Daily Kos

Midday Open Thread

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:16:02 GMT

John Aravosis at Americablog has launched a boycott:

We are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. It's really more of a "pause," than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends - President Obama and the Democratic party - who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.

So please sign the Petition and take a Pledge to no longer donate to the DNC, Organizing for America, or the Obama campaign until the President and the Democratic party keep their promises to the gay community, our families, and our friends.

Here are Time's top ten races that the GOP needs to worry about.

Oklahoma progressives -- a lonely thing to be -- are protesting that state's latest assault on women's reproductive rights.

Teabaggers aren't taking kindly to Joseph Cao's (R-LA) yes vote on heath care reform legislation Saturday night.

Meow.

Sarah Palin continues to peddle her special brand of crazy:

Noting that there had been a lot of "change" of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase "In God We Trust" had been moved to the edge of the new coins.

"Who calls a shot like that?" she demanded. "Who makes a decision like that?"

She added: "It’s a disturbing trend."

Unsaid but implied was that the new Democratic White House was behind such a move to secularize the nation’s currency.

Except one teeny, tiny detail:

But the new coins – concerns over which apparently stemmed from an email chain letter widely circulated among conservatives – were commissioned by the Republican-led Congress in 2005 and approved by President Bush.

On the bright side, these people will be taking an express elevator to hell when they finally stop wasting oxygen on earth.

Three American hikers are now facing espionage charges in Iran.

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Someone in the traditional media gets around to wondering about the "GOP's women problem."

For anyone breathlessly following the tweets of Levi Johnston, stop!

After actor William Shatner performed a dramatic reading of some of his tweets on Conan O’Brien’s show, the Tonight Show host has apologized for the error, saying, "I’d like to apologize personally to Levi Johnston and his lawyer and publicist for misrepresenting him in any way. Levi is clearly a great American. We wish him the best of luck as he trains for his upcoming naked photo shoot."

"Pro-Choice" McCaskill Could Support Stupak Coathanger Amendment

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:36:03 GMT

Claire McCaskill needs to read the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe", McCaskill was asked whether an amendment added by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to the House's legislation would be too bitter a pill to pass the Senate.

"I am not sure that it is," replied the Missouri Democrat. "Obviously, I have been a pro-choice candidate for my entire political career, and obviously there is controversy always surrounding this issue. But we are talking about whether or not people that get public money can buy an insurance policy that has a coverage for abortion. And that is not the majority of America. The majority of America is not going to be getting subsidies from the government...."

That's a rather simplified view of what this amendment actually does, although it's quite handy to keep parroting the Blue Dog line that this is really nothing more than Hyde.

McCaskill also needs to talk with her pro-choice colleagues in the House who take a far less sanguine view of this legislation. In a letter to Nancy Pelosi, a draft of which was provided to Greg Sargent, 41 House Democrats are pledging to vote against a final bill if it contains this amendment.

A source sends over a working copy of the letter without the signatories, and a source says it currently bears the signatures of 41 House Dems. They’re all vowing to vote No on a bill if it contains the Stupak amendment — enough to sink the bill:

As members of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, we believe that women should have access to a full range of reproductive health care. Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women’s access to reproductive health services.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women’s ability to access the full range of reproductive health servicesto which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law.

That’s unequivocal, with no wiggle room. The Washington Post reported this morning that Rep. Diana DeGette had collected 40 signatures vowing a No vote, without noting the language of their vow or how this would be communicated.

Lest you question to productivity of any group drawing a line in the sand over must-pass legislation, consider that the public option would have been dead months ago had not the Progressive Block done the same. This is a critical bargaining position, and members have to show that they are willing to walk away over these deal-breakers. That's how Coathanger Stupak got this amendment into the bill in the first place.

Harry Reid needs to take this threat just as seriously as Nancy Pelosi does, and keep this amendment (which Ben Nelson and Bob Casey are already working on) out of the Senate bill.

Jim Cooper, newly minted compromiser

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:00:03 GMT

Interesting.

I will vote yes on H.R. 3962. My vote is not an endorsement of all the provisions of the bill because I find much of the bill to be deeply flawed. There is little chance that H.R. 3962 will become law due to the long legislative process.

My reason for voting yes is to advance the cause of health care reform by forcing the Senate to act. Without passage of this House bill, the Senate could delay reform indefinitely. That would be the worst possible outcome because our current health-care system is not sustainable. Congress needs to pass good health legislation in the next few months for the good of the country.

Jeff Woods of the Nashville Scene responds:

We'll never know whether all the threats from Daily Kos and the rest of the liberal blogosphere motivated Cooper, but you certainly can make that case.

Here's a guy who's always stubbornly claiming to stand on principle--who will vote even against fixing a leaky Tennessee dam just because he's against earmarks, for instance--and he's suddenly deciding he actually can bring himself to compromise. For Cooper, that's weird. Do you think he's doing it because he knows there's a bunch of liberals willing to fund a challenger if he votes against the wishes of his constituents on this important issue?

That wouldn't be a bad bet. It's amazing how reasonable elected officials become when they suddenly start fearing for their electoral safety.

What the Stupak-Pitts Coathanger Amendment Does

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:20:02 GMT

Here's what it says:

The amendment will prohibit federal funds for abortion services in the public option. It also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. However, it allows individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. It also clarifies that private plans may still offer elective abortions.

There's been a lot of debate around here about what that exactly means. Here's what it means. Millions of women will not have access to a legal medical procedure. Remember that, the legal part?

What's the harm, some say? It only makes sure that federal funding doesn't go to providing abortion, right? Wrong. Here's Jessica Arons, Director of the Women's Health and Rights Program at American Progress.

It effectively bans coverage for most abortions from all public and private health plans in the Exchange: In addition to prohibiting direct government funding for abortion, it also prohibits public money from being spent on any plan that covers abortion even if paid for entirely with private premiums. Therefore, no plan that covers abortion services can operate in the Exchange unless its subscribers can afford to pay 100% of their premiums with no assistance from government "affordability credits." As the vast majority of Americans in the Exchange will need to use some of these credits, it is highly unlikely any plan will want to offer abortion coverage (unless they decide to use it as a convenient proxy to discriminate against low- and moderate-income Americans who tend to have more health care needs and incur higher costs).

2. It includes only extremely narrow exceptions: Plans in the Exchange can only cover abortions in the case of rape or incest or "where a woman suffers from a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death." Given insurance companies’ dexterity in denying claims, we can predict what they’ll do with that language. Cases that are excluded: where the health but not the life of the woman is threatened by the pregnancy, severe fetal abnormalities, mental illness or anguish that will lead to suicide or self-harm, and the numerous other reasons women need to have an abortion.

3. It allows for a useless abortion "rider": Stupak and his allies claim his Amendment doesn’t ban abortion from the Exchange because it allows plans to offer and women to purchase extra, stand-alone insurance known as a rider to cover abortion services. Hopefully the irony of this is immediately apparent: Stupak wants women to plan for a completely unexpected event.

4. It allows for discrimination against abortion providers: Previously, the health care bill included an evenhanded provision that prohibited discrimination against any health care provider or facility "because of its willingness or unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions." Now, it only protects those who are unwilling to provide such services.

Once again, just like in the pre-Roe days, the wealthy will have access to abortion, those who can't scrape several hundred dollars together won't. Because of how the exchange is structured, most of people covered through it will be receiving credits or subsidies. Therefore, most of the participants will not have access to a legal medical procedure. Additionally, the reality, as Arons says, is that the insurers participating in the exchange won't offer it at all, and the question remains whether they'll continue to offer it for women in employer-based programs outside the exchange, or whether it would just be easier for administrative and overhead purposes to stop covering it at all. Right now, nearly 90 percent of private, employer-based plans cover abortion services. This legislation could result in many of those plans dropping it, to make administration of plans simpler and more cost-effective. We know how critical the bottom line is to them.

And take another look at those exclusions: "where the health but not the life of the woman is threatened by the pregnancy, severe fetal abnormalities, mental illness or anguish that will lead to suicide or self-harm, and the numerous other reasons women need to have an abortion." Even planned pregnancies are regularly terminated--legally--because of the health of the mother or severe fetal abnormalities. Forcing women to carry these pregnancies to term is dangerous and cruel. Forcing low- and moderate-income women to have to make hard financial decisions to try to come up with the money for the procedure is cruel. It's also diametrically opposed to the very principles of healthcare reform. This legislation is supposed to be freeing Americans from having to make horrible financial choices between basic necessities and medical care.

Consider this real-life example:

By broadly writing in that insurers can chose whether or not to cover "abortion services," pro-life amendments don't just affect their intended victims -- women seeking a way out of an unwanted or medically harmful pregnancy. They also affect another group of victims -- women whose pregnancies have already ended but have not yet miscarried.

I'm one of those women, and this past Halloween I had what the hospital officially termed an "abortion."

....

I had learned the day before that the baby I thought was nearly 12 weeks old had no heartbeat, and had actually died at 8 weeks. I was given three options: wait for a miscarriage to occur on its own, something I was told my body had no intention of doing anytime soon, take medication that would expel the fetus, passing it in my own home (classified a "chemical abortion") or come in for a D&C to remove the fetal materials.

As much as I struggled with the sudden realization that the pregnancy was over, I also found myself trying to decide financially what I was willing to do. A chemical abortion would cost $40, but I would be alone, bleeding, and it could still be incomplete and I would require a D&C anyway, since my pregnancy was so advanced. Surgery would be quick, total, and under controlled circumstances, but would likely be our full maxed insurance amount of $1500. And of course, there was the free option of waiting for my body to finally realize I wasn't pregnant, but after 4 weeks the risk of infection was steadily climbing, increasing my chances of future miscarriage, infertility, or even death. With a toddler at home, and still nursing hopes for extending our family some day, this was not an option.

I chose the quick and total route of the D&C, despite the costs, prioritizing my health and the health of possible future children. I was lucky, and could afford to make that choice, because currently, my insurance cannot chose to refuse to cover what the hospital as termed an abortion.

This is the most expansive restriction on access to abortion Congress has passed. It goes well beyond Hyde, which has never been codified and which only governs federal, public plans. It's particularly galling that it comes under the umbrella of healthcare "reform."

Remember the promises? Reform was about expanding choices, not allowing government to come between you and your doctor, no one will lose their coverage, and if you like your current plan you get to keep it. Apparently being female is a preexisting condition that exempts us from the promises, too.

Jack Reed: Snowe trigger still under discussion in Senate

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:30:02 GMT

Here's an unwelcome dose of reality after Saturday night's vote in the House: Jack Reed saying on CBS' Face the Nation Sunday that he believes Olympia Snowe's trigger is still alive in the Senate.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you think, at this point, Senator Reed, that there are the votes in the Senate to pass the bill that the House passed? Because it does include the so-called public option--this government health care insurance program that would be run by the government. Do you think it’s-- that’s going to pass the Senate?

SENATOR JACK REED (D-Rhodes Island, Senate Armed Services Committee): I believe we’re going to pass health care reform. I believe we must do this because it’s essential to not just the quality of life here, but our economic success in the future. Senator Reid-- Harry Reid has introduced a public option. There’s strong support there. But we are far from the-- the end of the debate in the Senate. It will take time. It will be careful, thorough, and deliberate. I hope that a public option is part of the final bill.

BOB SCHIEFFER: But, candidly, right now, you don’t have the votes in the Senate for that. Am I not correct in saying that?

SENATOR JACK REED: I think there’s a discussion about, as Senator Snowe suggested, a trigger to the public option. Senator Reid has suggested a opt-out by the states. There is a debate, or an active debate, about how the public option might come about. But, overwhelming, sixty percent of the American public want a public option. And I think we should be listening to them as much as listening to ourselves.

Reed wasn't endorsing Snowe's trigger proposal, but he did seem to characterize it as a form of the public option, saying it was part of the "debate...about how the public option might come about."

Lest he or any other Senator be unclear: a trigger is not a public option. It never has been, and it never will be. If a senator supports a trigger, then that senator opposes the public option. It's as simple as that. There is no middle-ground.

Senators should remember that if they vote for health care reform legislation without the public option, they will be casting a vote to require all Americans to buy health insurance from the very same companies who created the system that this legislation aims to reform.

If they don't realize what a political disaster that would be for them, then they should get their heads examined.

Sunday Loon Watch

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:40:02 GMT

The House passed a health care reform bill Saturday night, but Joe Lieberman and his Republican allies are still vowing to defeat health care reform.

The Dems Who Cast the Toughest Votes

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:50:02 GMT

While many Democrats in red districts voted against the House healthcare bill, quite a few representatives who hold tough seats did the courageous thing and voted "aye." These are the members of Congress who sit in Republican-leaning districts but still did the right thing:

District	Representative	PVI
ND-AL	Pomeroy, Earl	R+10
WV-01	Mollohan, Alan	R+9
AR-01	Berry, Marion	R+8
IN-08	Ellsworth, Brad	R+8
PA-10	Carney, Chris	R+8
OH-18	Space, Zach	R+7
SC-05	Spratt, John	R+7
AZ-01	Kirkpatrick, Ann	R+6
IN-09	Hill, Baron	R+6
WV-03	Rahall, Nick	R+6
AR-02	Snyder, Vic	R+5
AZ-05	Mitchell, Harry	R+5
CO-03	Salazar, John	R+5
VA-05	Perriello, Tom	R+5
AZ-08	Giffords, Gabby	R+4
TX-23	Rodriguez, Ciro	R+4
KS-03	Moore, Dennis	R+3
MI-01	Stupak, Bart	R+3
NY-19	Hall, John	R+3
PA-03	Dahlkemper, Kathleen	R+3
FL-08	Grayson, Alan	R+2
IN-02	Donnelly, Joe	R+2
MI-07	Schauer, Mark	R+2
NC-02	Etheridge, Bob	R+2
NY-24	Arcuri, Mike	R+2
OH-06	Wilson, Charlie	R+2
TX-27	Ortiz, Solomon	R+2
WI-08	Kagen, Steve	R+2
CA-11	McNerney, Jerry	R+1
IL-08	Bean, Melissa	R+1
IL-11	Halvorson, Debbie	R+1
IL-14	Foster, Bill	R+1
MN-01	Walz, Tim	R+1
NY-23	Owens, Bill	R+1
PA-12	Murtha, John	R+1
NH-01	Shea-Porter, Carol	R+0
NY-01	Bishop, Timothy	R+0
TX-28	Cuellar, Henry	R+0

It's especially worth noting that quite a few of these incumbents will be very vulnerable in 2010 and have already drawn strong challenges, such as Tom Perriello, John Hall, Vic Snyder, Mark Schauer, and John Spratt, to name just a few. Also, special props to the "yes" vote from the newest member of our caucus, Bill Owens, who, as you probably know, now represents a district where some counties haven't sent a Democrat to Congress since before the Civil War.

Crist caught lying about stimulus

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:03 GMT

Charlie Crist tells CNN that he never supported the stimulus package...but as Chris Matthews noted on Friday's broadcast, Crist was lying — he did support the stimulus. In fact, Crist not only supported the stimulus, but he did so standing right at President Obama’s side.

Roll the video tape:

Talk about giving Marco Rubio yet another a wide open shot to play the teabagger card on Crist...

This Week in Congress

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:30:01 GMT

In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Clerk:

11:33 P.M. -
The House adjourned. Accordingly, pursuant to the previous order of the House of today, the House stands adjourned until 6 p.m. on Monday, November 9, 2009, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H.Con.Res. 210, in which case the House shall stand adjourned pursuant to that concurrent resolution.

On motion to adjourn Agreed to by voice vote.

What?

The House will be out of session this entire week (for the Veterans' Day holiday), so long as the Senate convenes today and agrees to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 210) in which each house gives the other permission to adjourn for the week. Why is that necessary? Because Because Article I, section 5, clause 4 of the Constitution requires the agreement of both houses for adjournments longer than three days.

If the Senate doesn't get around to it for some reason, the House will meet in pro forma session today at 6pm, announce its annoyance, and adjourn again to wait for the Senate to agree.

That's a pretty long way around to saying that the House is out of session for the week and that the Senate will join them on Wednesday. But if you just want to know that they're out of session and not know why or how, well, read the paper. They sure as hell won't bother telling you.

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Monday:

Convenes: 2:00pm
Morning Business until 3:00pm with senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

At 3:00pm, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R.3082, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations. Senators are encouraged to come to the floor to offer and debate their amendments to the bill.

At 4:30pm, the Senate will proceed to Executive Session to consider the nomination of Andre Davis to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit.

At 5:30pm, the Senate will proceed to vote on confirmation of the nomination. An additional vote in relation to an amendment to Military Construction/ VA appropriations is possible following the 5:30pm vote.

Wednesday through Friday:

Recess

So no, the Senate will not be trying to carry over what momentum there was from the passage of the health insurance reform bill in the House on Saturday. Not that it would have made a tremendous amount of difference even if they had, the Senate being what it is. Debate on the other side of the Capitol is expected to drag on for weeks on end. But it also won't start for a little while, either.

As a result of the recess, the committee schedule is light as well. Senate committees will meet in DC today and on Tuesday. On the House side, there are a few field hearings scheduled toward the end of the week. The full schedule -- well, the schedule, anyway -- appears below.

Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:48:38 GMT

Monday morning quarterbacking from your favorite gasbags and opinionators.

Paul Krugman:

Last Thursday there was a rally outside the U.S. Capitol to protest pending health care legislation, featuring the kinds of things we’ve grown accustomed to, including large signs showing piles of bodies at Dachau with the caption "National Socialist Healthcare." It was grotesque — and it was also ominous. For what we may be seeing is America starting to be Californiafied.

The key thing to understand about that rally is that it wasn’t a fringe event. It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership — in fact, it was officially billed as a G.O.P. press conference. Senior lawmakers were in attendance, and apparently had no problem with the tone of the proceedings.

Ross Douthat: Berlin Wall ceremonies are an open invitation to be pompous and portentious. Here's my offering. Sigh. So many cold warriors are sad that they have no cold war any more.

Krugman (blog):

If I had to make a guess, the fastest progress in the technology of daily life — the biggest changes — probably came between the 1880s and the 1920s. But good stuff has been happening all along.

EJ Dionne:

Here's a story you may have missed because it flies in the face of the dreary conventional wisdom: When advocates of public programs take on the right-wing anti-government crowd directly, the government-haters lose.

Fred Hiatt:

The House bill would move us toward universal health coverage -- and bankruptcy.

Remember the days of Woodward and Bernstein? The Post doesn't.

Stu Rothenberg:

Where there are winners, there are usually also losers. None of the major public pollsters was dramatically wrong in Virginia, but Research 2000, which polled for DailyKos, showed McDonnell with only a 10-point lead in late October, primarily because it overstated Deeds' support.

In New Jersey, the Monmouth University/Gannett poll erred when it showed Corzine up by 2 points in its last survey. But by far the worst-performing survey in either state was Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps in New Jersey.

Democracy Corps polling showed Corzine pulling ahead in his race in early October and stretching his lead to 4 points (41 percent to 36 percent for Christie) among likely voters and 5 points in a higher-turnout electorate in its Oct. 29 to Nov. 1 survey. The survey showed Daggett drawing in the midteens. He actually drew just less than 6 percent.

Stu is right. The more Deeds ran away from Obama, the more his support collapsed. The exit polls I saw don't say when. The turnout was 33 D, 37 R, 30 I for Gov in 2009. In 2008 it was 39 D, 33 R, 27 I. Also, in 2008 it was 11% 65 and older, this last week it was 18%. McDonnell turned out his voters, but not Deeds.

Green Diary Rescue & Open Thread: Food & Climate

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:35:55 GMT

In July 2008, Roni A Neff, Iris L Chan and Katherine Clegg Smith of the Center for a Livable Future published the outcome of their two-and-a-half-year study of 16 major daily newspapers in the journal Public Health Nutrition. They plugged in the key words "food," "farm," or "agriculture" in any of the 4582 articles they surveyed that also contained the phrases "climate change" or "global warming." When they were done, only 109 of the articles included even a brief mention of one of the phrases, and only 20 of them took as its primary topic the relationship of food or agriculture to climate change.

In fact, that relationship is huge. It’s not mystery. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported in 2006 that raising cattle generates more greenhouse gases than driving cars. Which added jokes about cow farts to the repertoire of the climate change deniers. Actually, burps are a bigger problem, and they’re no joke.

As Ezra Klein wrote several months ago:

The debate over climate change has reached a rarefied level of policy abstraction in recent months. Carbon tax or cap-and-trade? Upstream or downstream? Should we auction permits? Head-scratching is, at this point, permitted. But at base, these policies aim to do a simple thing, in a simple way: persuade us to undertake fewer activities that are bad for the atmosphere by making those activities more expensive. Driving an SUV would become pricier. So would heating a giant house with coal and buying electricity from an inefficient power plant.

But there's one activity that's not on the list and should be: eating a hamburger.

If it's any consolation, I didn't like writing that sentence any more than you liked reading it. But the evidence is strong. It's not simply that meat is a contributor to global warming; it's that it is a huge contributor. Larger, by a significant margin, than the global transportation sector.

Laura Kiesel recently asked at SolveClimatewhy the media are afraid to tackle livestock's role in climate change?. An excerpt:

[Roni Neff, the Research and Policy Director of the Center for a Livable Future] ... contends that media oversight of this topic may be partially due to what she deems "CO2 bias" among journalists. Since awareness of the significance of the food’s influence on climate occurred in the scientific community later in comparison to other factors, the topic may be undergoing a lag time before the media catches on as it did with climate change in general.

The [center’s] report cited the popularity of the climate change documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," during the period of the study. Though it is responsible for catapulting climate awareness into the mainstream, it makes no mention of agriculture and focuses almost exclusively on carbon dioxide.

CO2 bias is apparent even in coverage that does exist on the correlation between agriculture and climate change, as the general public seems most familiar with carbon emissions related to what has been termed "food miles."

The research that has received the most attention on the subject of food miles and helped popularize the eat local (or locavore) movement was conducted by Rich Pirog and the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University where he serves as director. The most famous Pirog-led Leopold study is the oft-cited "1500-mile study", which indicated that most conventionally-produced fruits and vegetables in the United States often travel an average of 1,500 miles before reaching its intended destination.

Eating local looms the largest in terms of food-messaging campaigns spearheaded or endorsed by environmental groups, climate coalitions and small farm advocates. This holds true even when it comes to the subject of meat eating, where alternative sourcing of animal protein from local farms is often advocated over reduced consumption.
Such messages have persisted even after Carnegie Melon released a study in spring 2008 indicating that eliminating red meat and dairy just one day a week from one’s diet did more to lower his or her carbon footprint than eating local everyday of the week. This study also received scant coverage in the media, as did a Guardian interview with IPCC chair, Rajendra Pachauri, who went on record to endorse reduction or consumption of meat as a critical personal behavior change in addressing global warming.

In fact, a comparison between The New York Times and The Guardian and its Sunday paper, The Observer, of the United Kingdom, shows that the UK publications covered the relationship between meat consumption and climate change twice as much as their U.S. rival between December 2006 and December 2008. The articles featured in the UK publication also averaged twice as long in word count and tended to feature more attention-grabbing, visceral headlines, such as, "Is Your Sunday Roast Killing the Planet?"

• • • • • • •

The diary rescue appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The resuce begins below and continues in the jump. Inclusion of a particular diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement with it.

• • • • • • •

Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse has posted the Eco News Roundup.

Unenergy wrote about Building a country's energy infrastructure: "My working life for the past 18 years has been involved in the process automation area, mostly heavy industry. So because of what you hear in the engineering, maintenance and operational offices and meetings as well as what the talk is on the shop floor, you tend to pay little attention to the so called 'environmentalists', as to pay them too much notice supposedly goes against believing in that which you are doing as a job. That they threaten your industry and its right to dig stuff up and burn it, smelt it, process it, weld it or refine it. That if they had their way we'd go back to living in the dark ages."

pollwatcher said we need a Government Green Jobs Program: "It's time for Stimulus II, the Green Jobs Program to invest in America's future and put Americans back to work. Stimulus II must be VERY different than the weak and ineffective Stimulus I. It must, in it's entirety, be directed at putting people back to work. No more bank bail-outs, no more tax cuts, no paying businesses to hire people they probably would have hired anyway, no state bail-outs to save an expensive job that takes the place of 2 inexpensive green jobs. FDR built the CCC in his first year in office. This was a government program, at low wages, to put as many Americans back to work as soon as possible. It was an emergency program, and if we don't have an emergency facing us now, I'm not sure what constitutes an emergency."

• • • • • • •

Interceptor7 has posted the Overnight News Digest.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:46:05 GMT

Tonight's Diary Rescue has been brought to you by the following Rescue Rangers: vcmvo2, ItsJessMe, ybruti, dadanation, sunspark says, and mem from somerville as well as the letters P, D and Q. and yes, dadanation also faked being the editor.

Rescued Diaries, The

Unenergy discusses the requirements for Building a country's energy infrastructure by drawing on much information from Australia and elsewhere. (ybruti)

KAMuston toasts a legislative victory with TINY BUBBLES and explains what the history of champagne reveals about capitalism and government regulation. (ybruti)

two roads digs into the details surrounding a famous sighting of a "UFO" in New Mexico's desert in Saturday Night Uforia: Death of a legend. (vcmvo2)

AKMask explores studies of newborn infants and how they respond to their mother's voice in Weekend Science: Language's influence in the womb.(vcmvo2)

BruceMcF discusses the importance of making biking much safer in this detailed diary: Weekend Bike Blogging: Bike Boxes I Can Believe In. (vcmvo2)

Contrary to the meme that the Democrats are in trouble, coonsey looks at current realities and predicts that a Tsunami: Will Wipe Out Republican Party in 2010. (sunspark says)

Time-travel with Username4242 and have a look around at a point when the mountain west was a different shade of blue in Prehistoric Weekly--Life in the Western Interior Seaway Part I. (mem from somerville)

Yosef 52 brings some philosophy to DailyKos as he ponders communication and The Existential Loneliness of the Human Being. (ItsJessMe)

jamess considers America's broken and aging infrastructure and declares that It's Time for a WPA -- It's Time to fix that Leaky Roof. (sunspark says)

nonnoboy discusses the validity of a soldier "just saying no" in Listen to our No-No Boys: Lt. Ehren Watada. (sunspark says)

goffchris wonders if we can stop the runaway train or if it will derail in Tinkering around the edges of disaster. (mem from somerville)

MattTX uses last night's votes to assemble a guide to suggested primary contests The HCR Primary Index - Naming Names. (mem from somerville)

Usual Extras, The

jotter brings us High Impact Diaries: November 7, 2009.

emeraldmaiden brings tonight's Top Comments - 11-8-09: Recovery Edition.

Closing Paragraph, The

Please use this as an Open Thread as well as your chance to promote your favorite diaries of the day. Respectful engagement is most welcome here. Please keep in mind that each Diary Rescue's daily purview extends from 3pm California Time yesterday to 3pm California Time today. Shamelessly self-promote or pimp for a friend in this Open Thread!

The Future of Marriage Equality in New Hampshire

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:04 GMT

In May, Maine's legislature and governor made marriage equality the law of the state. In June, New Hampshire's government did the same.

We all know what happened in Maine last week. And almost immediately, questions started flying about New Hampshire, especially if you read Politico and Political Wire, both of which ran posts selectively raising the possibility that the state would follow in Maine's footsteps.

New Hampshire, though, isn't Maine. That's true in a few ways. For one, we know that marriage equality is an issue on which opinions vary widely by age cohort. Maine's population is 15.1% over the age of 65. New Hampshire's is 12.9%. Given that older people vote more, that's a noteworthy difference.

More importantly, though, New Hampshire and Maine have different mechanisms for changing laws. That's what many of the national stories raising the issue didn't make clear.

There are two ways equality could be overturned in New Hampshire. One is legislation overturning June's equality bill. Defending Democratic majorities in New Hampshire's House and Senate must therefore be a priority for 2010.

The other way we could lose equality

is a constitutional amendment that would charge voters with deciding if "the state shall only recognize the union of one man and one woman as marriage."

Shades of California and Maine? Not really. Yes, equality could ultimately end up on the ballot. But...

Part II, Article 100 of the constitution provides for the following two methods of proposing amendments to the constitution:

General Court

A 3/5 vote of each house of the General Court is required to send a proposed constitutional amendment to the people at the next biennial November election. A 2/3 vote of the qualified voters participating in an election is required to adopt a new amendment.

Constitutional Convention

A majority vote of both houses of the General Court is required to place the following question on the ballot: "Shall there be a convention to amend or revise the constitution?" If such question has not been submitted to the people in ten years, the Secretary of State is required by Pt. II, Art. 100 to place the question on the ballot. A majority of qualified voters participating in an election is required to convene a convention. At the next election the delegates are elected by the people, or earlier as provided by the General Court. A 3/5 vote of the number of delegates is required to send a proposed constitutional amendment to the people at the next biennial November election. A 2/3 vote of the qualified voters participating in an election is required to adopt a new amendment.

So, marriage equality was passed in the New Hampshire state legislature by a vote of 198-176 in the House (yes, it's a very large legislative body) and 14-10 in the Senate. And repealing it would require either that those two bodies vote to do so and the governor sign such a bill, which will not happen:

Lynch wouldn't support repealing the gay-marriage law if it reached his desk, spokesman Colin Manning said. "It was carefully crafted legislation, now law, that protects the rights of all of our citizens and the governor would not support changing it," he said.

Or it would require a supermajority vote of that same legislature, followed by a supermajority vote of the people of New Hampshire. That's not going to happen. In fact, in July, Daily Kos had Research 2000 poll marriage equality in New Hampshire. At that point, 49% of people disapproved while 41% approved. But following the Maine loss, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley said that:

Our internal polling...

Show marriage equality in NH 8 pts ahead, there is zero evidence this will be a factor here in 2010.

Those of us who want to see civil rights advanced have to be constantly vigilant, and get way out in front of any threat to equality. We know that history is on our side and that even the horrible votes that have been taken in the past few years will be mostly overturned within a generation. But every setback injures people now, and injures justice itself. So it is absolutely right to turn our eye to New Hampshire and prepare for NOM and the rest of the bigots to make an effort there. Luckily, it doesn't seem likely to go anywhere -- even if it's a more attention-getting story the other way.

The Kids Are Alright: Some Thoughts About Same-Sex Marriage

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:00:05 GMT

The following, hard as it might be to believe, is a true story. The setting: Driving in the family car to a lavish lunch at the local Carls Jr. drive-thru. Saturday afternoon, November 1st. 2008.

My four year-old daughter is absorbed by a Disney cartoon on her seatback DVD player, while my seven year-old son fidgets in the back seat. I have lunch duty with my kids, because my wife is on a deadline, and needed to go into the firm on Saturday to tie up some loose ends. I am listening to a college football game on the radio when my son interrupts the play-by-play from the backseat:

"Hey, Dad, how are we going to vote on Proposition 8?"

Aside from the plural "we", which I found kind of cute, this was not the question I was hoping for. Discussions on marriage with a second grader is not my idea of a fun conversation, "traditional" or same sex.

"Why do you ask, buddy?"

"Well, Dad. I have been thinking about it. And I talked about it with some friends at school. And I think we ought to vote "yes."

Ruh-roh.

This comes, to say the least, as a shock. I am pretty well to the left-of-center politically, and my wife, if anything, is to my left. So, hearing my elementary school-aged son coming out as a proponent of marriage discrimination was a bit of an eye-opener.

I need to get to the bottom of this...

"Really, bud. Well, why do you think that?"

"Well, Dad, that would make it illegal for a boy to marry a boy, and a girl to marry a girl, right?"

"Yes, Cody, that's what Proposition 8 would do."

"Well, I think that it should be illegal."

This is where the speculation sets in. Has his teacher been pushing this? Is one of his buddies the product of a very conservative home, and they have pushed the issue with their kids? Who knows?

"Hey, Cody, why do you think it ought to be illegal?"

"Because, Dad, I don't want to marry a boy. I want to marry a girl. You know, like Kate or somebody."

I start breathing again. He thinks "same sex marriage" is somehow a mandatory thing, and that Prop 8 is the thin line between marriage the way he has always understood it, and some bizarre new world where only boys can marry boys and girls can marry girls.

"No...buddy. It is not like that. Prop 8 makes it illegal for boys to marry boys, or girls to marry girls, if they want to. It won't change who you get to marry."

Silence from the backseat. Wheels, quite clearly, are turning.

"Oh...well...that's okay then. Besides, why should I care who someone else marries??!!"

Kids get it.

And that is the only saving grace out of disappointments like California's Proposition 8 and Maine's Question 1. It was echoed again this week when in his moving post-mortem on Wednesday morning, Bill in Portland Maine found some comfort in the otherwise dreary data post-election:

This morning the words of America's first openly-gay Episcopal Bishop, V. Gene Robinson---who has endured bigotry of the worst kind, including an assassination attempt---are soothing my savage manboobs. Robinson visited Portland several weeks ago to talk about Question 1. He raised the all-too-real possibility that things wouldn’t go our way this time. And now that the results are in and the vote didn’t go our way, his words are helping me this morning. A lot.

He said that we've already won this fight, it's just a question of timing. Here's what he means. Look at this result from last night, courtesy of Adam Bink at Open Left. It is the only thing I've shed tears over this morning, and they are happy ones:

Final numbers are in from [University of Maine]-Orono campus- 81% No, 19% Yes.

A 'No' vote was a vote to keep the same-sex marriage law in place. Look at that: 81 percent No, 19 percent Yes. That's the future of gay rights in America. It's coming. It's on our doorstep. It's just a matter of time. All Schubert-Flint and NOM and the Catholic church did last night was kick the can down the road a bit.

More than any other demographic cohort, the issue of support of same-sex marriage, and, for that matter, all manners of gay rights, breaks down on the issue of age. More than race, more than wealth.

It is even greater than the red state/blue state divide, as evidenced by a fascinating table at the website Sociological Images (h/t: Taegan Goddard):

This chart comes from a demographic study which estimated support for same-sex marriage based on fifteen years of data (with the data weighted by most recent results). While it is an estimate, it is worth noting that its placement of California and Maine right on the 50/50 border is, at worst, only a slightly optimistic assessment.

One can draw a trio critical conclusions from this study:

The age divide is far greater than the gaping political chasm that exists between red states and blue states. Even in traditionally hostile states like Alabama and Mississippi, voters aged 18-29 are likely to be supportive of same-sex marriage at a higher rate than elderly voters even in traditionally supportive states like Massachusetts and Vermont.

There is a sizeable gap between the attitudes of voters aged 65 and over and those in the next nearest age cohort (45-64). In fact, the chart shows that a majority of the states in America have a higher rate of support for same-sex marriage among the voters aged 45-64 than the best state performance (Massachusetts) for voters over the age of 65. Indeed, a dozen states appear to see that age cohort with at least 45% support for same-sex marriage, a plurality that would certainly be pushed over the top by the support by youngest voters.

Conversely, in only a dozen states do we see less than majority support for same-sex marriage among voters 18-29. Even traditionally conservative states like Kansas, Idaho, and Wyoming see majority support from their youngest voters.

The bottom line is this--not only, as BiPM noted on Wednesday, is the clock ticking on the political strength of the opponents of marriage equity, it could be coming quicker than we think. What this survey makes clear is that the elderly voters of the next decade are nowhere near as condemning of same-sex marriage as their elders.

We can already see it in the rare examples where similar measures have been on the ballot some years apart. Take my home state of California. In the Spring of 2000, conservatives placed an anti-marriage equity law onto the ballot. It was known as Proposition 22. It not only passed in this nominally blue state, it was not even close: the measure passed by 1.7 million votes (PDF file), a decisive 61-39 win.

Proposition 8 was a bitter pill for the gay community, indeed all progressives, to swallow. That said, there was some hope in how dramatically the landscape had changed in eight years: the margin had been cut from 22 points to just four points (PDF file). Even in the heavily enhanced turnout (13.4 million votes cast, versus just 7.5 million votes cast in the election which decided Prop 22), the margin was down to just 600,000 votes.

And the chart above makes something else clear: with each passing year, as macabre as it may seem to consider, a group of voters hostile to the issue of marriage equality are going to be replaced by voters who are substantially more likely to support the cause.

Bill in Portland Maine is right--the advocates for Question 1 only succeeded in kicking the can down the road. What might be greater cause for optimism is the data seems to hint that the can may not have been even kicked all that far.

Midday Open Thread

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:01:10 GMT

Lieberman Pledges To Filibuster House Bill: The Public Option Is ‘Unnecessary’. But please, please, please, Senator Reid, don't strip Joe of his chairmanship and shut him out of the Democratic caucus. Because then we would lose any leverage we have in getting him to vote our way. When he finally does switch parties, will that be enough to get you to act?

^{[h/t to dasheight]}

From Charlie's Diary via Andrew Sullivan:

So here's the upshot: of the 4.6 Gy of Earth's known history, there's only been enough oxygen in the atmosphere for us to survive for about 0.5 Gy. For roughly 90% of the Earth's history we couldn't even breathe the air. And about 10-25% of the time, there have been ice ages so savagely fierce that the glaciers reached the tropics: odds are good that any meat probe landing on solid ground during these periods would rapidly die of exposure. So historically, Earth has only been inhabitable about 8% of the time — assuming you are lucky enough to find some solid ground. Once you factor in the random surface distribution, we're down to about 2% survivability.

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones reports on Igor Panarin's Doomsday Tea Party: One ex-KGB analyst has been warning for years that the US will collapse in 2010. Conservative activists think he may be on to something.

Heavier Americans Push Back on Health Debate.

From emptywheel - Bart Stupak’s C-Street Sepsis:

As you read Bart Stupak boasting of taking reproductive choice away from women, remember that he’s not just an otherwise good Democrat (he’s not, in fact, a Blue Dog) who consistently lets the agenda of the Catholic Church override the well-being of his constituents, he’s also one of C-Street’s top Democratic members. This man, crowing over his legislative success is speaking as a representative of a group that preaches moral purity for others, but excuses itself from such moral guidelines with a back-slapping prayer lunch with the buddies. And then turns around and uses that moralizing to accrue political power.

While it looks increasingly likely that President Obama will approve the addition of 30,000 or more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, McChrystal seeks to keep UK troops 'out of harm's way': General aims to foil Taliban plan to make Afghanistan a British election issue.

The Gospel of the Golden Parachute:

The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, believes banks serve a social purpose and are doing "God's work."

Thanks to the Swing State Project, here's a handy sortable calendar of 2010 filing deadlines and primary dates in all 50 states.

Over at the Wonk Room, Daniel J. Weiss, Jaren Love and Michael McGovern take note that The ‘Party Of No’ Becomes The ‘Party Of Slow’: Senate Republicans are demanding lengthy economic analyses of progressive clean energy policy, despite having spent careers voting for and against major energy legislation without such delay.

Driver Forces Passengers To Pray On MARTA Bus.