It's not a new tax!

Except when it is.

A little economic realism?

David Brooks seems to make some sense.

Paul Krugman is predictably horrified, as are Steve Benen and someone at Balloon Juice.

Dean Baker goes into detail with a response that seems particularly well argued.

A blatant handout to powerful Democratic interest groups.

So, Megan McArdle is totally right about the auto bailout and stuff...

I would paint a moral equivalence to Bush Republicans' Medicare Part D and the Florida vote--except that handout is perpetual and significantly bigger because it had broader public support, including from social welfare Democrats.

Obama administration to assassinate American citizens far from any battlefield, without any due process

What the fuck?!

Grading the Obama administration's foreign policy process

Read Dan Drezner.

Drill, baby, drill!

The Obama administration is onboard.

FiveThirtyEight looks at the politics.

CBO re-scores the president's budget

"The CBO forecasts a debt-GDP ratio in 2020 of 90 percent."

Uhm. Would someone like to remind me of any reason we should not vote for divided government in November?

I'm the last person to argue Republicans have been fiscal saints when they control all the levers. But insofar as this chart shows the Obama administration's proposed new budget relative to a no-change baseline, I want an opposition to stand up and obstruct it.

The limits of Rahmism

Don't miss Peter Baker's profile in the NYT mag.

On the other hand, world affairs are looking pretty

The Obama splurge continues

Keith Hennessey:

green is last year’s proposal, blue is this year’s proposal, and dotted pink (30-years) and red (50-years) are historic averages.

We can conclude:

1. The President is proposing significantly more spending than he proposed last year: 1.8% of GDP more in 2011, and roughly 1 percentage point more each year over time.

2. Spending is and will continue to be way above historic averages.

At its lowest point in the next decade federal spending would still be 1.7 percentage points above the 30-year historic average. Over the next decade, President Obama proposes spending be 12% higher as a share of the economy than it has averaged over the past three decades.

Mmm, a little decade-long 'stimulus'...

The proposed three-year spending cap is at these newly elevated 2011 levels. What a crock.

Presidential Question Time with the House GOP

More interesting than his State of the Union...



Andrew has reactions and his own discussion.

The view from Pakistan

Regarding the Af-Pak situation, here's commenter Vaneeza at Library Grape, lightly edited:

The situation is much more complicated than it seems and definitely too complicated for Sarah Palin to understand. The war in Afghanistan is not one that can be "won". I think the Obama administration still understands the situation better than the Republicans. We are seeing changes in their way of dealing with us. When Hillary Clinton came to Pakistan, although her visit was short still she utilized it pretty well. She did a number of debates with our top journalists on tv who asked many difficult and critical questions. The way she answered them and took all the questios and criticism tactfully and gave replies to them was wonderful. I myself watched many of her interviews on TV. She went to a number of mosques and shrines. She showed her respect by covering her head going there. These are the things that mean a lot to the common man here. For me, it was a refreshing change that she pronounced “Pakistan” correctly unlike other Americans.

The aid that is coming from America, for the first time is going to non-governmental organizations instead of the pockets of our corrupt politicians. They will get some part of it but the fact that any part of it will be going directly to NGOs too is amazing. Although the common man can still not be won by just these measures as the history of mistrust goes back to decades but these measures still do at least some pat in easing the tension. Increasing troops in Afghanistan might help a little but you need to understand that Pakistan is at the center-stage of this whole drama. Some Taliban in Afghanistan are locals but most of them are foreigners and we all know that a huge number of them come from Pakistan who are trained at here. Whenever the America launches a full scale military offensive against them, they just come here to Pakistan which they consider a safe haven and as soon as things get better there they go back.

Even if they are stopped from escaping to Pakistan by tighter border control and lets say all of the Taliban are killed in Afghanistan, more will be recruited from these same madrassahs and extremist training camps from Pakistan. America keeps launching drone attacks from time to time in our tribal areas which have been effective but have caused a large number of civilian casualties as well. What needs to be done is better intelligence services and attacking the militant safe havens and training grounds in Pakistan secretly in association with Pakistani government. This goal can be achieved with the help of American intelligence agencies. It is true that Pakistani government needs to do more in fighting these terrorists. Unfortunately our politicians are just as bad as the military dictators. I do believe that the government in some ways is trying to make things bad here to get more aid from America which obviously wont go to the people but to the pockets of the politicians themselves.

Some people do believe that some or even most of the bomb blasts in Pakistan are actually arranged by the government so they can show to the world and especially America that “look what Taliban have done and what they are capable of and what they can do to you also, so give us more and more money in aid and funds that we can use to fight Taliban”. Most of the money in fact goes to their own pocket and little goes to do what it was given for. The government of Afghanistan lead by Hamid Karzai is also very corrupt. He is sometimes called the “the corruption king”. Until more schools and hospitals and factories and jobs are created in Afghanistan and the quality of life of afghans is improved , no real change can come. Sometimes they become Taliban because that’s the only option they have. Also there are a number of madrassahs still operating in Pakistan who turn regular people who just want to get knowledge about Islam into terrorists. Even in a lot of mosques, the Friday sermon is more America bashing speeches than anything related to Islam. There are religious shows and channels on TV that preach extremist ideology and urge people to take up arms.

Nothing is being done about them by the Pakistani government . All that is very important, because nobody can deny Pakistan’s role in the war that is going in Afghanistan. There is a lot of social unrest here in Pakistan. The poverty, unemployment and inflation are out of control. People are selling their children and committing suicide because they cannot provide for their families. It is much easier to persuade a person like that to take up arms to go on a “road to heaven” than someone who actually has some part of his/her life in control. Our mullahs come in all shapes and sizes, hair styles, beard styles and clothing to cater to the religious needs of all social strata. It is more like a business. The other day a more modern looking mullah on TV with a shorter beard and a pant suit with few sentences of English sprinkled here and there in his speech was urging young people to India as it was the prophecy of prophet Muhammad. This is so frustrating that these type of psychos are allowed to spread their message of hate and war on TV with no restrictions.

So America should urge Pakistani government to do something about these mullahs and madrasshas and TV channels also who are misleading people, recruiting more Taliban and making things worse for America in Afghanistan.

Gang of three to block public option?

Politico:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said she’d deliver the deciding vote to push forward with a sweeping health reform plan in the Senate Saturday, ending days of speculation over whether President Barack Obama’s signature priority would proceed to the floor or suffer a debilitating blow.

As with several centrists before her, Lincoln’s yes vote to start debate came wrapped in series of serious concerns about the current bill – and she said it would require major revisions before she could cast a similar vote in favor of final passage.

"I'm prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a public option is included," Lincoln said, adding that she specifically would vote against the version of the public option in the current Senate plan.

Nate Silver adds:

Needless to say, it would have been very, very bad news for the Democrats if the motion to proceed to debate on their health care plan had failed tonight. But I'm not sure how newsworthy this really is. The potential hold-outs, like Lincoln and Ben Nelson, are going to have much greater leverage later on, when the bill nears its second major procedural hurdle: the cloture motion to proceed to the final vote.

And there's some bad news for Democrats too: Lincoln has joined Senators Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman in making a fairly explicit threat to filibuster a bill that contains a public option. Mary Landrieu, on the other hand, sounds a little bit more open to compromise. But this impromptu Gang of 3 -- Lincoln, Nelson, Lieberman -- could be a tough one for progressives to penetrate.

If they drop the public option on these grounds, maybe that brings Snowe's vote in play as well.  From what I've gathered the Obama Administration really wants Snowe's vote, but of course couldn't drop the public option for this reason alone without risking a progressive revolt.

Biden's in charge

Sen. Webb (D-VA) on the terror trials

Via TPM:

"I have never disputed the constitutional authority of the President to convene Article III courts in cases of international terrorism. However, I remain very concerned about the wisdom of doing so. Those who have committed acts of international terrorism are enemy combatants, just as certainly as the Japanese pilots who killed thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbor. It will be disruptive, costly, and potentially counterproductive to try them as criminals in our civilian courts.

"The precedent set by this decision deserves careful scrutiny as we consider proper venues for trying those now held at Guantanamo who were apprehended outside of this country for acts that occurred outside of the country. And we must be especially careful with any decisions to bring onto American soil any of those prisoners who remain a threat to our country but whose cases have been adjudged as inappropriate for trial at all. They do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons.

"I have consistently argued that military commissions, with the additional procedural rules added by Congress and enacted by President Obama, are the most appropriate venue for trying individuals adjudged to be enemy combatants."

For most of the detainees now in Guantanamo, this is probably true. But I think the Obama administration appreciates that because previous commissions enacted by Bush lacked the fairness and legitimacy of due process, merely reforming them is not enough. We must break with that past somehow.

Viewed in this light, trying KSM and a handful of others in New York seems inspired and fitting.

May they get their just desserts at an indisputably fair trial. And may the rest of the mess Bush left at Guantanamo be dealt with fairly but more quietly with the new commissions.

Morale plummets in Afghanistan, improves in Iraq

WASHINGTON – Morale has fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, where troops are seeing record violence in the 8-year-old war, while those in Iraq show much improved mental health amid much lower violence,

Look for the Right to praise the surge as a success and berate Obama for dithering on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan to get McChrystal light

Shadow Government:

[..] President Obama has made his decision on Afghan Strategy Review 2.0 and is preparing for a roll-out sometime around the 19th or 20th of November. Senior officials are clearing their schedules, giving heads-up to allies, and generally girding their loins for a major public relations push. But a push for what?

McClatchey reports that, as expected, the president will split the difference between his warring advisors. He will embrace the counterinsurgency approach recommended by General McChrystal and other military advisors. He will reject the narrower approach favored by Vice President Biden and other political advisors. But he will not authorize the upper-bound of military resources McChrystal requested. If the McClatchey report is accurate, the final choice comes close to resembling the option dubbed "McChrystal light," but probably not light enough to avoid a political battle with the anti-war faction at home.

Politicizing civil service

The Obama administration goes there.

Change finally comes—Feds lay off medical marijuana

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.

The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes, the officials said.

The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.
Fourteen states allow some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

California is unique among those for the widespread presence of dispensaries - businesses that sell marijuana and even advertise their services. Colorado also has several dispensaries, and Rhode Island and New Mexico are in the process of licensing providers, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a group that promotes the decriminalization of marijuana use.
Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.

A three-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.

And the arc of the Universe curves a wee bit more towards justice.

Gibbs on the public option and competition

(meme) ABC:

STEPHANOPOULOS: "[Obama] wants a public option, but… "

GIBBS: "And he still does."

STEPHANOPOULOS: "But -- he wants it, but will he sign a bill that doesn't include it? Because it can't get through the Senate."

GIBBS: "Well, we're not going to prejudge what the process will be when we sign a bill, which the president expects to do this year. The president strongly believes that we have to have an option like this to provide choice and competition, to provide a check on insurance companies, because without it, again, we're going to have markets as big as a whole state of Alabama, almost 90 percent of which is dominated by one insurance company."

So the answer isn't to campaign against the milieu of state-by-state regulation that are more difficult for small companies to comply with, prevent interstate competition, and encouraged consolidation into near-monopolies for each state (and groups of states) to begin with?

Instead the answer is to create a new government-run insurance option to provide the competition these government-caused near-monopolies lack?

The left's folly in a nutshell: When regulation doesn't work as desired and instead consolidates industry into uncompetitive conglomerates, advocate a government takeover of that industry. If the dream of national single-payer can't be met, sell a new government-run option as providing a replacement for the competition that it regulated-out of the market to begin with...

Small wonder that small business owners are among the most Republican voters in the country.  Nobody wants insurance reform more than these most burdened with health care cost inflation...but the reforms  these business people would advocate to restore competition to the insurance market are much different from the left's tomfoolery.