On Proposed Healthcare Reform (tmi3rd)
— Open Blog

As many of you know, I'm working on getting into medical school, and it goes without saying that I'm watching with unmitigated dread what's going on with Obama's proposed healthcare reform plan, which by all accounts comes right out of Tom Daschle's book on the same subject.

This is really long, so bear with me...

(slight update added - someone) more...

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Overnight Open Thread – Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (genghis)
— Open Blog

Some links I found under the couch cushions while looking for money to pay the mortgage bill this month:

Item #1: Apparently today was a holiday, but you wouldnÂ’t know it given that the banks were all open and millions of surly government workers still had to show up at their workplaces of discontent in order to take it out on the rest of us. But a holiday it was indeed: National Man Day, as reported by The Boston Herald.

”Nineteen-year-old Joel Longanecker of Celestine and his 26-year-old brother Aaron, of Indianapolis, have for months been rallying thousands to their masculine cause on Facebook. More than 260,000 people have pledged to "stand up and do manly things" on Man Day.”

“The Man Day organizers urge participants to take part in "manly" activities such as football, hunting or watching Rocky movies.”

That utterly lame list is the best they could come up with? Watching Rocky movies? The hunting part I can sorta’ agree with though…just depends on what you’re hunting. I suppose there’s room for yet another holiday in the pantheon of holidays, but so far “Man Day” just looks like a pale imitation of our most cherished national holiday: Steak and BJ Day, which this blog has been a staunch supporter of for years now. (And how sad is it that I actually had to go to Salon.com to get that link?) But if these two goofs want to proceed with the idea of Man Day, which in fact should really be every day, then maybe we can offer up some better suggestions on how to celebrate it.

More shenanigans below the fold.
more...

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Hmmm: Democrats, White House Officials Worry That Corzine Defeat Will Wound Obama
— Ace

Eh, they shouldn't worry. Iran's elections are more legit than New Jersey's.

Signs of the end of the short-lived Permanent Democratic Majority?

National Democratic leaders have their eyes on the New Jersey governor's race - and they don't like what they're seeing.

With recent polls showing Gov. Jon Corzine falling behind Republican challenger Chris Christie, top operatives at the White House and at the Democratic National Committee are worried a loss could hurt the momentum of President Obama's young administration and are committing resources to help Corzine pull out a victory.

As Republicans target the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races - the only statewide elections this fall - as the beginning of a GOP resurgence, national Democrats have concluded they cannot remove Obama from the equation of a possible Corzine defeat, according to three Democratic sources who were briefed on the discussions in Washington. The sources asked not to be named when discussing internal White House and DNC deliberations.

...

Corzine and his campaign operatives have been emphatic in linking the governor to Obama, who they describe as "a partner in the White House." Biden spoke at Corzine's campaign kickoff - saying "Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to Jon Corzine's re-election, period" - and he and cabinet members have made several appearances with the governor to showcase New Jersey projects using federal money from Obama's stimulus package.

Democrats also worry that weakness in New Jersey would presage weakness in Virginia, a new entry in the Democratic column they strongly want to keep there.

Thanks to WiliamA.

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Authors Claim in Washington Post that Ahmadinejad Really Was Winning 2-to-1 Before the Election; Article Refuted By Washington Post's Polling Blogger
— Ace

The nonsense-- a claim the deeply unpopular Ahmadinejad was really ahead "by more than a 2-to-1 margin."

The fisking comes from the Washington Post itself, although it would be nice to see the WaPo more clearly highlight the fact their polling blogger debunks this piece. The WaPo does provide a link that says "For more on Iranian polling, see..." but don't say, more accurately, "Everything that guy just said is bullshit."

For one thing, their blogger notes, that poll dates from a month ago, before the spike in support for Mousavi. More critically:

More to the point, however, the poll that appears in today's op-ed shows a 2 to 1 lead in the thinnest sense: 34 percent of those polled said they'd vote for Ahmadinejad, 14 percent for Mousavi. That leaves 52 percent unaccounted for. In all, 27 percent expressed no opinion in the election, and another 15 percent refused to answer the question at all. Six Eight percent said they'd vote for none of the listed candidates; the rest for minor candidates.

An incumbent polling at 34% is likely to lose, even in a multiparty/parliamentary election. Undecided voters split 2 or 3 (or more) to 1 against the incumbent on election day. If you were happy with the incumbent, you'd express support for him in polls. You wouldn't say "I don't know."

It also occurs to me there aren't 2 or 3 million people rallying for Ahmadinejad.

And that 15% that's so afraid as to refuse to answer? Something tells me they weren't fans of Ahmadinejad.

Thanks to kdabear.

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Embassy Suites Yanks Advertising on CBS Website Over Letterman Joke; Letterman Apologizes -- For Real This Time?
Update: Jeri Thompson Goes After Letterman
— Ace

A cynical man might guess these two facts are not entirely unrelated.

Embassy Suites yanks web ads on CBS after outcry and complaints.

Embassy Suites, part of the Hilton Hotels Corp., pulled advertising on CBS' site because of complaints, company spokeswoman Kendra Walker told TVGuide.com. The company was not an advertiser on Letterman's show.

"We received lots of e-mails from concerned guests and we assessed that the statement that he made was offensive enough to our guests and prospective guests that we elected to take the ads down," Walker said. She declined to release the cost of the ads.

CBS declined to comment Tuesday.

Tuesday? This story is datelined today. Must be a typo.

Meanwhile, Letterman supposedly tries a new heartfelt apology at today's taping. Last time his "apology" was entirely self-serving and contained a fair amount of fresh barbs for the Palins -- the audience was chuckling along with it merrily, getting the sarcastic tone of his "apology."

Supposedly this time he tries to get it right.

Thanks to William A.

Full Statement: Actually, it seems more of the same. He continues saying it wasn't his intent to make the joke he made, but that "perception" is more important here than "intention."

He concedes what he already did concede -- to wit, that even if he meant Bristol, the joke is still "coarse."

I don't see much here different than his old apology. Though his last apology was done as a joke-type thing. Maybe this one is more serious.

Thanks to DrewM. and Joshua.

Oh: I meant to link this a while ago. Jeri Thompson, your next damn Chairman of the RNC.

Thanks to William A for that one, too.

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Obama Finally Speaks: "I am deeply troubed by the violence I've been seeing on television;" "It's up to the Iranian people to determine their leaders."
Update: Full Statement Added
— Ace

On FoxNews. Obama answering a question.

The Iranian people tried to determine their leaders, Genius. But the mullahs determined them, Smart-Guy. So what does your dog-food statement actually mean?

"The democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent; all those are universal values and need to be respected."

Um, you don't have to dissent peacefully in a tyranny. Ask, um, Presidents Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, for starters.

He sounds an awful lot like a guy voting "present" yet again. Expressing some support for the resisters while also supporting the regime by specifying peaceful dissent.

Foreign journalists are being kicked out of the country, so that the regime can kill whomever they like without being seen doing so. Even reporters from Al Jazeera are being booted.

And even on Fox News, cryptoliberal cupcake Shep Smith is spinning for Barack Obama's passivity by claiming that any boldness on his part would be counterproductive and erode the credibility of and sympathy for the resisters.

Oddly enough, Iranian students actually in the line of fire don't agree with this analysis. They want support.

AoSHQ Exclusive: President Barack Obama actually commented in an earlier thread:

Guys relax. I've just over-nighted an Ipod pre-loaded with my magnificent speeches to The Supreme Leader of Iran. See, all better.

So there you go.

Oh, and now Michelle Obama's commenting here:

For the first time in my adult life, I'm really proud of my husband's chicken-shit evasions.

Full Statement: From AHFF Geoff. No cite, but seems correct. Quotes here jibe with the short clips I saw on tv.

OBAMA ON IRAN: In his pool spray with Berlusconi, Obama says he doesn't want to make the United States "the issue," but speaks out forcefully on the Iranian election and its aftermath..."I am deeply troubled by the violence I have been seeing on television. I think the democratic process, free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected. And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they are troubled."

"There appears to be a sense of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy, who now feel betrayed, and I think it's important that moving forward, whatever investigations that take place are done in a way that does not result in bloodshed, and does not result in people being stifled, in expressing their views." (6:45 p.m.)

TO THE IRANIAN PEOPLE: "I would say to them that the world is watching and inspired by their participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was. And they should know that the world is watching." (6:47 p.m.)

The last part is better, but note how weak it actually is: He thanks the Iranian people for their "participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of the election was," as if mere "participation" in an election voided by rigging -- by a coup -- is really the goal here.

They participated. Their job is done. Thank you, drive through.

I think it's important to these people what the actual outcome of the election was. I don't think mere participation, regardless of what the ultimate outcome of this election was, is or was their goal.

Again I continue to read his statements as containing as many cautions for the democratic resisters as for the tyrants.

Seattle Slough asks "What could Obama say?"

Well, how about this:

"A democracy doesn't depend merely on people casting votes ; it depends upon those votes actually being counted and the will of the people being respected."

Instead he continues cautioning against "bloodshed," as if bloodshed and tumult are the real enemies here, rather than the mullahs causing the bloodshed and tumult. He puts himself on the side of stability over actual democracy and freedom.

As has often been said of Muslim "stability" -- it's the stability of the sewer. It's the stability of ruins already reduced to dust.

There's a little something for everyone in his statements, isn't there?

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Vid of Protesters Setting Fire to Basij Outpost
Update: Obama Official Refuses to Condemn Brutality
— Ace

Update: A State Department official refuses to so much as condemn the regime's violent crackdown on democracy.

This is the "new JFK"? I rather liked the old one better:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more.

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

Compare that to Obama's statement on the New Iranian Revolution:

Admittedly, it's pithier than JFK's statement.

Back the attack on the Basij hq:

...

I don't want to say "headquarters," though it is, because that would suggest it's the main hq. I doubt it is.

Nevertheless, here's the crowd attacking the building, shouting "Death to those who killed our brothers." more...

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Serious Non-Civil Disobedience? Plus Video of the Massive Demonstration at Mousavi Rally
Update: Vid of Regime's Basij Thugs Beating a Protester to Death
— Ace

The size of this is pretty impressive. Definitely watch to get a sense of how emboldened the resisters are.

Even a BBC reporter is impressed:

I just came away from the protest. It was an incredible sight. A huge crowd, hundreds of thousands of people maybe even millions of people there in defiance of open threats from the government that they should not assemble.

They have opened fire, that is going to really ratchet up this, it could be frankly a huge political mistake for those running this country.

--Jon Leyne of the BBC Reporting from Tehran

There are reports of the resisters doing more than civil disobedience. Which is awesome. This regime isn't going to back down due to mere protests.

I'm bolding the parts that suggest the the resisters are growing in courage and power, and the tyrants are diminishing in the same.

Shots have been fired during a massive rally in Iran against last week's presidential election results, with reports saying one person was killed.
Hundreds of thousands rallied to support candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, but a group of them was fired on from a militia base they had surrounded.

...

He says the vote was fixed - a claim President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies.

He dropped the f-bomb. Seems significant in its boldness.

The BBC's Jon Leyne, in Tehran, says Monday's rally was the biggest demonstration in the Islamic republic's 30-year history and described it as a "political earthquake".

It was an incredible sight. A huge crowd, hundreds of thousands of people maybe even millions of people there in defiance of open threats from the government that they should not assemble.

The security forces were staying well away< - we were even able to film and usually the secret police come in straight away and stop you. But the crowds were so enormous they were stepping back. As we drove out we saw rows of riot police stationed on the highway.

If they have opened fire, that is going to really ratchet up this, it could be frankly a huge political mistake for those running this country.

The government had outlawed any protest following two days of unrest, with the interior ministry warning that "any disrupter of public security would be dealt with according to the law".

Which means the resisters are currently breaking the tyrant's law without consequence, which only can serve to encourage them.

It's not only tyrants who find weakness provocative -- democrats and liberals (classical senses) find them provocative too.

Despite this, correspondents said riot police had been watching the rally during the afternoon and had seemed to be taking no action.

..."

A photographer at the scene told news agencies that security forces had killed one protester and seriously wounded several others. A man is said to have been arrested over the shooting.

Why was he arrested (assuming he was arrested)? Arrested for carrying out the will of the state? If this is true it suggests the mad mullahs are afraid to retaliate.

This is big:

...

He said the shooting began when the crowd attacked a compound used by a religious militia linked to the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

North of Tehran, in an area better controlled by the mad mullahs, they're actively hunting down protesters, the article reports. (Or rather reports that there are reports of such.) Even so: That is control of certain areas, and apparent loss of control over others. Not a good sign for a regime that relies upon terror to maintain its power.

Thanks to DanF.

Just as personal point, when I started this blog I linked a lot of protests in Iran. I read a lot into the Zorasterian fire-celebrations (outlawed by the government0 as indicating some loss of control of the mullahs.

Obviously those hopes were unfounded. I gave up on Iran after a while believing the mullahs would never be forced out of power by popular pressure.

In this case... well, this seems like a very serious threat to the mullah's power indeed.

"That File is Shut Forever:" Why should Obama even hedge his bets? Achmadinejad just declared he has no interest at all in negotiating away his precious nukes:

Confrontation of some kind, though, is looking more likely no matter what the administration may wish. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared in his “victory” speech over the weekend that he will never negotiate with anyone over his regime’s nuclear weapons. “That file is shut forever,” he said.

Poll: Most Americans Think Obama's a Mewling Sissyboy: "Not tough enough" on Iran and North Korea, at least.

Most Americans -- including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents -- say President Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea and Iran.

A FOX News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been "about right" and 3 percent think he has been too tough.

Sizable majorities of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (78 percent) and independents (61 percent) agree Obama should be tougher on North Korea. Among those voters who backed Obama in the 2008 presidential election, 59 percent say he has not been tough enough.

Thanks to DrewM.

Counter-Evidence: The tyrants are going down with at least some fight. Although they may have ceded some thuggish sovereignty against huge masses of people, they're still wiling to beat the hell out of -- and the life out of -- protesters who don't have sufficient numbers on their side.

This may not really be counter-evidence of general weakening of the regime. As the BBC report pointed out, in some areas the government is "hunting down" protesters.

14 clips compiled by Breitbart of the spiraling violence.

Question: Will NBC call upon its experts to declare Iran in a state of "civil war"?

Allah writes:

Mousavi hasn’t been seen since the election, by the way. Is he dead? In prison? Or, as another hot rumor has it, is he meeting with Khatami and Rafsanjani to form a united “reformist” front? Khatami was president for eight years before Ahmadinejad; Rafsanjani is currently head of the Assembly of Experts, Iran’s equivalent of the College of Cardinals. If they align with Mousavi and recruit some of the country’s other leading ayatollahs to their cause, government officials will be forced to take sides and the regime will crack wide open. No wonder they’re in such a hurry to arrest opposition leaders.

He also floated this interesting idea: Achmadinjed's "election" is a real coup against the (formerly) actual power center of Iran, the mullahs.

Why is Khamenei so invested in an Ahmadinejad victory, especially if, as weÂ’re forever being told, he holds the ultimate power to set policy in Iran? MousaviÂ’s no secularist or squish; heÂ’s basically Ahmadinejad lite, duly vetted and approved by IranÂ’s Guardian Council as Islamic enough to lead the country. The New Yorker theorizes that Khamenei got nervous about how much youth support Mousavi was getting and decided to torpedo him lest he bring some fundie version of Hopenchange to the presidency. But why would Khamenei worry about that when the regime did such an effective job of containing KhatamiÂ’s reformist agenda 10 years ago? The safe play would have been to appease the kids by crowning Mousavi the winner, enacting a few token reforms, and then muddling along with the nuke kabuki until they have the bomb. Instead, he validated an electoral sham so brazen that it has the country inching towards revolution. Why? OccamÂ’s Razor suggests that this is a true coup, with Ahmadinejad rigging the results himself and then somehow forcing Khamenei to bless them. But how could he manage that? WhatÂ’s really going on here?

Either the mullahs saw Mousavi as a genuine threat, or Ahmadinejad turned out to be the real threat, and seized power by coercing them. Either way it suggests that it's vital that Ahmadinejad fail: Either Mousavi is someone the mullahs can't control, in which case he represents a positive change from the current regime, or the frankly insane Ahmadinejad has taken power and can himself no longer be controlled by the mullahs. And, as odd as it is to write, the mullahs are, it is often suggested, much more sane and cautious than the Ahmadinejad.

It should be noted that Ahmadinejad belongs to is suspected of belonging to a sub-cult of Islam which preaches the virtues of the cleansing fires of Apocalypse. This sub-cult was found to be dangerously insane -- (Link to Democratic Underground.)

Hojjatieh is a semi-clandestine Iranian organization which is radically anti-Bahá'í and anti-Sunni. The group flourished during the 1979 revolution that ousted the Shah and installed an Islamic government in his place. However it was banned in 1983 by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the revolution. They believe that chaos must be created to hasten the coming of the Mahdi, the 12th Shi'ite imam. Only then, they argue, can a genuine Islamic republic be established. The Hojjatieh is more of an anarchic-Islamic group than your typical Islamic fundamentalist group.

The current president of Iran Mahmud Ahmadinejad is rumored to be an advocate of this group, though this has not been confirmed anywhere.

If the Ayatollah Kholmeinhi thinks you're crazy, you've got problems.

BTW: The Wikipedia entry the Democratic Underground post cites has been changed. The current Wikipedia entry is more anodyne, soft-pedaling the Apocalyptic millennialist nature of the cult.

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NYT Grants Access and Interview to The Daily Show; Hilarity Schadenfreude Ensues
— Ace

It is pretty funny, actually, but the more acute sensation is pain. more...

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The Time for Steel
— Ace

Michael Totten on Obama getting all mushy on Iran at the very moment steel is needed.

Understand the mind of a totalitarian. “Probe with a bayonet,” Vladimir Lenin famously said. “If you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”

The Khomeinists in Iran likewise only stop when they meet steel. In his book “The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution“, Amir Taheri describes how since 1979 the regime has always continued to push until, as he put it, it hits something hard. It’s hitting something hard right now within its borders. This is no time for mush from everyone else. The regime today is weaker than it has ever been. If the insurrection continues, a fast hard shove might well push it over. If the regime survives, it may well feel invincible.

Military action against Iran should be the very last option and used only if everything short of it fails. Dialogue, though, is only the first option, one that has been failing for three decades. And there is a vast range of options between war and discussion.

If President Barack Obama simply must get this out of his system, at least his patience may be partly sapped by the brutal suppression of hope and change in Iran. He will learn soon enough, if he hasn’t already, that Khamenei, if he survives after defeating Iranians who bravely stood up and said “death to dictatorship” to his face, will be in no mood to compromise with diplomats who are afraid to speak up from thousands of miles away.

And movements like the protests against tyranny in Iran are essentially irrational. I don't mean that as denigrating, but in this sense: They are fueled by emotion and, yes, hope. Their odds of victory are slim. Their odds of being crushed and possibly killed are substantial. And yet they do this anyway, this irrational noble thing.

An American President can't provide much in tangible assistance to such a movement. He can, at least, provide some more of that irrational hope, give the protesters and dissenters the succor of knowing their voices are heard around the world and their cause is just and supported, even if that support is largely of the moral kind.

Obama's eagerness to support the mad mullahs at their point of crisis and give them succor is not just "weak." It's nearly evil.

I've been at a lot of conservative meetings where a speaker gave credit to Ronald Reagan for dismantling the Soviet Union just by proclaiming "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." I always roll my eyes a little -- not really, but in my mind -- at giving so much credit for destroying an evil empire to a sentence.

But I never doubt that such statements surely help. People in repressed countries desperately need allies and friends. Their own governments -- including every cop and even every schoolteacher -- are allied against them, and their own neighbors too might sell them out to the secret police. With the need for friends and allies so great, statements offering moral support can in fact be powerful, and offer those nobly irrational resisters some reason to believe they can prevail.

And if enough people in a repressive regime believe that -- they can prevail.

Revolutions and counterrevolutions really do turn on hope. If enough people believe they can overthrow a regime, then they can. It is only because they are paralyzed by fear and futility that they don't. The moment those tools of the tyrant are stolen from him, the tyrant becomes imperiled.

I am baffled by Obama's refusal to offer any encouragement to this movement, even if it's of a cautious kind. Why not say something pointed like "We are willing to work with the legitimate government of Iran, whatever that might turn out to be"? Clarification: He did say something like that.. before the election. See below.

Iranian students, meanwhile, say they're "doomed" if Obama meekly, evilly accepts the election results.

Merkel: "Signs of Irregularities:" Speaking softly.

Obama Actually Did Say Something Like This Before the Election: Just to clarify:

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact that there's been a robust debate hopefully will help advance our ability to engage them in new ways

This is obviously, though, not the same as undermining the regime and supporting the resisters after the "election."

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