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Archive for August 11th, 2009

Looking for Great ‘Big History’ Books

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:45 am by HL

Looking for Great ‘Big History’ Books
My late friend Ron Silver, the actor and political activist, once asked me a question that I have continued to think about ever since. On the afternoon of his last New Year’s Eve, when he surprised me by coming to California, he wanted to know if I had found any great “big history” books. READ THE WHOLE ITEM

Library of Congress interior

By John Dean

My late friend Ron Silver, the actor and political activist, once asked me a question that I have continued to think about ever since. On the afternoon of his last New Year’s Eve, when he surprised me by coming to California, he wanted to know if I had found any great “big history” books.

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

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AKMuckraker: Alaska Legislature Votes to Accept Palin’s Rejected Stimulus Funds

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:44 am by HL

AKMuckraker: Alaska Legislature Votes to Accept Palin’s Rejected Stimulus Funds
Sarah Palin’s rejection of almost $29 million in federal stimulus money designated for energy efficiency projects was overturned today in a special session of the Alaska State Legislature.

Arianna Huffington: Is Health Care Reform About to Go the Way of No Child Left Behind?
The White House has now shown itself willing to cave on the two essential elements of real health care reform — drug price negotiations and having a public option. Giving us health care reform without those key ingredients is like serving a PBJ sandwich without the peanut butter or the jelly. This white-bread-only reform makes no sense practically — or politically. Health care reform that doesn’t contain costs is destined to fail — arming the GOP with a powerful “I told you so” cudgel to swing in 2010 and 2012. Also destined to fail is health care reform that doesn’t include a serious commitment to prevention, which is why we are delighted to welcome as our Medical Editor Dr. Dean Ornish, a pioneer in preventative medicine.

Kathleen Reardon: The “Death Panel” Already Exists!
When acutely and chronically ill people are unable to purchase medicine because of exorbitant prices, pharmaceutical death panels have spoken.

Charles London: The Congolese Need More Than Moral Outrage and New Technology from Hillary Clinton
It’s an exciting idea for the State Department: give people the tools and they, like the protesters in Iran, will solve our foreign policy dilemmas. But will it work?

Frank Naif: CIA Director Panetta: reform suffers for Bush apparatchiks and spy chiefs
CIA Director Leon Panetta wants the world to know: he is on a mission is to promote the agenda of top-level intelligence chiefs and former…


Fox News personalities advance Palin’s “death panel” claim

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:43 am by HL

Fox News personalities advance Palin’s “death panel” claim

In a Facebook posting, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin claimed that under Democratic health care reform, “Obama’s ‘death panel’ ” would “decide” whether her parents or her son Trig, who has Down syndrome, were “worthy of health care.” Since then, several Fox News anchors, hosts, and contributors have adopted Palin’s “death panel” term or advanced or expressed support for her assertion — which is based on the widely debunked claim that the House health care reform bill would require end-of-life counseling — while others have termed it “crazy” or “over the top.”

Palin’s claim based on debunked end-of-life counseling myth

Palin suggested that under Democratic health care reform, “[M]y baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ ”

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Health care by definition involves life and death decisions. Human rights and human dignity must be at the center of any health care discussion. [Sarah Palin Facebook post, 8/7/09]

Palin’s spokesperson reportedly said Palin’s assertion was a reference to House bill’s “Advance Care Planning Consultation” provision. On his blog, ABC’s Jake Tapper reported:

Asked specifically what the former governor was referring to when painting a picture of an Obama “death panel” giving her parents or son Trig a thumbs up or down based on their productivity, Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton responded in an email: “From HR3200 p. 425 see ‘Advance Care Planning Consultation’.” [Political Punch, 8/7/09]

Provision Stapleton pointed to requires Medicare to cover voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions. Section 1233 of America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 — which includes “p. 425” — amends the Social Security Act to ensure that advance care planning will be covered if a patient requests it from a qualified care provider [America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, Sec. 1233]. According to an analysis of the bill produced by the three relevant House committees, the section “[p]rovides coverage for consultation between enrollees and practitioners to discuss orders for life-sustaining treatment. Instructs CMS to modify ‘Medicare & You’ handbook to incorporate information on end-of-life planning resources and to incorporate measures on advance care planning into the physician’s quality reporting initiative.” [waysandmeans.house.gov, accessed 7/29/09]

Numerous media conservatives have advanced myth that provision provides seniors mandatory counseling to end their lives. On July 16, former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey falsely claimed that the House health care reform bill would “absolutely require” end-of-life counseling for seniors “that will tell them how to end their life sooner.” Since then, numerous media figures — including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Rush Limbaugh — have echoed McCaughey’s claim — even after the falsehood was debunked and McCaughey herself backtracked.

Fox News personalities have advanced Palin’s “death panel” claim

Gingrich on Palin’s assertion: “[P]eople are very concerned” because “you’re asking us to trust the government.” Interviewing former House Speaker and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos cited Palin’s Facebook comment as an example of “opponents … spreading the idea that the president’s plan will encourage euthanasia,” even though “[t]he only thing in the bill is that it would allow Medicare to pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.” Gingrich responded, in part: “I think people are very concerned when you start talking about cost controls, that a bureaucracy — we don’t — you’re asking us to trust the government. Now, I’m not talking about the Obama administration. I’m talking about the government. You’re asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted. We know people who have said routinely, well, you’re going to have to make decisions. You’re going to have to decide. Communal standards, historically, is a very dangerous concept.” Gingrich later added, “[T]he bill’s 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You’re asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in — in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.” [ABC’s This Week, 8/09/09]

Malkin: “What death panels? Oh, yeah, those death panels.” Conservative columnist and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin wrote on her website: “Sarah Palin’s warning about the effects of Obamacare on the elderly and infirm have been met with derision and ridicule. William Jacobson has a good round-up. Meanwhile, the effects of socialized medicine in Britain — engineered by government-run cost-cutting panels on which Obamacare would be modeled — continue to wreak havoc on the elderly and infirm.” Malkin concluded, “Death panels? What death panels? Oh, yeah, those death panels.” [MichelleMalkin.com, 8/9/09]

Kilmeade adopts Palin’s “death panel” terminology to advance end-of-life care myth. On Fox News’ Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said, “[E]veryone’s talking about seniors, and they’re talking about the middle class and affordable health care. If the upper class is paying for the next two classes, and are seniors going to be in front of the death panel? And then just as you think, OK, that’s ridiculous, then you realize there’s provisions in there that seniors in the last lap of their life will be sitting there going to a panel possibly discussing what the best thing for them is.” [Fox & Friends, 8/10/09]

Beck on Palin’s “death panel” claim: “I believe it to be true.” On his radio show, Fox host Glenn Beck stated, “So, why is there no more discussion than there is on Sarah Palin and what she said over the weekend that there would be … [a] death panel for her son Trig. That’s quite a statement. I believe it to be true, but that’s quite a statement.” [The Glenn Beck Program, 8/10/09]

Napolitano called Palin’s claim “a legitimate concern from a fair reading of this bill.” On his Fox News Radio show, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano said:

NAPOLITANO: I mean, at first, I thought that Governor Palin was a little over the top over the weekend when she put on her Facebook the potential for panels of health care professionals from the government to talk to you about suicide and euthanasia. But if you read segments of this bill, the language is so loose, it allows the Department of Health and Human Services to set up panels of experts to advise doctors and patients on various things.

Think about it. If it’s federal money, the federal government can say, we’re not gonna give Grandma a new knee, or Grandma a new kidney. We’re just gonna give her painkillers. We’re gonna save that money for that knee or that kidney for somebody who’s 25 instead of somebody who’s 85. That is power that Americans have never conferred on the government. That was Governor Palin’s concern, and that is a legitimate concern from a fair reading of this bill, which most members of Congress have not done. [Brian & The Judge, 8/10/09]

Other conservatives have dismissed Palin’s claim

David Brooks: “That’s crazy.” On NBC’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory said to conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, “There is the rhetoric; there’s also the question of what’s true and what’s false in what people are arguing about this notion of a death panel.” Brooks responded, “Again, that’s crazy. If the — the crazies are attacking the plan because it’ll cut off granny, and that — that’s simply not true. That simply is not going to happen.” [Meet the Press, 8/9/09]

Larry Elder: Palin’s “death panel” comment is “over the top,” “irresponsible,” “incendiary.” Libertarian radio host Larry Elder said of Palin’s comment, “I don’t know what she was referring to; I suspect she was referring to one proposal that had a voluntary panel that would look at certain kinds of health care decisions. But to call it a death panel, I agree with Ron [Reagan], is over the top.” Asked whether “saying things like that takes away from the debate,” Elder replied: “I think any kind of irresponsible comment takes away from the real issue here, and that is whether or not you can provide universal coverage, high quality, at low cost. Any kind of incendiary comment takes away from that debate.” [CNN’s American Morning, 8/10/09]

From the August 10 edition of CNN’s American Morning:

KIRAN CHETRY (co-host): This is what Sarah Palin said — or wrote — “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s,” quote, “death panel.” She also called it “evil.” What is your reaction to what she said on Facebook?

RON REAGAN (radio host): You know, Sarah Palin only needs a red rubber nose and some exploding shoes, and she could go to work for Barnum and Bailey. The fact that we give this clown any time at all is shocking and silly and a little bit stupid. So, you know, I find that offensive, frankly, and Larry, it’s a perfect example of the sort of dishonesty that’s being peddled out there in this debate.

CHETRY: Larry, were you — what did you think of Sarah Palin’s comments?

ELDER: Well, I think, certainly, it is unfair to call her a clown and stupid.

REAGAN: Oh, I don’t think so.

ELDER: There are about four or five competing programs — competing programs in the Congress, and we don’t know what’s going to come out. So I don’t know what she was referring to; I suspect she was referring to one proposal that had a voluntary panel that would look at certain kinds of health care decisions. But to call it a death panel, I agree with Ron, is over the top — especially since we don’t know what’s going to come out of Congress, what’s going to come out of the House, what’s going to come out of the Senate, and then they have to reconcile the two bills when they do come out.

CHETRY: But I’m just saying, Larry, as a conservative —

ELDER: So we’re a long way to finding out what the details are.

CHETRY: As a conservative commentator, do you think that saying things like that takes away from the debate — just feeds into the argument on the other side that, at times, perhaps, people are greatly exaggerating what may or may not happen?

ELDER: I think any kind of irresponsible comment takes away from the real issue here, and that is whether or not you can provide universal coverage, high quality, at low cost. Any kind of incendiary comment takes away from that debate, just as throwing pies at people like Ann Coulter and my good friend David Horowitz and William Kristol takes away from their debate.

From the August 10 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:

GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): Every single member of Congress should be held to some sort of a level up here, and they should all be asked whether or not they have read this bill. If, in fact, this op-ed is true and it’s the most important domestic debate out there.

KILMEADE: It’s 17 percent of the economy, $2.4 trillion in costs are out there, and basically everyone’s talking about seniors, and they’re talking about the middle class and affordable health care. If the upper class is paying for the next two classes, and are seniors going to be in front of the death panel? And then just as you think, OK, that’s ridiculous, then you realize there’s provisions in there that seniors in the last lap of their life will be sitting there going to a panel —

STEVE DOOCY (co-host): Sure.

KILMEADE: — possibly discussing what the best thing for them is.

From the August 10 edition of Fox News Radio’s Brian & The Judge:  

NAPOLITANO: I mean, at first, I thought that Governor Palin was a little over the top over the weekend when she put on her Facebook the potential for panels of health care professionals from the government to talk to you about suicide and euthanasia. But if you read segments of this bill, the language is so loose, it allows the Department of Health and Human Services to set up panels of experts to advise doctors and patients on various things.

Think about it. If it’s federal money, the federal government can say, we’re not gonna give Grandma a new knee, or Grandma a new kidney. We’re just gonna give her painkillers. We’re gonna save that money for that knee or that kidney for somebody who’s 25 instead of somebody who’s 85. That is power that Americans have never conferred on the government. That was Governor Palin’s concern, and that is a legitimate concern from a fair reading of this bill, which most members of Congress have not done.

From the August 10 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program:  

BECK: So, why is there no more discussion than there is on Sarah Palin and what she said over the weekend that there would be death — what did she call it? — a death squad? Or a death —

STEVE “STU” BURGUIERE (executive producer): Death panel.

BECK: A death panel for her son Trig. That’s quite a statement. I believe it to be true, but that’s quite a statement. She also called health care this — Obama health care — “evil.” Did she not? Am I misquoting her, Pat?

PAT GRAY (radio host): Let’s see. I think she — yes, she did.

BECK: OK.

BURGUIERE: She did.

PAT GREY: Former — yeah, called health plan “downright evil.”

BECK: Downright evil.

PAT: Hm-mm.

BECK: That’s quite a statement. But, again, I believe — I believe she at least should be listened to and you should question, “Is it evil?” Would there be — what would make her say that there would be a death panel?

I mean, tomorrow on Fox at 5 o’clock, make sure you’re joining us, because we’ll ask some of those same questions. We will show you some of the reasons why you could read it this way. It’ll be up to you whether or not you find it credible enough to say, “Well, now, wait a minute. Those are really bad seeds that have been planted before. Maybe we shouldn’t plant those seeds.” But it’s up to you to decide.

From the August 9 edition of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos:  

STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the other claims being made about the bill, and it’s related to cost control, is — and opponents are spreading the idea that the president’s plan will encourage euthanasia.

Most recently, Sarah Palin, on her Facebook page yesterday — I think it was Friday night, actually — said, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

Now, as you know, Mr. Speaker, the president called that outlandish. He said —

GINGRICH: But why — why didn’t you put up what Dr. Zeke Emanuel said? Because Dr. Zeke Emanuel, who’s the chief adviser to the president and brother of the chief of staff, said, in writing —

STEPHANOPOULOS: He’s not the chief health care adviser. He’s written three articles between 1996 —

GINGRICH: OK.

STEPHANOPOULOS: — and 2008 that include some of those phrases —

GINGRICH: Include communal standards.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Those phrases appear nowhere in the bill.

GINGRICH: But you —

STEPHANOPOULOS: The only thing — but let me just explain what’s in the bill and then get you to respond to that.

GINGRICH: All right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The only thing in the bill is that it would allow Medicare to pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.

GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned when you start talking about cost controls, that a bureaucracy — we don’t — you’re asking us to trust the government. Now, I’m not talking about the Obama administration. I’m talking about the government. You’re asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted.

We know people who have said routinely, well, you’re going to have to make decisions. You’re going to have to decide. Communal standards, historically, is a very dangerous concept.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s not in the bill.

GINGRICH: But the bill’s — the bill’s 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You’re asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in — in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.

From the August 9 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press:  

GREGORY: David, Sarah — Sarah Palin on Facebook, to the point of the opposition, this is what she writes: “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide … whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

There is the rhetoric; there’s also the question of what’s true and what’s false in what people are arguing about this notion of a death panel.

BROOKS: Yeah. Again, that’s crazy. If the — the crazies are attacking the plan because it’ll cut off granny, and that — that’s simply not true. That simply is not going to happen. The real reason for public skepticism is that Obama very eloquently and very truthfully said, “We’ve got to bring down health care costs.” Everybody’s health care costs are rising. It’s eaten into your wages, it’s eaten into the budget, it’s eaten into everything. And the problem with the House plan is that instead of bending the cost curve down, it would increase the cost curve so inflation would be 8 percent a year when it’s all implemented, and that’s just a disaster.

So what the Obama administration has got to do, and I agree with Jon [Meacham] about this, is make this Obama-like; which is to say, “We’re going to produce a plan.” And from what I hear, by the end of this month, they will have a plan. And they are going to say, “This is what we stand for.” And you can’t sell anything without a plan. But it’s got to be a plan that actually cuts costs so you can have a rational discussion instead of the scare stories about cutting off Grandma.


Health Insurer Urged Employees To Fight Reform — “Our Livelihood” At Stake

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:42 am by HL

Health Insurer Urged Employees To Fight Reform — “Our Livelihood” At Stake
It looks like Express Scripts isn’t the only company that’s pressing its employees to take action in opposition to health-care reform. Last month, as the Post Standard of Syracuse, New York reports, David Klein, CEO of the health insurer Excellus…





Group Whose Name Was Signed To Forged Letter: ‘It’s Outright Deceit’
Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA), whose office has received eight letters forged by lobbyist firm Bonner and Associates, revealed the names of two more groups whose name was signed to the letters without their permission, the Washington Post reports. The two…


Parent-teacher conference

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:38 am by HL

Parent-teacher conference


GOP Rebranding Effort Fizzles

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:37 am by HL

GOP Rebranding Effort Fizzles
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) “generated the kind of buzz other politicians covet when he launched his bid to help rebrand the Republican Party last spring,” Politico reports.

But his National Council for a New America “has since flamed out — at least publicly.”

“Since its launch, the National Council hasn’t held a single public event, despite more than 5,000 invitations to take their show out on the road. Congressional ethics rules limit what Cantor can do with the group because he launched it from his leadership office, making it harder to organize events and recruit partners. Despite that caution, the group is still taking heat from outside watchdog groups that argue he is violating the spirit, and perhaps the letter, of those rules.”


Why Men Need to Get Over Their Femiphobia — Fear and Disdain of the Female

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:36 am by HL

Why Men Need to Get Over Their Femiphobia — Fear and Disdain of the Female

The author argues in his book excerpt that a "great deal of the nation’s gender problem has to do with how men think about women."

Why Corporations, Emerging Powers and Petro-States Are Snapping Up Huge Chunks of Farmland in the Developing World

In the past six months, big players in the global economy have grabbed 50 million acres of arable land, from Africa to Southeast Asia.

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs Enflame Scary Right-Wing Rage

The conservative playbook has been laid bare, and it's ugly. How long until their overheated rhetoric spills over into violence?

Rape Victims Charged Up to $1,200 for Rape Kits

Rape is not something you should budget for. Yet some rape victims, unlike victims of other crimes, have to pay for basic evidence collection.


And Then There’s This

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:35 am by HL

And Then There’s This
Bill Wasik joins us this week at Cafe for a discussion of And Then There’s This: How Stories Live And Die In Viral Culture. Cafe readers are no strangers to the best and worst of internet memes, and Wasik’s breakdown…


Sponsored Topics: Bill WasikFlash mobBookArtsNew York City

Introducing the ‘Nanostory’
Thanks so much to TPM for hosting this discussion about my new book, And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture. In its (admittedly eccentric) mix of first-person reporting, experimental stunts, and honest-to-God social science,…


Sponsored Topics: Social sciencesTrusted Platform ModuleAl GorePoliticsUnited States

Five Things We Can Do to Reduce Poverty
This week there’s been discussion about rising trends in poverty, the fragility of the safety net, the possibilities and limits of social enterprise, and obstacles to reducing poverty. Despite the challenges ahead, I think it’s important to recognize there…


Sponsored Topics: PovertySocial safety netSocial enterprisePhilanthropyTPMCafe Book Club


ThinkFast: August 10, 2009

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:34 am by HL

ThinkFast: August 10, 2009
Offering the first personal account of “his dramatic rescue of two jailed journalists from North Korea,” former President Bill Clinton said, “I was asked to do a job. I did it to the best of my ability.” Clinton added that he did not want “to say anything that could in any way play any role […]

Bill Clinton returns from North Korea with detained journalists

Offering the first personal account of “his dramatic rescue of two jailed journalists from North Korea,” former President Bill Clinton said, “I was asked to do a job. I did it to the best of my ability.” Clinton added that he did not want “to say anything that could in any way play any role in the maximum freedom that I want my President and our government and the national security team to have in charting the way forward.”

A new group of upper-income earners calling itself Wealth for the Common Good is launching a public campaign calling for a rollback of the Bush tax cuts on the highest tax bracket. The group says that rather than waiting for the tax cuts to expire in 2011, that Congress should repeal them now.

The White House is introducing a new health care website today that “debunks some common myths” and provides visitors “with online tools and content to share the facts with friends, family and anyone else in your social network.” Check it out here.

In a USA Today op-ed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) condemn the “ugly campaign” this August to “to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.” “Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American,” write the two House leaders.

Wall Street “banks have become so eager to lure and keep top deal makers and traders that they are reviving the practice of offering ironclad, multimillion-dollar payouts — guaranteed, no matter how an employee performs.” The Obama administration’s pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, has privately met with executives and urged them to “voluntarily rework any guarantees for big earners.”

Four bombs exploded this morning in Baghdad and Mosul, killing nearly 50 people and injuring more than 200. The first attack took place in Mosul in a Shiite neighborhood while the second occurred two hours later in Baghdad where day laborers gathered. More than 50 were killed Friday in bombings in Baghdad and Mosul.

Anthony Cordesman, an adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is calling for the United States to send up to 45,000 extra troops to Afghanistan. “Nato must change its strategy and tactics after years in which member countries, particularly the United States, failed to react to the seriousness of the emerging insurgency,” Cordesman wrote.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said that he would be willing to forgo a public health insurance option in order pass health reform. Durbin told ThinkProgress last week that he would “reluctantly” support such a course. Also, last Friday, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) told Bill Press that she supports a public plan.

The Center for American Progress Action Fund is hosting a clean energy summit in Las Vegas today. Participants include former President Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and many others.

Recent Gallup polls have found that Americans are “cooling to global warming.” Forty-one percent say global warming is exaggerated, up from 35 percent last year. Global warming “placed last among eight environmental concerns…with water pollution landing the top spot.” And for the first time in 25 years, “more Americans care about economic growth than the environment.”

And finally: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) keeps the Twitter hits coming. In June, Grassley got widely-mocked for a series of nonsensical tweets attacking President Obama. Now, the senator is using his unique 140 character phrasing again to promote the Wyden-Bennett health care bill by saying, “There is one bipartisan_Wyden-Bennett GiveLookSe.”

Follow ThinkProgress on Twitter.


President Obama Holds a News Conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on August 11th, 2009 4:33 am by HL

President Obama Holds a News Conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
MEXICAN PRESIDENT FELIPE CALDERON (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Right Honorable Mr. Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada, Right Honorable Mr. Barack Obama, president of the United States of America, ladies and gentlemen, representatives of the media, national as well as international, the leaders fro…


The Fix: Breaking Down Crist’s Pick for Senate
Florida Sen. Mel Martinez’s (R-Fla.) surprise resignation announcement on Friday has put Gov. Charlie Crist (R) in the hot seat as he must pick a replacement to fill out the remainder of Martinez’s term.

Transcript: Voices of Power with Van Jones
INTERVIEW WITH VAN JONES, special adviser on green jobs to the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Ailing States Face Bleak Outlook in Next Fiscal Year
NEW YORK — As states across the country grapple with the worst economy in decades, most have cut services, forced workers to take unpaid days off, shut offices several days a month and scrambled to find new sources of revenue.

White House Decries Physicians Committee’s Poster, Which Mentions Obama Girls
The posters went up last week, 14 in Union Station. On each of the large displays, a thought bubble rises up from a picture of a beautiful 8-year-old: “President Obama’s daughters get healthy school lunches. Why don’t I?”