Stupak Fail

It seems that House Democrats have given up on negotiating with Rep. Bart Stupak, who has repeatedly signaled his refusal to vote for health care reform unless his abortion language is included, resistant to the fact that reconciliation can’t be used to include said language:

House Democratic leaders have had desultory talks with Mr. Stupak, but appeared willing to bypass him if they conclude his vote is not needed. Mr. Stupak said he and at least 11 other House Democrats would vote against the Senate bill unless the abortion language was changed.

But Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, said she doubted that Mr. Stupak had as may votes as he claimed.

“There is no way in this legislation to satisfy Bart’s demands,” Ms. Schakowsky said. Mr. Stupak wants to bar the use of federal money to pay for any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of elective abortions.

Moreover, it looks like Stupak’s allies are folding to pressure from the leadership and outside groups (from the Hill):

But the Michigan Democrat, who claimed he had carried with him a dozen votes against the healthcare bill, suggested that his bloc of votes may be cracking, providing Democratic leaders with valuable votes for their pending healthcare measures.

“At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve,” he said. “The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

You shouldn’t be shocked to learn that I think this is a good thing. From what I can tell, Stupak has never been negotiating in good faith, and now is as good a time as ever to ignore his demands, especially since he no longer has a stable bloc of votes to use as leverage. My only hope is that once health care reform is passed, liberal activists find a way to push him out of the party, or at least destroy any chance he had at a gubernatorial run. I’m all for a big tent, but the party really shouldn’t tolerate any member willing to derail signature legislation over an unpopular, narrowly held set of views.

Passing health care reform is integral (to everything)

Senate Democrats are dropping hints that they’ll pursue filibuster reform at the beginning of the next congress, which really, is the proper response to flagrant Republican abuse of the maneuver. But that has got me thinking; if Senate Democrats are genuinely interested in reforming the filibuster — and if House Democrat are serious about passing legislation — then passing health care reform is as important as ever. The only way the Senate will be in a position to change the rules come next January is if Democrats maintain control of the Senate, and passing health care reform makes it far more likely that Democrats will escape November with their majority intact.

Beyond that, Democrats must know that in addition to dooming their efforts in November, failure to pass health care reform will signal to Republicans that there is nothing to stop them from running roughshod over the remnants of the Democratic agenda. If Democrats are actually interested in governing for the rest of the year (and beyond), the only real option they have is to pass health care reform.

What is Karl Rove Proud Of?

This:

Interrogators pumped detainees full of so much water that the CIA turned to a special saline solution to minimize the risk of death, the documents show. The agency used a gurney “specially designed” to tilt backwards at a perfect angle to maximize the water entering the prisoner’s nose and mouth, intensifying the sense of choking – and to be lifted upright quickly in the event that a prisoner stopped breathing.

The documents also lay out, in chilling detail, exactly what should occur in each two-hour waterboarding “session.” Interrogators were instructed to start pouring water right after a detainee exhaled, to ensure he inhaled water, not air, in his next breath. They could use their hands to “dam the runoff” and prevent water from spilling out of a detainee’s mouth. They were allowed six separate 40-second “applications” of liquid in each two-hour session – and could dump water over a detainee’s nose and mouth for a total of 12 minutes a day. Finally, to keep detainees alive even if they inhaled their own vomit during a session – a not-uncommon side effect of waterboarding – the prisoners were kept on a liquid diet. The agency recommended Ensure Plus.

[...]

The CIA’s waterboarding regimen was so excruciating, the memos show, that agency officials found themselves grappling with an unexpected development: detainees simply gave up and tried to let themselves drown. “In our limited experience, extensive sustained use of the waterboard can introduce new risks,” the CIA’s Office of Medical Services wrote in its 2003 memo. “Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue or psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness.”

A Quick Thought about the Public Option

Maybe I’m a bad liberal and a sellout, but I would greatly prefer it if my ideological fellow-travelers in the House and Senate would drop their futile crusade on behalf of the public option. At present, there doesn’t seem to be a single plausible scenario in which the public option becomes part of the current legislation. The situation for health care reform is still fairly precarious, and including a public option in the reconciliation bill is a surefire way of alienating nervous Democrats.

Besides, if one were included it would almost certainly be an incredibly watered down version. Better would be to pass the bill, and use the next few congresses to build support for and pass a strong public option via reconciliation as an addition to the new health care structure. Indeed, Rep. Alan Grayson has already introduced a bill that would open up Medicare to all citizens. This is the right tact to take; let’s build a structure first and mess with these details later.

Health Care and the Enthusiasm! Gap

For two people who clearly hold themselves in high esteem as insightful pollsters, Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen have an embarrassingly shallow understanding of the dynamics behind mid-term elections:

As pollsters to the past two Democratic presidents, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, respectively, we feel compelled to challenge the myths that seem to be prevailing in the political discourse and to once again urge a change in course before it is too late. At stake is the kind of mainstream, common-sense Democratic Party that we believe is crucial to the success of the American enterprise.

[...]

Nothing has been more disconcerting than to watch Democratic politicians and their media supporters deceive themselves into believing that the public favors the Democrats’ current health-care plan. Yes, most Americans believe, as we do, that real health-care reform is needed. And yes, certain proposals in the plan are supported by the public.

However, a solid majority of Americans opposes the massive health-reform plan. Four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it, according to Rasmussen polling this week, while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly. Many more Americans believe the legislation will worsen their health care, cost them more personally and add significantly to the national deficit. Never in our experience as pollsters can we recall such self-deluding misconstruction of survey data.

First thing’s first: it is erroneous (on both counts!) to claim that “a solid majority” opposes the health care plan. At the moment, the Pollster average shows 48.2 percent opposed to the plan and 43.8 percent in favor — a plurality on both counts. If you remove Rasmussen’s results from the average — and given Rasmussen’s known conservative bias, that isn’t unreasonable — then the gap virtually disappears, with 45.9 percent opposed and 44.6 percent in favor. And this is to say nothing of the fact that the strongest opposition to health care reform comes from partisan Republicans and not “independents,” as Caddell and Schoen imply.

But even if that weren’t the case and health care reform was deeply unpopular among a solid majority of Americans, that is still not grounds for abandoning the issue. For one — and I’ve beat this drum before — the democratic legitimacy of any given legislative effort is tied to the previous election, not the current polling. The fact that the vast majority of Americans voted for and are represented by senators and representatives who support health care reform is what matters when considering whether Democrats should move forward. And with regards to the midterm elections, it’s simply the case that succeeding in the midterms is mostly a product of base mobilization, and right now, Democrats aren’t in good shape:

That Republicans will succeed this year has little to do with the popularity of their message and everything to do with a demoralized Democratic base and high unemployment. I wouldn’t hold my breath for better employment numbers, but passing health care reform would unquestionably improve Democratic morale and give party regulars the incentive to improve the party’s position.

Deficits, cont.

Here’s a quick addendum to my previous post on deficits, courtesy of Brad DeLong:

Until we start seeing signs that further increases in short-term deficits are pushing up interest rates and crowding out private investment, the benefit-cost ratio from more government purchases is astronomically high.

Yep.

Jason with an axe, but I put it on wax, to eradicate the suckers who thought I had relaxed

Harry Reid takes a moment out of his day to go Jack the Ripper on Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republican Caucus:

As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by Republican Congresses and signed into law by Republican Presidents – including President Bush’s massive, budget-busting tax breaks for multi-millionaires. Given this history, one might conclude that Republicans believe a majority vote is sufficient to increase the deficit and benefit the super-rich, but not to reduce the deficit and benefit the middle class. Alternatively, perhaps Republicans believe a majority vote is appropriate only when Republicans are in the majority.

Either way, we disagree. Keep in mind that reconciliation will not exclude Republicans from the legislative process. You will continue to have an opportunity to offer amendments and change the shape of the legislation. In addition, at the end of the process, the bill can pass only if it wins a democratic, up-or-down majority vote. If Republicans want to vote against a bill that reduces health care costs, fills the prescription drug “donut hole” for seniors and reduces the deficit, you will have every right to do so. [Emphasis mine]

It’s always nice to see Democrats spit that hot fire.

Now is not the time to worry about deficits

Over at his kind-of-but-not-really new digs at the Daily Caller, Gautham Nagesh notes that the most recent budgetary statement from the Treasury Department shows the federal government running its largest-ever monthly deficit, $220.9 billion in Feburary, up 14 percent from last year. Here’s Gautham with more:

The numbers for the fiscal year, which started in October, also indicate the government is on pace to exceed last year’s record deficit by a healthy margin. After the first five months the deficit stands at $651.6 billion, 10.5 percent above last year’s pace. The Obama Administration is forecasting an overall 2010 deficit of more than $1.56 trillion, as opposed to $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009.

The month-to-month budget numbers don’t get a lot of attention as they aren’t seasonally adjusted, but there’s no denying that deficit spending continues to increase significantly even as President Obama has vowed to reign in discretionary spending. Among the factors driving the record spending is the $800 billion stimulus plan passed by Congress last year, which includes a number of tax credits aimed at kick-starting consumer spending.

$1.56 trillion is a really big number, but it is really a small price to pay for economic stabilization. That’s not to say that conservatives are being irrational — the size of the number makes it really difficult not to fret about the deficit — but it really is useful to think of the current deficit as a down payment for future growth. In the long-term, stimulus spending will earn us far more — in the form of higher employment and a healthier economy — than we would have “saved” by deficit reduction.

Put another way, the deficit could have only been smaller in a world where had we rejected stimulus spending in favor of fiscal austerity, which would have been disastrous. In the absence of stimulus spending, we’d have a far longer recession, higher unemployment and drastically reduced productivity. The combined costs of a longer recession and weaker economy are far greater than the costs of any of our stimulus measures.

Besides, given that we are still struggling to keep the economy afloat, our bias right now should be toward doing too much rather than doing too little, which necessarily means further deficit spending.

A Brief Defense of Mr. Freeze

As much as I am excited about the third Batman movie, this — from io9′s Meredith Woerner — annoys me:

I think we all saw this coming, but it doesn’t make it any less sad. Still, at least here you have a team of people that know when to say when, and really care enough about the characters to end a saga before it drives itself into the mud, Spider-Man style. Also, it sounds like all of the surviving characters are coming back, possibly including the Joker, though there was no way Nolan was revealing who would replace the late great Heath Ledger, and whether the Joker would be back indefinitely. But he did promise no Mr. Freeze — and we thank him for that. [Emphasis mine]

Mr. Freeze gets a lot of hate, and on some level, it’s deserved. He has never been a particularly threatening member of Batman’s rogues gallery, and I can’t recall a single comic where he’s been used effectively. What’s more, the Joel Schumacher/Arnold Schwarzenegger version of the character was a particularly terrible element of an embarrassingly terrible movie (though, admittedly, I will always enjoy yelling “Chill!” on cold days).

The unfortunate thing about this Freeze-hate is that it takes away from the few genuinely good portrayals of Mr. Freeze, most of which come by way of Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Batman: the Animated Series. The first season episode “Heart of Ice” won an Emmy for its surprisingly nuanced portrayal of Mr. Freeze, and its sequel — the feature-length film “Sub-Zero” — was similarly acclaimed for its further exploration of the character.

In both, Timm and Dini depict a sorrowful, ruthless Victor Fries, who has surrendered his life to the all-consuming goal of finding a cure for his wife’s illness. Fries is malevolent, yes, but that same malevolence conceals a core decency that Batman acknowledges and at times, exploits. It is a credit to their skill as storytellers that Timm and Dini are able to take a silly relic of Batman’s history and reinvent him as a sympathetic and genuinely threatening villain.

Mr. Freeze probably doesn’t belong in the Nolan-verse, where realism is the chief concern. But there is still a lot of potential in Timm and Dini’s Mr. Freeze, and I hope that someone takes advantage of it.

America: awkwardly pushing sanctions even when they probably won’t work

So it seems that the Senate has unanimously passed a modified Iran Sanctions bill, and plans to conference with the House in order to hash out the differences.

Not to endlessly rehash this, but this it’s pretty clear — from years of experience — that sanctions are a particularly ineffective means of inducing coercion. Especially if our long-term goal is to induce regime change in an authoritarian country. As I wrote not too long ago:

…sanctions are far more likely to strengthen the hand of the ruling class, either through strengthening their control over the distribution of resources (as was the case in Iraq), by providing a convenient scapegoat, or by heightening nationalistic sentiment. In all likelihood, ordinary Iranians will focus their ire on the UN and the United States for the sanctions, not their own government.

Beyond that, it is hilarious (as well as worryingly arrogant) to think that there is anything we could to do to move Iran off of its path to nuclear weapons. The strategic benefits of a nuclear weapon notwithstanding (power projection!), the mere ability to produce a nuclear weapon is a point of national pride, and mostly explains why even the “Green” reformers are firmly in favor of pursuing a nuclear program. The reality is that vanishingly few Iranians are in favor of abandoning nuclear technology, and there is very little we can do to convince them otherwise.

It’s also worth considering this: the United States has an extraordinary amount of leverage over Israel, in the form of political, economic and military support. But even with the deck stacked completely in our favor, the Obama administration has had little success in pushing Israel to abandon further settlement construction. Given we can’t even make our allies fall in line with our goals, what exactly makes us think that we would have any success with our adversaries?