Simple math dictates that none of this trio can be elected president. As George F. Will recently pointed out, Palin will not even be the G.O.P. nominee "unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states" (as it did in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Waterloo). But these leaders do have a consistent ideology, and that ideology plays to the lock-and-load nutcases out there, not just to the peaceable (if riled up) populist conservatives also attracted to Tea Partyism. This ideology is far more troubling than the boilerplate corporate conservatism and knee-jerk obstructionism of the anti-Obama G.O.P. Congressional minority.

You went there, Frank. You really went there.

WaPo:

The sirens sounded in Hawaii at dawn. Tsunami warnings were posted from Panama to Japan, from Ecuador to New Zealand. Australia made the tsunami-warning list. So did Antarctica.

Authorities told Californians to get out of the water to avoid being swept away by strong currents. The forecasts showed the waves reaching Nome, Alaska, more than 24 hours after the huge earthquake off the coast of Chile.

By Saturday evening, the calamity had not materialized. Although reports were still coming in, it did not appear to have been a killer tsunami like some in the past.

Jenifer Rhoades, tsunami program coordinator for the National Weather Service, said officials would rather err on the side of warning people about the worst-case scenario than play down the risk.

Well, duh. What do we expect, government sponsored surfing contests? The idea that "everyone didn't die, so what's the caution for?" is as old as the hills and dumb as dirt. From pandemics to hurricanes, disaster preparedness needs to cover calamities, as Katrina, Haiti and Chile show us all too clearly that we are not always lucky about "near-misses".

Al Gore:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Alas...

NYT Sunday Magazine interview with Harry Markopolos:

What was it like to spend nine years trying to persuade the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff was a fraud, only to learn that the agency thought he was perfectly reputable?

For nine years I was the S.E.C.’s doormat.

Now you’re triumphant, a hero in investment circles who exposes the S.E.C. as the most futile of agencies in your new book, "No One Would Listen."

It was a trip through the twilight zone.

Why do you think the S.E.C. failed to wake up to Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme until he turned himself in?

They weren’t even asleep at the switch; they were comatose. They didn’t respond to heat and light, much less evidence of wrongdoing. They were not engaged in the fight.