Saturday, April 23, 2005

Health report Ezra Klein has a series on The Health of Nations, which compares the various healthcare systems in various countries (and compares them to the US). He also links to a post by Matthew Holt about Canadian healthcare which shows (about a third of the way through) that the idea that Canadians cross the border to the US in great numbers to get healthcare is a myth. [The Sideshow] 7:58:45 PM     Signs Stir Concern North Korea Might Test Nuclear Bomb. Glenn Kessler | April 23 | WaPo - U.S. officials are increasingly concerned that North Korea may be preparing its first test of a nuclear weapon, though they warn that the information is sketchy and not definitive. [The Agonist] 7:57:33 PM     Jim Wallis Joins Us in Louisville. Louisville, KY -- There's so much excitement here about Louisville's pro-Democracy versus pro-theocracy religious Sunday, April 24 rallies that tonight they're having the world's largest fireworks display, Thunder Over Louisville. Okay, so the fireworks have something to do with a little upcoming event called the Kentucky Derby. Still, the fireworks are coming on the eve of the DriveDemocracy/Clergy and Laity Network rally (at 2:30, Central Presbyterian Church) and the Frist/Dobson Family Research Council telethon Sunday night from a nearby megachurch. Jim Wallis is coming to our progressive clergy event. He'll join the roster of religious leaders speaking out against the right wing attacks on the judiciary and the constitution. [BOPnews] 7:55:30 PM     Extremist Sunday. Tomorrow in Louisville Senator Frist and his allies will demonstrate a level of blatant extremism and hate that one thought had been removed from respectable discourse in our country. Now we find it embraced by the Republican Leader of the Senate. Frank Rich has some thoughts: The fraudulence of "Justice Sunday" begins but does not end with its sham claims to solidarity with the civil rights movement of that era. "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias," says the flier for tonight's show, "and now it is being used against people of faith." In truth, Bush judicial nominees have been approved in exactly the same numbers as were Clinton second-term nominees. Of the 13 federal appeals courts, 10 already have a majority of Republican appointees. So does the Supreme Court. It's a lie to argue, as Tom DeLay did last week, that such a judiciary is the "left's last legislative body," and that Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, is the poster child for "outrageous" judicial overreach. Our courts are as highly populated by Republicans as the other two branches of government. The "Justice Sunday" mob is also lying when it claims to despise activist judges as a matter of principle. Only weeks ago it was desperately seeking activist judges who might intervene in the Terri Schiavo case as boldly as Scalia & Co. had in Bush v. Gore. The real "Justice Sunday" agenda lies elsewhere. As Bill Maher summed it up for Jay Leno on the "Tonight" show last week: " 'Activist judges' is a code word for gay." The judges being verbally tarred and feathered are those who have decriminalized gay sex (in a Supreme Court decision written by Justice Kennedy) as they once did abortion and who countenance marriage rights for same-sex couples. This is the animus that dares not speak its name tonight. To paraphrase the "Justice Sunday" flier, now it's the anti-filibuster campaign that is being abused to protect bias, this time against gay people. Anyone who doesn't get with this program, starting with all Democrats, is damned as a bigoted enemy of "people of faith." But "people of faith," as used by the event's organizers, is another duplicitous locution; it's a code word for only one specific and exclusionary brand of Christianity. The trade organization representing tonight's presenters, National Religious Broadcasters, requires its members to "sign a distinctly evangelical statement of faith that would probably exclude most Catholics and certainly all Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist programmers," according to the magazine Broadcasting & Cable. The only major religious leader involved with "Justice Sunday," R. Albert Mohler Jr. of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has not only called the papacy a "false and unbiblical office" but also told Terry Gross on NPR two years ago that "any belief system" leading "away from the cross of Christ and toward another way of ultimate meaning, is, indeed, wicked and evil." Hateful lying extremist bigots embraced by the Republican Party. The mask comes off.  [Daily Kos] 7:55:03 PM     JoBo on NoKo: Uh-Oh!. Via Laura Rozen, we learn thatThe WSJ reports that the US believes North Korea could be preparing a nuclear test. It has asked China to pressure North Korea to prevent it.Not to put too fine a point on it, but... [Ezra Klein] 11:05:34 AM     There is no excuse. This Foreign Policy article by Tina Rosenberg explodes a lot of conventional wisdom about AIDS, and is well worth reading in its entireity. However, what  really surprised me was the fact that patients in poor countries are much, much, better... [Ezra Klein] 11:04:30 AM     Hot blogs . From TChris at TalkLeft, Anatomy of a Wrongful Conviction: Anthony Woods was behind bars for 18 years. Add his name to the growing list of innocent defendants who were convicted and sentenced on the basis of a mistaken identification. Woods' innocence was determined on the basis of a DNA test. Over at Tapped, Matt Yglesias picks up on a Mark Kleiman's "schadenfreude at GM's expense" over the fact that GM's problems are directly due to the absence of a national health care plan - one they fought against when they had a chance to support it. Matt says it's got a lot to do with the fact that the bosses at the top of corporations don't suffer the consequences of the damage they do to their companies. And from Jeffrey Dubner, also at Tapped, a pointer to coverage at Whatever Already! of the latest in the investigation of the exposure of Valerie Plame's identity as a clandestine operative of the CIA. NTodd has a post up at Suburban Guerrilla with an additional reason to be furious about the Santorum weather-info bill that would charge him for information that he gives them for free. (Also, Maya lets her imagination run wild, and Susan provides a gorgeous sunset. Oh, and it's gonna take time.) 11:01:16 AM     VT-Sen: Sanders for Senate. Word out of DC is that the Democrats won't run a challenger for the open Vermont Senate seat, clearing the field for the independent Bernie Sanders. There is no one in Vermont as popular as Sanders. And while Bush and Rove pressure Republican Governor Jim Douglas to enter the fray (the only Republican with a hint of a chance), Douglas isn't suicidal. Or stupid. A split three-way race would've made things interesting. As is, Sanders should sweep in with hardly a bat of an eye. But with no Democratic candidate, we should be home free. Remember, Vermont has a single House seat, so Sanders has won statewide race after statewide race with nary a problem. [Daily Kos] 10:59:42 AM     Oh, give me a break... Top brass cleared over Iraq abuse.  "It only serves to underscore the desperate need for an independent investigation" ~ Alistair HodgettAmnesty International Top brass cleared over Iraq abuseApril 23 BBC - Former commander of US troops in Iraq Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez has been cleared over abuses at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. A new inquiry found no evidence of wrongdoing by Gen Sanchez and three of his top aides, US officials say. The US Army inspector general's report says only Brig Gen Janis Karpinski, commander at the jail, has been found guilty and reprimanded over the abuse. This article is posted under fair use rules in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and is strictly for the educational and informative purposes of our readers.  [The Agonist] 10:59:03 AM     Right-wing lies exposed: The final report on Terri Schiavo. Guest Post by Morbo Here's a follow-up to last week's post about attorney David C. Gibbs III and his accusations against Michael Schiavo. Last week, the Florida Department of Children and Families issued a report finding that none of the 89 complaints of abuse levied against Michael Schiavo since 2001 is credible. According to a report in the [...] [The Carpetbagger Report] 9:04:35 AM     JOURNAL: The Salvador Option. As anticipated by this author, the DoD is now debating the broad use of loyalist paramilitaries in Iraq.  Newsweek reports on this active debate.  As the senior officer who leaked to Newsweek stated, "We have to find a way to... [Global Guerrillas] 8:58:45 AM     American landscape . Chuck Currie has a report on the teleconference in which religious leaders called Bill-the-cat-killer Frist and told him they "take issue with this cynical attempt to manipulate Christian faith for political ends." The blander NYT version, Frist Draws Criticism From Some Church Leaders, is still pretty exciting. It's about time mainstream religious leaders stood up to this crap.   8:56:52 AM     Stone Wheels. Schubert set his tragic song cycle Die Schöne Mullerin at a mill, where the brook that drove the wheels becomes an implacable force of destiny, finally consuming the love struck hero in his suicide. This is the simple moral of this time: that the stone wheels that are grinding America down are driven by deep implacable forces. There have been many books that have looked at the ills of American Politics, many are deeply cogent and worthy of serious attention, but they have not understood the relationship between culture and economics which binds us in place. There is no abstraction involved, but instead a belief that we have gotten the society that we created incentives for. It is clear that much of America is in denial, in denial about the massive collapse of our economic system that is in progress, from a dizzying peak of 2000, we have borrowed and devalued our currency to hold some semblance of normalcy. We are puzzled why the job engine has not reignited. There are a host of obvious changes, however, they never seem to be on the table. Instead, corporate tax breaks come up with maddening predictability. Most people have assumed that they just have to get by as best as they can. They check gas prices and how much month they have left at the end of their money, and hope for better days. [BOPnews] 8:54:47 AM     Bush Hates the Middle Class. Yes, Bolton is an idiot. Yes, the right’s use of religion to demonize Democrats who vote against Bush’s judicial nominees is horrible. But, these issues don’t compare to the plight of middle America. Bush’s economic policies have hammered the middle class on a regular basis for the last 4 years. Thanks to Bush, we have the following problems. He loves to talk about how he has created jobs. Really? Let’s see how Bush’s record looks. Economists generally agree the economy needs to create 150,000/month to keep up with population changes, lost jobs etc…. Since 2001, there are only 5 months when the economy created more than 150,000 jobs – March, April, May and October 2004 and February 2005. In other words, we are not creating jobs fast enough to absorb new and displaced workers. What a great job. This has lead to an increasingly smaller percentage of the population being employed. In 2000, 64.4% of the population was employed. That percentage has dropped to 62.3% in 2004. In other words, the number of people working as a percentage of the total US population is decreasing. This leads to poor wage growth because employers can essentially say to prospective employees, “I can get someone who will do the job for lower wages.” Wages grew 3.1% in 2002, 1.7% in 2003 and 2.3% in 2004. Compare this wage growth to inflation, which increased 1.9% in 2002, 2% in 2003 and 2.3% in 2004. In other words, wages rose below the rate on inflation for the past 2 years. In other words, the average worker is making less money for the last 2 years. So, let’s recap. The US economy is creating jobs at a rate below what is necessary to absorb new entrants into the labor force. As a result, a smaller percentage of Americans are actually working. As a result, workers don’t have the negotiating leverage to ask for a raise. In addition, their wages are growing slower than inflation. IT’S STILL THE ECONOMY, STUPID. [BOPnews] 8:54:06 AM

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