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I've been seeing a number of op-eds in recent defense journals that have a slightly hysterical, paranoid perspective on the "dangers" of health care reform. The authors of these articles are terrified that mounting costs of health care are going to impinge on the defense budget. Democrat attempts to give all Americans insurance may increase overall health care costs. As a result, a weakened America will be just wide-open to attack by terrorists and China and who knows what else. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's Harvey Sapolsky, a defense academic out of MIT, talking in the National Defense journal.

The defense spending squeeze is on and will become more constricted by health care reform. It is not apples and oranges. About half of the United States’ health care costs appear on the federal government’s budget, which directly affects revenues and expenditures. European nations plead poverty when it comes to funding their militaries in large part because of the squeeze of social spending (including health care). They spend a smaller, though rising, share of their GDPs on health than does the United States, but more of that spending is direct government expenditure.

If heath care can’t be made more efficient and if access to health care can’t be limited, the only alternative is more revenue. Perhaps taxes will be raised. Some will be increased, but not likely enough to cover rising health expenditures. Democrats promise to only tax the rich. But, as the rich know, tax laws have loopholes. Republicans have run for years on a tax-cutting platform. The way to get revenue is to tax the middle class who are many and who are not as fleet of foot as the rich. But both Republicans and Democrats constantly say the middle class is the victim of everything, and surely overtaxed. Running up the deficit is an alternative, but the wars, the stimulus plan and the bailouts have already done that. The cries for controlling spending are already being heard.

The revenue for more health care exists in the form of defense expenditures, which have doubled since 9/11. The billions needed for reforming health will likely come, in one way or another, from cuts in defense spending. Personnel reductions will be hard to make because of the burdens that Iraq and Afghanistan deployments place on U.S. forces. Fewer and fewer aircraft and ships will be bought. There will also be less training and more restrictions on operations with and for allies. America has a powerful military that will take a while to unravel, but unravel it will. The nation’s defense budget is about to tangle with a really dangerous adversary.

Sapolsky's article is actually one of the more sane pieces that I've read. He at least argues for the urgent need for health care reform, least its uncontrolled growth threaten defense spending. He does note that the defense budget has become an attractive target because of its enormous, unchecked growth (you rob banks because that's where the money is). But I think that he (and others) suffer under a number of false assumptions - notably, that health care costs cannot be restrained, the general perception that the defense budget has grown too large, Democrats like health care and hate the military, therefore, the defense budget will suffer cuts to allow the continued growth of health care.

However, the conclusion is limited by its bad assumptions. There is no question that the health care industry can use a healthy dose (no pun intended) of reform, and Medicare/Medicaid will eventually need to be examined in depth as well for reform. Maybe every senior citizen doesn't need a motorized wheelchair (gasp!). Similarly, the need for defense acquisition reform is well documented, despite numerous failed attempts to correct bad practices and to encourage the services to moderate their demands for high-tech, gold-plated defense platforms.

The challenge is that any reforms to either health care or the defense acquisition processes will impact Big Business hard, and it has gotten fat and happy over the past decade. With the recent Supreme Court decision allowing Big Business to buy politicians, it's going to be increasingly hard to reform either health care or defense acquisition. Not that it was easy now - with the Republican party of "NO," continued obstructionism in Congress will ensure that no tough decisions are made - rather, the politicians will favor incremental steps towards reform as long as they are firewalled from blame or implication to any budget cuts.

The cries of doom from the defense journal op-eds are misguided. No one is going to cut defense funds until the pace of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq changes to allow for a drawdown on operational spending. That doesn't involve any changes to the ridiculously out-of-control acquisition process, unfortunately, but that makes it easy for both Democrats and Republicans. Similarly, no one is going to seriously address mounting health care costs as long as there is no change in willingness to add debt to the federal deficit. I used to hope that a new generation of politicians, replacing the grey, old white men in the House and Senate, might cause change, but that's probably too optimistic.

El Rushbo (via The Hill):

"I'll just tell you this, if [the health care bill] passes, and it's five years from now and all that stuff gets implemented, I am leaving the country," he told a caller. "I'll go to Costa Rica."

Could there be a better incentive than this? C'mon Dems, what the hell are you waiting for?

By the way, if Rush's hyperbole isn't enough, he's hypocritical too (surprise!). Because, as I'm sure you may have guessed, Costa Rica offers Universal Health Care and ranked higher than the United States for their health care.

If you're a Facebooker, you're welcome to join 1,000,000 Facebookers To Promote Rush Limbaugh's Exodus From The USA. (UPDATE: Delinked as they've shut down the group)

Washington Post's Ezra Klein explains the reconciliation process that Democrats need to pass health care reform and what Republicans can do to drag it out.

Stephen Colbert opines that Americans don't want health care reform jammed down their throats - "unless it's first battered and deep fat-fried."

I really don't know what's going on with Eric Massa, but I'm concerned about him. In the space of less than two weeks, we hear news that he's will not seek re-election because of a recurrence of cancer, then we hear that he's under the cloud of an ethics investigation for sexual harassment (which he at the time termed for "salty language"). Then he decides to resign altogether from the House, claiming he's being pushed out by his fellow Democrats because of his vote on the health care reform, most notably in a odd (and naked) confrontation with Rahm Emanuel.

I don't really want to get into the prurient details of the ethics investigation or the allegations that came out today. I don't really care about Massa's sexuality one way or the other. He's sponsored no anti-gay legislation; in fact, he's been at the forefront of repealing DADT. So as far as I'm concerned, there's no hypocrisy there, as there is with Roy Ashburn. Howie Klein has written an account on both politicians, putting it into the context of his own experiences, and I don't think I could state it better.

But what I am concerned about is that Massa--clearly reeling and hurting and lashing out--has agreed to appear for the whole hour on Glenn Beck to condemn the Democratic Party.

I'm not sure if Massa is aware of how much disdain Glenn Beck holds him in, comparing him to a terrorist this morning:

And Beck isn't the only one:

Conservatives are already turning on Massa in advance of the Beck interview. Michelle Malkin trashed Beck on his own radio show Tuesday for asking Massa on, while Rush Limbaugh dismissed Massa as a no-name "kook" on his broadcast Tuesday, warning, "Anybody who embraces this guy is going to get caught."

I wonder if Democrats will ever learn that with this gang of right-wing extremists, cooperation is weakness. This story from Think Progress is just appalling:

During his reign as Senate Minority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has led his party to engage in an unprecedented level of obstruction — wielding the filibuster to block even routine bills and nominations while simultaneously lying about his own previous support of majority rule in the Senate. No one has fared worse under McConnell’s blanket obstructionism than President Obama’s nominees to key government positions, ambassadorships and judgeships. A massive 237 Obama nominees presently await Senate confirmation, yet Mitch McConnell has done nearly everything in his power to ensure that Obama’s nominees will never even receive a Senate vote.

Because the government includes several agencies and boards whose members are required by law to be bipartisan, however, the party-out-of-power’s Senate leader traditionally gets to make a few nominations of his own. One such McConnell nominee is Sharon Browne, a nominee to the Legal Services Corporation’s board who fundamentally disagrees with the Corporation’s mission of providing legal services to the poor. Browne has spent most of her career with a right-wing litigation shop that repeatedly fought to cut off funding for indigent legal services; and she was a plaintiff in a court case which claimed that a method of funding legal services for poor Californians violated that state’s law. In other words, McConnell has selected someone to help lead the Legal Services Corporation who is committed to destroying the Legal Services Corporation.

Yet despite Browne’s obvious unfitness for this job, and despite the fact that her patron has fought tooth and nail to prevent President Obama’s nominees from even receiving a Senate vote, Senate HELP Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) scheduled a committee vote on Browne’s nomination this Wednesday. Not one Democratic senator has taken a serious step to slow down Browne — such as placing a hold on the nomination — and she appears to be on track for confirmation.

Call Sen. Harkin's office at (202) 224-3254 and ask why Democrats are allowing the appointment of someone who wants to destroy the agency to which she's nominated.

Rachel Maddow spent the better part of her show recapping her coverage of the health care bill debate and how the Democrats allowing the bill to be delayed in Max Baucus' Finance Committee while they tried to get Queen Olympia Snowe to play nice with them opened the door to the likes of Dick Armey and the rest of the astroturf groups to organize well enough to start disrupting the town hall meetings. And then from there for the Republicans to mislead the public with every ounce of mud they could throw against the wall from death panels to cries of socialism.

You can watch the rest of the segments from the Playlist button in the MSNBC embed player once it starts playing.

I keep talking to people about this, and they keep responding, "Oh, Obama probably did it because they don't have enough evidence to win in civilian court." And that's not true, and it's not even the point. The point is, George W. Bush pushed the dangerous idea that the 9/11 attacks were acts of terror by states, not individuals - and that was the rationale for invading Iraq. Trying the 9/11 attackers in military tribunals is saying the Bush-Cheney doctrine was right, and lays the groundwork for bipartisan support of pre-emptive attacks:

The Justice Department's restoration was among the most important tasks facing the Obama administration: The Bush administration's political appointees had dismantled the hiring practices that allowed career attorneys to make hiring decisions, and gave more weight to ideological conformity than legal expertise. The result was a Justice Department where incompetent ideologues with political interests in mind were given more power than career attorneys concerned with upholding the law. Michael Mukasey began the process of de-politicizing Justice after he replaced Alberto Gonzales; Eric Holder has continued it.

In light of this, I think Andrew Sullivan's observation of the conflict between Rahm Emanuel and Holder over the prosecution of the alleged September 11 conspirators is especially important:

But whatever your view, this must not, it seems to me, be a politicized decision. It should be a matter of justice. And to go from a Rove-driven Justice Department to an Emanuel-driven Justice Department is not the change most of us who supported Obama wanted to see. Or believe in.

I'm not interested in going from a Justice Department whose behavior is driven by Republican political interests to one whose behavior is driven by Democratic political interests. That's going nowhere at all. Retreating on the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court won't undo all the important changes the administration has made to the Justice Department, but it would reinforce the idea that the Department is a political fiefdom rather than an entity that exists to enforce the laws of the United States and secure the rights of its citizens.

A separate point is that Republicans won't budge on Gitmo anyway, no matter what Lindsey Graham says, so Emanuel's choice isn't even smart politics.

Three weeks ago, CBS 60 Minutes revealed Iran's continued success in acquiring sensitive, weapons-related U.S. technologies despite the American regime of sanctions. Now, the New York Times has documented a long list of multinational American companies receiving billions in federal contracts while they were doing business with Tehran.

If that seems like an ironic turn of events for right-wingers taking a hard line towards Iran, it should. After all, Mitt Romney's brief divestment crusade backfired when it turned out his old company was doing deals with the mullahs. And Halliburton CEO turned Vice President Dick Cheney was opposed to the Iran sanctions before he was for them.

Even as the Obama administration is seeking tougher UN sanctions to press Tehran into curbing its nuclear program, "of the 74 companies The Times identified as doing business with both the United States government and Iran, 49 continue to do business there with no announced plans to leave."

The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington's efforts to discourage investment there, records show.

That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.

Among the U.S. contractors also profiting from Iran was Halliburton, which pocketed $27.1 billion from American taxpayers between 2000 and 2009:

Halliburton, former Vice President Cheney's old company, provided oil and gas drilling services to Iran through foreign subsidies. After a political furor erupted over the work, the company announced it would do no new business in Iran, and it exited the country altogether in 2007. While still operating in Iran, Halliburton won huge contacts from the federal government, including a no-bid contract to restore Iraq's oil sector, as did its subsidiary at the time, Kellogg Brown & Root.

As Perrspectives detailed three years ago, Halliburton had side-stepped the U.S. sanctions regime in place against Iran since the 1990's by using a Cayman Islands subsidiary. And what should come as a surprise to no one, CEO Dick Cheney opposed those very sanctions until, of course, he became George W. Bush's Vice President.

In 2004, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes detailed the Iranian business dealings of Cheney's former company, Halliburton. Despite the prohibitions signed into law by President Clinton with his 1995 executive order and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996, Halliburton continued to reap the profits of business with Iran through its non-U.S. subsidiaries. While U.S. law bans virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, Halliburton was able to jump through its major loophole: the rules do not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. As CBS documented:

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands -- a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.

Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.

In the wake of the January 2004 60 Minutes piece, the company moved quickly to declare that "Halliburton's business in Iran is clearly permissible under applicable laws and regulations" and cited its October 2003 disclosures to the New York City police and fire pension funds. Despite those assurances, Dick Cheney's old firm was subpoenaed by a U.S grand jury in June 2004. In early 2005, Halliburton announced that it would end its business activities there when after fulfilling its ongoing contracts, including a $35 million gas drilling project it had just won the previous month. Halliburton's exit was completed in 2007.

Though he did not benefit directly from the Iran contracts of Halliburton's foreign-based subsidiaries, Cheney continued to have financial ties to his former firm. Despite Cheney's assurances that "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest," a 2003 report by the Congressional Research Service found that the Vice President retained 433,000 shares of Halliburton. In addition, Cheney received $162,392 and $205,298 in deferred payments in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

Given the stakes, it's no wonder Dick Cheney had a born-again experience on Iranian sanctions when he entered the Bush administration. While Vice President, Cheney in 2002 denounced Iran as "the world's leading exporter of terror." But during his tenure as Halliburton CEO in the 1990's, Cheney strenuously argued against Clinton's sanctions regime and expanded Halliburton's business with Tehran. In 1998, he complained that U.S. firms were "cut out of the action." And back in 1996, Cheney railed against the Clinton prohibitions on Iranian trade and financial activity for American firms:

"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government. The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments."

For his part, Dick Cheney never made tough but hypocritical talk about Iran sanctions part of a run for the White House. That comic fate fell to Mitt Romney.

Candidate Romney began his grandstanding on Iranian disinvestment by targeting the Democratic-controlled states of New York and Massachusetts. On February 22, 2007, Romney sent letters to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton as well as state comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli urging a policy of "strategic disinvestment from companies linked to the Iranian regime." Romney's theatrics continued:

"With your new responsibilities overseeing one of America's largest pension funds, you have a unique opportunity to lead an effort to isolate Iran as it pursues nuclear armament. I request that you immediately launch a policy of strategic disinvestment from companies linked to the Iranian regime. Screening pension investments and divesting from companies providing financial support to the Iranian regime or linked to Iran's weapons programs and terrorist activities could have a powerful impact. New investments should be scrutinized as long as Iran's regime continues its current, dangerous course."

Sadly for Governor Romney, as the AP detailed within 24 hours of the letter's publication, Romney's former employer and the company he founded had recent links to recent Iranian business deals:

Romney joined Boston-based Bain & Co., a management consulting firm, in 1978 and worked there until 1984. He was CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, from 1984 to 1999, despite a two-year return as Bain & Co.'s chief executive officer from 1991 to 1992.

Bain & Co. Italy, described in company literature as "the Italian branch of Bain & Co.," received a $2.3 million contract from the National Iranian Oil Co., in September 2004. Its task was to develop a master plan so NIOC -- the state oil company of Iran -- could become one of the world's top oil companies, according to Iranian and U.S. news accounts of the deal.

Bain Capital, the venture capital firm that Romney started and made him a multimillionaire, teamed up with the Haier Group, a Chinese appliance maker that has a factory in Iran, in an unsuccessful 2005 buyout effort.

In response to the revelations, Romney played dumb -- and blind. The former Massachusetts governor claimed his investments were in Boston-managed blind trust beyond his control. And more importantly, Romney feebly declared that his new-found distrust of the Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran would only apply going forward:

"This is something for now-forward. I wouldn't begin to say that people who, in the past, have been doing business with Iran, are subject to the same scrutiny as that which is going on from a prospective basis."

As the New York Times noted Saturday, the Iran Sanctions Act was also devised "to punish foreign companies that invest more than $20 million in a given year to develop Iran's oil and gas fields. But in the 14 years since the law was passed, the government has never enforced it, in part for fear of angering America's allies." Which, needless to say, has drawn the ire of one John Bolton. Bolton, American ambassador to the UN under George W. Bush, said:

Failing to enforce the law by punishing such companies both sent "a signal to the Iranians that we're not serious" and undercut Washington's credibility when it did threaten action.

Of course, as the Iran follies of Bolton's allies Dick Cheney and Mitt Romney showed, credibility begins at home.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

I know there has to be a lot of pressure on Dennis Kucinich to change his vote on the health care bill. So far he's standing firm and still says he's not going to vote for it. The other day I watched an interview with him on Fox and it sounded like he was considering changing his vote. He was asked at least five times if he would vote no and he refused to answer. After meeting with the administration, not so much. He just gave a pretty firm "no" here.

Sadly they look like they might be more willing to make sure abortion is illegal for poor women who can't self-insure than not have this mess pass. I'm about as disgusted as Susie is right now about this whole process. They should have just found out what they had the votes for in the Democratic caucus and got it passed and quit pussy-footing around with Republicans pretending like they're honest brokers when it comes to anything months ago and explained to the public why they thought it was better than what we have now and lived with the consequences if the public didn't like it. Instead all they've done is demoralize their base. And worse yet, they appear completely tone deaf about what they've done or they just don't care.

At this point I'm torn about whether it should pass or not. I think it's terrible for the Democrats politically if it doesn't. I don't know if the House can trust the Senate to make the fixes and the Republicans are going to try to stop the ones they're willing to make. And I'm not sure if the additional people being covered is worth the mandates and the lack of price controls. Dennis is absolutely right with his concerns on what the final product might be.

UPDATE: Per Chris Bowers, Rep. Jerry McNerney is joining Kucinich in voting no from the left.

Sadly, the larger meaning of this is completely lost on her fans:

Sarah Palin drew a straight line from Alaska to Alberta as she told a sold-out, largely adoring crowd in Calgary that the province gets her message of less government, lower taxes and development of natural resources.

In what was billed as her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska last summer, Ms. Palin's trademark folksy charm was on full display Saturday night.[..]

The vocal opponent of health-care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” she said. “And I think now, isn't that ironic?”

Well yes, Sarah, you could call it "ironic" that you feel no compunction about running across the border to avail yourself of the health care you fight and lie and propagandize against to keep your fellow Americans from enjoying. Or you could call it "grossly hypocritical." However, I prefer to think of it as "brainlessly missing the picture" and hoping to take a bunch a tea baggers down with you. If we indeed had "the best health care system in the world", why would anyone go to Canada?

Because it was free? Because you didn't need to decide whether the need for a doctor was important enough to pay the associated costs, even if it meant forgoing a few meals or a payment elsewhere? Because you felt you had a RIGHT to good health and the Canadian government agreed that it is in everyone's best interest?

Was the socialized medicine safety net of Canada frightening? Of course not. It was a social service that Palin used when she needed...even though she presumably paid no taxes into the Canadian system (remember how important it was to the GOP to make sure illegal immigrants couldn't milk the system).

But will any one of her fans or the nut case tea-baggers screaming about how Obama wants to turn us into some socialist state ever put two and two together and realize it's something we should aspire to?

Of course not.

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Isn't it interesting that Cokie Roberts spends her Monday morning segment on NPR talking about two admittedly disgraced Democrats who will not be holding their positions come Election Day.

Charlie Rangel and David Patterson are an admitted embarrassment to the Democrats. Rangel, like much of Congress, is long overdue for retirement, and Patterson's made such a mess of his career the sooner gone the better.

But why other than pure partisan hackery would Cokie Roberts spend her Monday morning spot talking about them and not mention that Ensign, Vitter, and Sanford still have jobs? Ensign paid off his mistress's family, Vitter was involved with a prostitute, and Sanford was MIA from his job for days on end. These guys still have the backing of their party? Family values much?

Cokie can always be counted on to live up to the old joke by Driftglass:

Dick Cheney is caught setting kittens on fire and throwing them at homeless veterans. What are the first three words out of Cokie Robert's mouth?

"But the Democrats..."

Next she'll be explaining how much Republican scandals help Mitt Romney. Sigh.

You may have been under the impression that we don't have a monarchy in this country, but apparently we do - especially if you're part of the Cheney gene pool:

Liz Cheney, a mother of five children, has become one of the sharpest and most outspoken critics of the new White House and has needled the Obama administration for failing to protect the nation against terrorism, and mollycoddling terror suspects while pursuing government lawyers who approved water-boarding, a method of inquisition she approves of. She called the president's Nobel Peace prize a "farce".

Pushed by friends and family, Ms Cheney is now reportedly contemplating a run for office herself either in Virginia, where she was raised, or in Wyoming, her parents' home state.

A former senior state department official on the Middle East, the 43-year-old has already attracted favourable comparisons with as a more substantive version of Sarah Palin, another conservative working mother.

"She's likely to seek office," was the judgment of Karl Rove, the former chief adviser to George W Bush.

"I'd love to see her run for office someday," said her father, 69, recently. "I think she's got a lot to offer, and it's been a great career for me, and if she has the interest, and I think she does, then I would like to see her embark upon a career in politics."
In 40 television appearances in the past year, Ms Cheney has robustly defended her father against criticism that he was the sinister force behind war on terror policies that subverted the norms of American justice, arguing that he and Mr Bush did nothing illegal and kept the country safe after 9/11.

Imagine that. She's been on TV forty times in the past year, for nothing more than her DNA and social connections. Yes, Marcy Wheeler calls her "Babydick" and points us to a piece in New York magazine about why NBC loves her so much:

Fox is a regular pulpit, of course, but Liz is also all over NBC, where she happens to be social friends with Meet the Press host David Gregory (whose wife worked with Liz ’s husband at the law firm Latham & Watkins), family friends with Justice Department reporter Pete Williams (Dick Cheney’s press aide when he was secretary of Defense), and neighborhood friends with Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, daughter of Carter-administration national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. When Mika criticized Dick Cheney on her show last year, the former vice-president sent her a box of chocolate cupcakes.

Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC pundit who engaged in a particularly testy shouting match on Good Morning America with Liz Cheney over waterboarding, says the networks have allowed her a high degree of control over her appearances. “She had up to that point been completely accustomed to having interviews go her way and ceded on her terms,” he observes. “She has been careful to make sure that the interviews worked that way.”

Marcy also reminds us that Cheney was her father's eyes and ears in the State Department:

What Hagan describes here, of course, is out and out insubordination (or rather, BabyDick’s insubordination layered on top of Bolton’s insubordination). But what he also makes clear is that not only was BabyDick wired into Bolton’s shop (and with it, discussions that would have revealed the genesis of Joe Wilson’s trip), but she also helped Wurmser accomplish his two-fold goal of thwarting State Department efforts to set up a broad-based Iraqi government (where OVP pressed Chalabi instead) and of setting up propaganda efforts–complete with their very own NYT shill, Judy Miller–to support claims they had found WMDs.

Not that that should be a surprise. But if you’re looking for news in this big [BJ] of an article, that’s one tidbit of it.

From The Today Show, Karl Rove tries to pretend he isn't just another Lee Atwater Republican dirty trickster while discussing his new book. He also continues to claim he had nothing to do with the whisper campaign against John McCain in South Carolina.

I guess Cheney and Bush are next with more of this turd polishing exercise from the Bush administration.

(Nicole:) Someone at Media Matters with a much stronger stomach than I got a copy of Rove's book and put it to the old reality test. Guess what? Pretty much an epic fail:

Karl Rove's forthcoming memoir Courage and Consequence purports to respond to critics by "putting the record straight," but Media Matters has found that Rove's book is full of falsehoods. Below is an ongoing list of Rove's misinformation in the book, which Media Matters obtained in advance of its scheduled release.

1. Rove distorts Senate report to claim Bush didn't "lie us into the war"

2. Rove falsehood: Obama claims "Obamacare would not add to the deficit ... evidence shows just the opposite"

3. Rove revives tired smear that Gore wrongly said "that he had created the Internet"

4. Rove revives Gore-Love Story smear

5. Rove falsehood: Gore said he had "discovered the Love Canal chemical disaster"

6. Rove pals around with falsehood that Ayers was "Obama's great friend"

7. Rove wrong on number of presidents who left office by "assassination or resignation"

Brookings Institution: A statement condemning the Cheney/Kristol infamy, signed by Bush White House, DOJ, and Pentagon attorneys. Even Ken Starr signed!

TBogg: Who's to blame when situations degenerate? Disgusting things you'd never anticipate

Economist's View:: Enough Already: Venting over four decades of right wing activism

Blue Heron Blast: Separate but unequal

Bildungblog: Senate's shiniest forehead attributed to daily use of Turtle Wax

HOLY CRAP: Beck: Nevermind Jesus...Home-schooled ignorance...Words from a prophet...Choir Boy Practice...Republican Jesus...The wretched of the earth...Arrested...God Blogs...Scientologists prominently dissed...The Week In God...Evil Condoms...Bad Form...Amazing Videos

Better hope you never need a real lawyer, Dick.

Open thread below...

Title: You've Lost That Loving FeelingArtist: Telly Savalas

The Telly Savalas version of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" does it for me. (h/t Nicole Belle)

We all get the Shatner and Nimoy stuff, so you can skip those, but what other music makes you go huh?

It's a music thread and everyone is invited.

Happy International Women's Day From Democracy Now -- International Women’s Day Marked Around the World:

Thousands of events are being held around the world to celebrate International Women’s Day, an idea that was launched 100 years ago when a group of women from seventeen countries gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to champion the rights of women. Activists across the globe are drawing attention to a variety of concerns, including discriminatory laws, the high rate of pregnancy-related deaths in many parts of the world, the skewed sex ratio in China and India, the disproportionately high number of women who are killed and victimized by wars, the comparatively heavier burden of poverty on women, and the continuing disparity between men and women in terms of the quality of available employment and wages received.

The economic rocket scientists at the Wall St. Journal are saying that Paul Krugman is a hypocrite for saying that unemployment benefits won't raise unemployment "but his textbook says they will." Krugman responds with a rhetorical question: Are they really that stupid? He explains:

But anyway, maybe this is a good time to explain the difference between determinants of the NAIRU — the minimum rate of unemployment consistent with a stable inflation rate — and the determinants of the unemployment rate at a point in time.

So: there are limits to how hot you can run the economy without inflationary problems. This is usually expressed in terms of a non-accelerating-inflation unemployment rate; yes, there are some questions about whether the concept is quite right, especially at very low inflation, but that’s another issue.

Everyone agrees that really generous unemployment benefits, by reducing the incentive to seek jobs, can raise the NAIRU; that is, set limits to how far down you can push unemployment without running into inflation problems.

But in case you haven’t noticed, that’s not the problem constraining job growth in America right now. Wage growth is declining, not rising, and so is overall inflation. A wage-price spiral looks like a distant dream.

What’s limiting employment now is lack of demand for the things workers produce. Their incentives to seek work are, for now, irrelevant. That’s why comments by the likes of Sen. Kyl are so boneheaded — anyone who thinks that high unemployment in the first quarter of 2010 has anything to do with workers getting excessively generous benefits must not get out much.

And the truth is that unemployment benefits are a good, quick, administratively easy way to increase demand, which is what we really need. So right now they have the effect of reducing unemployment.

The right has always had their boogeymen, and "Hollywood" has always been an easy catch-all target for them. At last night's Oscar Award ceremony, the movie Hurt Locker won numerous awards, and because the movie showed American soldiers in a positive light, the idiots at Fox News determined that the film and it's director are champions for Republican causes. (warning: link goes to Fox News)

So had you just about given up on Hollywood, regarding the movie capital as simply a collection of hopeless la-la land liberals--or worse, as an elitist gaggle of heartland-bashing snobs? OK, but guess what: Hollywood hears you. They feel your pain, or at least they worry about their own pain, if people don’t buy tickets and DVDs. As we shall see, Hollywood can adapt. Show business, after all, is a business.

If I might be permitted a point of personal indulgence here, I will say I predicted it. Here in the Fox Forum last month, I wrote, “In terms of the big prize itself, ‘Locker’ has the edge.” And the reason cited was that the Iraq war is safely over, it seems, and Bush is out of office, and so now Hollywood can “afford” to honor the sacrifice--and, yes, the glory--of the war without giving aid and comfort to the political enemy:

Because we know that all non-Republicans absolutely LOATHE our troops. The Fox writer admits later in the story that he has no idea what Bigelow's politics are -- which serves as yet another example of the shoddy faux journalism we see from them.

It really makes my blood boil when these rats claim to somehow be more patriotic -- when in fact, historical record and fact shows that propaganda outlets like Fox News aided the Bush administration in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and supported Cheney, Rummsfeld and others, who used and abused our troops and gutted our military. Republicans have repeatedly voted against increases in veterans benefits for years, and care little about the soldiers themselves. The damage these awful, greedy people have done to our military and our country will take generations to repair.

It's really nice to see at least one person in the media looking into the activities at the C-Street House by The Family as Rachel Maddow has done. She follows up on the previous show's reporting and continues to ask, who's paying Bart Stupak's rent? She talks to Rev. Eric Williams who along with "12 other pastors have filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service challenging C Street‘s tax-exempt status".

MADDOW: In making a name for himself, though, Mr. Stupak has opened himself up to some questions about who he is and where he‘s coming from. Last night on this show, we talked about Bart Stupak‘s long-time Washington, D.C. residence. It‘s an 8,000 square foot, 12-bedroom mansion called C Street. C Street is reportedly run by a secretive religious group called The Fellowship or The Family.

And the members of Congress who live at C Street reportedly pay the paltry sum of $600 a month for rent—which is a sweetheart deal and is pretty clearly way below market value for that area. And that raises the question: who subsidizes the rent that Bart Stupak and those other congressmen pay—or paid?

Today, Mr. Stupak‘s office responded to our questions by informing us that Mr. Stupak moved out of C Street at the end of December. They provided us with a letter that he sent his constituents upon doing so. But they have, so far, declined to answer our questions about how much Mr. Stupak paid in rent, who he paid that rent to, and who subsidized his rent if anyone.

We have looked into it on our own, because we couldn‘t get answers from them. And tonight, we have some big news to report in terms of who Mr. Stupak seems to have been paying.

With all of the controversies swirling around C Street in recent months, the secretive religious group, The Family, has attempted to distance itself from that $1.8 million townhouse. The Family now claims it has absolutely nothing to do with C Street. The president of The Fellowship which is, again, also known as The Family talked to the “Columbus Dispatch” about it just last week.

Quoting from “The Dispatch”: Richard Carver, the president of the Fellowship Foundation, said “his charitable organization does not own the C Street Center and has no control over its policy. He said he does not know who owns or runs the center. Quote, ‘It is simply not a part of anything we do.‘”

So, according to The Fellowship, they have nothing to do with C Street nothing. They don‘t even know who runs C Street.

Well, today, we were able to obtain what appears to be the official deed to the C Street house. It‘s a deed that is dated September 23rd, 2009. It‘s a deed that appears to change the ownership of the property from a group called Youth With A Mission to an organization called C Street Center Incorporated. Signing on behalf of C Street Center Incorporated is that group‘s secretary, Marty B. Sherman.

Who‘s Marty B. Sherman? Well, here‘s the 2008 tax filing of the Fellowship Foundation, again, or The Family. Right there listed on page seven, hey, wouldn‘t you know, Marty Sherman, associate.

So, The Family claims they have nothing to do with C Street and yet one of their associates is the person who‘s listed on the deed to C Street. The mystery deepens.

Now, you know, The Family is known to be a very secretive group. And one of the things we noted as being a little weird in our coverage of this last night was that Bart Stupak keeps going out of his way to say that he‘s never signed an oath of secrecy around C Street. And, indeed, in a letter to his constituents that his office he gave to us today, he reiterates, quote, “I have never been asked to sign a contract or oath of secrecy concerning C Street or its residents.” Why does he keep bringing this up?

It turns that not that long ago, when talking about C Street to the press, Bart Stupak told “The Los Angeles Times” that he kind of did abide by a code of secrecy when it came to C Street and The Family. His quote to “The L.A. Times” when they asked him about C Street was this, quote, “We sort of don‘t talk to the press about the house.”

The reason this is important is because Bart Stupak continues to deny having anything at all to do with a secretive religious group, The Family. But check this out. In 2002, when Bart Stupak was living at C Street—he‘s lived there for years—when he was living there in 2002, an associate of The Family described for the press the arrangement that The Family had with the members of Congress who have lived at that house.

And this is how The Family described it. Are you ready? Quote, “A lot of men don‘t have an extra $1,500 to rent an apartment. So, The Fellowship house does that for those who are part of The Fellowship.” “The L.A. Times” noting that rent is $600 per month h for each resident.

So the questions remain tonight. Was Bart Stupak paying The Family rent to live at C Street? Was The Family subsidizing Mr. Stupak‘s rent which seems to have been well below market rate? Why would The Family be subsidizing Stupak‘s rent if he wasn‘t, as he says, a member of the group, when The Family admits that they subsidize rent for their members? And why exactly is The Family claiming to have no ties to the house when tax and property records indicate that it clearly does?

Bottom line here, as Bart Stupak tries to shut down health reform for an anti-abortion stunt that won‘t succeed but will make him famous, who‘s been paying Bart Stupak‘s rent in Washington all these years? Has he reported it? And why won‘t he answer questions about it?

Joining us is now is the Reverend Eric Williams, senior pastor at North Congressional United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. He and 12 other pastors have filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service challenging C Street‘s tax-exempt status.

Pastor Williams, thank you very much for your time tonight.

REV. ERIC WILLIAMS, UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: My pleasure. Glad to join you.

MADDOW: The C Street house, as you know, is officially listed for tax purposes as a church. What prompted you and this group of other pastors to want to challenge that status?

WILLIAMS: Exactly that. When I was actually watching your show, when I heard you talking about those sex scandals and these elite powerful men seeking counseling at a boarding house that they call themselves a church, that‘s when my ear perked up. I thought, another Washington scandal—but when anyone begins to represent themselves as a church, that‘s when I pay attention.

MADDOW: As a pastor yourself, what concerns you the most about it being a church in terms of its tax-exempt status? Are you worried that people who essentially abuse that status, sort of, cheapen it for people who deserve it?

WILLIAMS: Well, that‘s right. I‘m concerned about maintaining the historic role the church has played in our society all these years. And when somebody‘s presenting themselves as a church and yet when you begin to ask questions about their activities, the reporting, their membership, and you find it doesn‘t look like a church at all, and then you say, well, what‘s the benefit they get from that?

And the benefit, I believe, is lack of transparency. Complete opacity. We don‘t know the revenue. We don‘t their membership. We don‘t know their activities. We don‘t know the extent of their influence at all.

MADDOW: That is what has attracted me to the story again and again and again. I keep thinking I‘m done talking about C Street and done talking about The Fellowship and The Family. And then it just keeps coming up.

On the specific issue of Bart Stupak, do you find it troubling specifically that members of Congress would be getting what appear to be in-kind donations from this group in the form of rent but they‘re not declared anywhere?

WILLIAMS: Oh, absolutely. I think, any time favors are given, that means there‘s an expectation that goes along with that. And if, indeed, they have been enjoying favors all these years and not declaring that, not admitting to that, it really goes to the credibility of how they are representing the work they do.

MADDOW: It‘s awkward for me because the secrecy makes it hard to report on, as well as to describe what these things mean. We know that when Bart Stupak initially introduced the abortion-related amendment in the House, he cosponsored it with Joe Pitts, who reported widely to be another member of The Family, but again, Mr. Pitts says, no, no, no, I have nothing to do with them. I will say it‘s a challenge for reporting as well.

WILLIAMS: It‘s really hard, absolutely—really hard for us to be able to learn anything. If we can shed a little bit of light on the organization, if they would open the door and invite us into a conversation, maybe they could assure us or maybe we can have some of those questions that you‘ve been digging at and digging at answered for us.

MADDOW: As we have talked about them, The Family has recently claimed that it has nothing to do with the C Street house. I understand that you have heard from affiliates from The Family since your complaint went public and made such a big splash. Is that true?

WILLIAMS: Yes, I was contacted by a couple of folks. One gentleman from Columbus, Ohio, and also was contacted by Tim Coe, son of famous Doug Coe, who expressed interest in talking about my objections and trying to reassure me. And I found that very interesting that he would contact me if, indeed, there is no relationship at all.

MADDOW: I hear your implication there. The Reverend Eric Williams—

WILLIAMS: So—

MADDOW: Yes. Sorry, go ahead.

WILLIAMS: So, I invited him to a conversation, but a public conversation and made several attempts to invite him to that. And ultimately, he turned me down, wanting only a private conversation rather than one that have some accountability.

MADDOW: So, he—just to be clear—I‘m sorry, I interrupted you there. He offered to get in touch and talk to you about C Street even as The Family denies having anything to do with C Street, but he only wanted the conversation to happen between the two of you without anybody else there.

WILLIAMS: That‘s correct. That‘s correct. They want a private, confidential, un-reportable conversation.

MADDOW: We‘ll see if he‘ll join us on this show. We‘ll reach out to

Mr. Coe now that we know he‘s reached out to you. Reverend Eric Williams --

WILLIAMS: That would be wonderful. Keep up your good work, please.

MADDOW: And you, too, sir. Thank you.

Transcript via MSNBC.