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Democratic News
Huckabee: Prop. 8 Did Not ‘Prohibit’ Same-Sex Marriage
ThinkProgress - 2 hours 9 min ago
Conservative talker Bill Bennett interviewed Mike Huckabee on his radio show this morning. In the course of their interview, Huckabee falsely claimed that in approving Prop. 8, California did not “ban” or “prohibit” marriage equality, but rather simply affirmed the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman:
HUCKABEE: The very people who voted for Barack Obama in California…also voted to sustain traditional marriage. I refuse to use the term, “ban same-sex marriage.” That’s not what those efforts did. They affirmed what is. They did not prohibit something. They simply affirmed something that which has and forever has existed.
Listen here:
Huckabee, who seems to see himself as a bit of an expert on LGBT rights, ought to do a little research before issuing his next bigoted proclamation. In approving Prop. 8, California — by definition — “banned same-sex marriage.” Prior to November 4, same-sex couples in California could marry. Afterward, they were banned from doing so.
As the ballot read, Prop. 8 “eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry”:
In addition, as Nate Silver recently documented, Huckabee’s claim that “the very people that voted for Barack Obama” also voted to ban same-sex marriage is false.
Categories: Democratic News
Perino: SOFA Means U.S. Can ‘Celebrate The Victory’ In Iraq
ThinkProgress - 2 hours 54 min ago
Ever since Iraq’s cabinet “overwhelmingly approved” a proposed security agreement that mandates the full withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011, the White House has been engaged in a rhetorical dance — in large part due to President Bush’s long-held opposition to “artificial timetables.”
On Monday, White House press secretary Dana Perino tried to mold the agreement to fit her boss’s view, saying that the withdrawal timeline contained within is only “aspirational” and tied to conditions on the ground remaining favorable. (It’s not). Today, Perino went further, claiming that the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) represents a celebration of victory in Iraq:
Q: Can you remind us again why this agreement is not the timetable that the president fought so hard against? […]
PERINO: This is a mutually agreed to agreement. And that’s what one of the things that is different about an arbitrary date for withdrawal when you say you’re going to leave win or lose. We believe that the conditions are such now that we are able to celebrate the victory that we’ve had so far and establish…a strategic framework agreement.
Watch it:
The firm redeployment deadline is less a declaration of victory and more a reflection of Iraqis’ long-held dissatisfaction with the occupation. For months, Iraqis have been pushing the Bush administration to set a final date. Part of the reason that the final SOFA has such a deadline is not because of “victory,” but because the Iraqis were able to leverage Obama’s election “to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions.”
The most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed last month suggests that Perino shouldn’t be bringing out the champagne bottles just yet either. The new NIE reportedly warns that “unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.”
In fact, even CentCom commander Gen. David Petraeus will not use the term “victory” or “winning” regarding Iraq. But more importantly, as the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss has noted, there will never be any “victory” there. “Let’s understand,” Duss writes, “there is no plausible scenario in which the decision to invade Iraq can or will ever be vindicated. In the best case, we will have simply averted disaster.”
Categories: Democratic News
O’Reilly surrenders to the War on Christmas: Touts his ‘holiday reading list.’
ThinkProgress - 3 hours 26 min ago
For years, Bill O’Reilly has been ranting about an alleged “War on Christmas,” claiming liberals are unjustly replacing “Christmas” festivities with “Holiday” festivities. News Hounds notes that O’Reilly isn’t practicing what he preaches, as he is showing off a “holiday reading list” on his website:
Categories: Democratic News
Daschle’s Views On Health Reform: ‘Incremental Change In Our System Is No Longer A Viable Option’
ThinkProgress - 4 hours 6 min ago
In a sign that he may adopt a comprehensive approach to solving the health care crisis, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
Ezra Klein points out, “you don’t tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That’s not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress.” Earlier this year, during an address at the Families USA Action Conference, Daschle concurred with the need to ‘think big’ on reform:
Incremental change in our system is no longer a viable option. Instead we need comprehensive reform. In growing numbers the American people are demanding that we do something. Our goal should be to build what current and retired members of Congress have today, and make that available for all Americans.
Daschle is a Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Center for American Progress and is the author of Critical: What We Can Do About the American Health-Care Crisis.
The book lays out Daschle’s vision of achieving reforms through a framework shared responsibility, in which “every player in the health-care arena — the government, employers, doctors and hospitals, insurers, and individuals — should help support a rational, sustainable system.” Some of Daschle’s proposals:
- Expand the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), or create a group purchasing pool like it: Participants could choose their own provider and would have the security of knowing they could never lose their coverage. Employers could let their employers get coverage through a FEHBP plan only if they enrolled all of their workers, not just ones with health problems. The FEHP pool would also include a government-run insurance program modeled after Medicare and would have tremendous clout to bargain for the lowest prices from providers and push them to improve quality of care.
- Subsidize coverage for those who need it: The government would provide financial help on a sliding scale so nobody has to pay more than a certain percentage of their income for health insurance. Administered as a refundable tax credit, this protection would apply to employer-based health insurance as well as private insurance obtained through the pool.
- Strengthen Medicaid: Simplify and extend Medicaid to cover everyone below a certain income level. The federal government should pick up the tab for this expansion, and ensure that states don’t’ cut off people when the budget gets tight.
- Concentrate on the value of care: Strive to get more for our health care money by promoting research that compares drugs and treatments to determine which ones deliver the best bang for the buck. Daschle also proposes promoting prevention that would reduce the number of chronic conditions.
- Improve health care infrastructure: Adopt health information technology to lower expenses and allows rural residents to connect electronically with medical providers. Increase the number of community health cetners and government-funded clinics that provide basic care for the poor and uninsured.
Aside from supporting the basic principles of progressive reform, however, Daschle also proposes a Federal Health Board that “would resemble our current Federal Reserve Board for the banking industry.”
The Board would ensure harmonization across public programs of “health-care protocols, benefits, and transparency” and would set “evidence-based standards for benefits and quality for federal programs” in the hopes of lowering the complexity of different insurance regulations and ultimately lowering costs. “These standards would apply to federal health programs and contractors and serve as a model for private insurers,” Daschle writes.
Cross-posted at the Wonk Room.
Categories: Democratic News
Rep. Ackerman: Auto Execs’ Private Jet Travel Like Guy At ‘The Soup Kitchen In High Hat And Tuxedo’
ThinkProgress - 4 hours 48 min ago
Today, the CEOs of the Detroit Big Three returned to Capitol Hill to ask for $25 billion in loans. Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner insisted, “We’re all slashing back” on non-essential expenses, promising, “We’re going to be dramatically leaner.” The other executives echoed Wagoner’s pledge to be “leaner” in the future.
However, as ABC news reported last night, all three executives flew private jets to Washington, DC, for yesterday’s and today’s hearings:
Wagoner flew in GM’s $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone. … Wagoner’s private jet trip to Washington cost his ailing company an estimated $20,000 roundtrip. In comparison, seats on Northwest Airlines flight 2364 from Detroit to Washington were going online for $288 coach and $837 first class.
Minutes after Wagoner claimed to be “slashing back” on expenses, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) evoked their private jet travel, calling it a “delicious irony.” Ackerman said the CEOs’ profligacy made Congress “a little bit suspicious” of their austerity pledges:
There’s a delicious irony of seeing private luxury jets flying into DC, and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands, saying that they’re going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses. It’s almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. Kind makes you a little bit suspicious as to whether or not…we’ve seen the future. There’s a message there. Couldn’t you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled to get here? It would have at least sent the message that you do get it.
Watch a portion of Ackerman’s comments that aired on Fox News:
Later in the hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) asked if any of the executives planned to sell their private jets; none raised his hand. Sherman was exasperated: “I don’t know how I go back to my constituents and say, ‘The auto industry has changed,’ if they own private jets which are not only expensive to own but expensive to operate and expensive to fly here rather than to have flown commercial.”
Categories: Democratic News
House Democratic Steering Committee approves Waxman over Dingell.
ThinkProgress - 5 hours 6 min ago
The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee voted 25-22 earlier today to recommend House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) take over as chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee from Rep. John Dingell (D-MI). A final decision “will most likely be made by the full Democratic Caucus Thursday,” according to CongressDaily. As the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson noted, Dingell was supported by the oil and coal industries. Backers of the pollution industry raised fears that Waxman would be “scary” for polluters.
Categories: Democratic News
Eric Holder: A Rebuke Of Bush-League Justice
ThinkProgress - 6 hours 1 min ago
The New York Times reports today that President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team “signaled to Eric H. Holder Jr., a senior official in the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, that he will be chosen as attorney general.” While the Obama transition team denied that Holder has been selected, many progressives see Holder as a strong rebuke of the Bush Justice Department.
Glenn Greenwald — a consistent and vocal critic of the Bush Justice Department — writes that Holder’s views seem “rather unconstrained for Washington, suggestive of actual passion and conviction on these matters.” Digby writes similarly, “If [Holder] follows through…it would be good news.”
ThinkProgress has compiled Holder’s stated views on critical issues confronting the next Attorney General, including the Bush administration’s politicization of the Justice Department and the War on Terror:
On Role Of Attorney General: “The attorney general is the one Cabinet member who’s different from all the rest. The attorney general serves first the people, but also serves the president. There has to be a closeness at the same time there needs to be distance.” [National Journal, 3/3/06]
On Torture: “The notion that the Department of Justice would in essence sanction the use of torture as part of the President’s plenary power over military operations is as wrong as it is shortsighted. This position flies in the face of the entire history of American law, helping to create a climate in which unnecessarily abusive conduct can somehow be considered legitimate.” [Remarks to ACS Conference, 6/19/04]
“We must declare without qualification that it is the law, policy, and practice of the United States government that we do not torture people and we do not subject people to cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.” [ACS Conference, 6/14/08]
On Closing Guantanamo: “Guantanamo Bay is an international embarassment. Some of our closest allies see this prison as a symbol of what America has become. We should close Guantanamo Bay, transfer the remaining prisoners to military prisons in the United States.” [ACS Conference, 6/14/08]
On Extraordinary Rendition: “We must end all U.S. government practice and programs, covert or otherwise, that transfer individuals involuntarily to other countries that are known to engage in torture.” [ACS Conference, 6/14/08]
Categories: Democratic News
Obama’s resignation letter read on Senate floor.
ThinkProgress - 6 hours 8 min ago
Today, a Senate floor spokesperson read out loud Barack Obama’s resignation letter. The letter read: “To the President of the Senate: This letter is to inform you that I resign from the United States Senate effective November 16, 2008, in order to prepare for my duties as President of the United States.” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) remarked, “Wow, that was quite a letter you just read”:
I must tell you, to be here for this historic moment, my heart is just racing. This is indeed a moment of passage in the United States Senate, and in the passage for the country. … I will cherish this moment because it will be a historic moment, from ‘We need change,” and ‘Yes, we can,” to a long campaign trail, to Election Night, to a charismatic speech calling us to act like an American community, not only a country of which we’re proud, a nation we hold dear, but an American community.
Watch it:
Read Obama’s full resignation letter to Illinois residents here. (HT: The Crypt)
Categories: Democratic News
Reports: Daschle accepts job as HHS Secretary.
ThinkProgress - 6 hours 49 min ago
Roll Call reports that Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), who is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, “has been offered the job of Health and Human Services secretary by President-elect Barack Obama and has accepted the job.” Daschle is also set to take on the position of “health care czar” in the Obama White House. CNN’s Ed Henry is also reporting he negotiated the “health care czar” position in order to be “the point person on all White House health-related issues.”
Categories: Democratic News
Kristol: Americans Have Seen ‘Plenty Of Coffins’ From The Iraq War
ThinkProgress - 7 hours 33 min ago
Yesterday during a panel discussion hosted by the the IFC Media Project, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol got into a testy argument with columnist and author Pete Hamill over whether Americans are getting a realistic view of the Iraq war given the restrictions the U.S. government has placed on images related to the battlefield.
“Let them see what’s on the ground,” Hamill shouted at Kristol, adding, “Let them see a coffin!” An exasperated and slightly annoyed Kristol yelled back that Americans have seen “plenty of coffins,” calling Hamill’s claims “nonsense.” Watch it:
In fact, Americans haven’t seen “plenty of coffins” because it has been the Bush administration’s policy not to release photos of them to news organizations — a policy the conservative-led Senate backed in 2004. The Defense Department has released photos of dead U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but on rare occasions and only as the result of leaks and lawsuits. But the Pentagon still restricts journalists’ access to military funerals.
Kristol later argued that the release of the photos from Abu Ghraib serves as proof that the Bush administration “wasn’t impeding the flow of information from Iraq.” However, the Abu Ghraib story broke in the news media, not from the Bush administration (which tried to hide the story).
Last June, CBS News’s Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan echoed Hamill’s sentiments, lamenting that “no one really understands” what is happening in Iraq because of watered down media coverage. But maybe that’s what Kristol prefers so the results of the distaster he helped create can remain hidden.
Categories: Democratic News
eHarmony will begin providing same-sex dating matches.
ThinkProgress - 7 hours 57 min ago
The AP reports that as part of a settlement with New Jersey’s Civil Rights Division, online dating service eHarmony “will begin providing same-sex matches. … Under terms of the settlement, the company can create a new or differently named Web site for same-sex singles. The company can also post a disclaimer saying its compatibility-based matching system was developed from research of married heterosexual couples.”
Categories: Democratic News
National Review writer: ‘Iraqis remain ingrates.’
ThinkProgress - 8 hours 42 min ago
Dave Noon pulls out a passage from a new piece by the National Review’s Andy McCarthy on why Iraqis should be more grateful to the United States:
Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam’s terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.
Matt Yglesias responds: “Because, of course, historically people have welcomed being invaded and occupied by a foreign power whose actions lead to years of chaos, a huge civilian death toll, and millions of displaced people.”
Categories: Democratic News
New ethics complaint filed against Palin.
ThinkProgress - 9 hours 24 min ago
A resident of Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) hometown of Wasilla filed a new ethics complaint against the governor, arguing that her recent media blitz broke state ethics rules because portions of the interviews took place in the governor’s office. The Anchorage Daily News reports:
Jane Henning, a North Slope worker from Wasilla, said he filed the complaint with the attorney general. He says Palin is promoting her future political career on state property, pointing in particular to the governor’s Nov. 10 interview with Fox News Channel host Greta Van Susteren. […]
“The governor is using her official position and office in an attempt to repair her damaged political image on the national scene,” Henning wrote.
The state executive branch ethics rules say officials can’t use state resources to help or hurt a political candidate. Or a potential candidate.
Categories: Democratic News
ThinkFast: November 19, 2008
ThinkProgress - 10 hours 11 min ago
According to two legal sources close to the presidential transition, President-elect Barack Obama “has decided to tap Eric Holder as his attorney general, putting the veteran Washington lawyer in place to become the first African-American to head the Justice Department.”
Senate Democrats called on President Bush yesterday to “halt any effort by his administration to place political appointees in career jobs just weeks before his team leaves office.” Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) sent a letter to Bush urging him “to keep his pledge of a smooth transition without partisan maneuvering.
Despite formal dissents from half of the agency’s 10 regional administrators, the Environmental Protection Agency “is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas.” The proposal would make it so spikes in pollution during periods of peak energy demand would no longer violate the law.
Incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel “challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won’t be acceptable.” “I’m challenging you today, we’re going to have to do big, serious things,” Emanuel told the WSJ’s CEO Council. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
“The number of young people considering a military career has significantly increased for the first time in about five years, buoyed by more positive news out of Iraq. Military officials predict interest will rise even further because of the worsening economy,” USA Today reports. More »
Categories: Democratic News
CNN fails to identify former Bush homeland security official in report on torture.
ThinkProgress - Tue, 11/18/2008 - 10:45pm
CNN aired a story this afternoon reporting that human rights groups are urging President-elect Obama to “investigate whether the Bush administration is guilty of war crimes,” specifically, torture techniques that were approved for use against terror suspects. CNN reporter Kelli Arena noted that human rights groups argue that torture should never be used, but that “[i]ntelligence experts say that would be a mistake.” Which “expert” did Arena turn to to make that case? Former White House Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend. At no point did CNN identify Townsend as a former Bush official. Instead, she was labeled an “intelligence expert” and “CNN national security contributor.” Watch it:
CNN was either too lazy to find another “intelligence expert,” or they didn’t have any luck finding anyone else to say it’s okay to torture.
Transcript: More »
Categories: Democratic News
Ted Stevens loses Alaska Senate election.
ThinkProgress - Tue, 11/18/2008 - 9:43pm
The AP reports:
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term.
The longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate trailed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 3,724 votes after Tuesday’s count.
That’s an insurmountable lead with only about 2,500 overseas ballots left to be counted.
In their GOP conference meeting today, Senate Republicans punted on whether to formally kick Stevens out of their caucus.
Categories: Democratic News
Ted Stevens loses Alaska Senate election.
ThinkProgress - Tue, 11/18/2008 - 9:43pm
The AP reports:
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost his bid for a seventh term.
The longest-serving Republican in the history of the Senate trailed Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 3,724 votes after Tuesday’s count.
That’s an insurmountable lead with only about 2,500 overseas ballots left to be counted.
In their GOP conference meeting today, Senate Republicans punted on whether to formally kick Stevens out of their caucus.
Categories: Democratic News
Huckabee Claims Civil Rights Of Gays Are Not Being Violated: They Aren’t Getting Their ‘Skulls Cracked’
ThinkProgress - Tue, 11/18/2008 - 9:00pm
Today on ABC’s “The View,” former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabe discussed his pride that an African-American has been elected president. When host Joy Behar asked if he feels the same about gay rights, he said that the two were “a different set of rights,” and suggested that the gay rights movement hasn’t suffered enough violence to be a real issue:
HUCKABEE: It’s a different set of rights. People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.
BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.
HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge.
Watch it:
Huckabee is echoing a newly popular conservative trope. Last week, Tony Perkins claimed that gay rights and civil rights are “totally different.” Tara Wall, deputy editorial page editor at the Washington Times, wrote today that “[t]here is no comparison” between blacks’ struggle and gay people’s struggle because “[b]lacks were stoned, hung, and dragged for their constitutional right to ’sit at the table.’ Whites — gay or not — already had a seat at that table.”
To suggest that a civil rights movement must meet some sort of violence threshold is an incredibly dangerous argument — not to mention blind to the serious violence gay people have already suffered. 16.6 percent of all hate crimes reported by the FBI in 2007 “resulted from sexual-orientation bias,” and the number of hate crimes directed against gays and lesbians increased six percent from 2006. More striking, a 2007 study by the University of California, Davis, found that “[n]early four in 10 gay men and about one in eight lesbians and bisexuals in the United States have been the target of violence or a property crime because of their sexual orientation.”
The murders of Matthew Shepherd in 1998 and 15-year-old Lawrence King earlier this year brought renewed public focus to the lethal danger of homophobia. The violence gay activists face will gain more attention in two weeks, when “Milk,” a new feature-length movie about the first openly gay elected official, is released. Harvey Milk struggled for the political rights of gay people — just like civil rights leaders pushed for African-Americans’ political rights — and he was ultimately killed for it.
Huckabee’s lame violence threshold is nothing more than a shoddy attempt to conceal his deep and fundamental homophobia.
Transcript: More »
Categories: Democratic News
Taxpayers to pay for Alberto Gonzales’ private attorney.
ThinkProgress - Tue, 11/18/2008 - 7:45pm
This summer, six attorneys “rejected from civil service positions at the Justice Department filed a lawsuit” against “former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and three other top officials for allegedly violating their rights by taking politics into consideration” in the hiring process for the Honors and Summer Law Intern Programs. Today, McClatchy reports that the Justice Department has agreed to pay for a private lawyer to defend Gonzales, which could cost taxpayers up to $24,000 a month:
According to a person with knowledge of the case, the Justice Department has imposed a limit of $200 an hour or $24,000 a month on attorneys’ fees. Top Justice Department attorneys generally earn no more than $100 per hour. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Though “lawyers from the Justice Department’s civil division often represent department employees who’re sued in connection with their official actions,” Gonzales’ lawyer said that “private counsel can often be useful where (department) officials are sued in an individual capacity, even where the suit has no substantive merit.”
Categories: Democratic News
Vice President Cheney and former Attorney General Gonzales indicted in Texas.
ThinkProgress - Tue, 11/18/2008 - 6:56pm
A South Texas grand jury has returned multi-count indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County’s federal detention centers:
The indictment accuses Cheney and Gonzales of engaging in organized criminal activity. It criticizes Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees by working through the prison companies.
Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.
Categories: Democratic News
