Ezra Klein Finds a Fascinating Chart

He explains below.

You're seeing two things here. The light blue line measures paid sick days. This is what you use if you need to take three days off because you have a fever. The dark blue line is paid sick leave. This is what you use if you need to take three months off because you have cancer. Every other country on the list offers at least one. Most offer both. The United States is alone in guaranteeing neither.

Klein goes on to say "I'm working at a serious newspaper now [WaPo] and so I'm going to try to avoid words like "barbaric" to describe policy decisions I don't like."

No, barbaric is precisely correct. And if people started saying it in "serious" newspapers like the Washington Post, then maybe we could do something about it.

I'm working on a series called American Evil. In it I will examine a different kind of American exceptionalism. One of the focuses will be on our barbaric health care system.

Obama administration sides with Bush officials against outed CIA agent

George and Barack. Peas in a pod sometimes.

The Obama administration has decided to oppose the reinstatement of a civil lawsuit filed by outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

The move represents the first public position by the administration on the issue. Obama’s position mirrors that of President George W. Bush, whose aides found themselves in the cross-fire after the agent, Plame Wilson, was outed by conservative columnist Robert Novak.

A Washington, D.C. district court dismissed the suit — Wilson v. Libby et al. — which posited that key Bush and Cheney officials violated the constitutional rights of Plame and her husband, a former ambassador. Those sued included former Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage for their gross violations of the Wilsons’ constitutional rights, as well as “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the case.

Obama’s Justice Department says the Wilsons have no legitimate claim to sue. They also put forward another startling claim.

“The Obama administration has gone one step further, suggesting Mr. Wilson failed to provide any evidence that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove or Mr. Libby harmed him,” Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility reported on their blog Wednesday. “This is particularly ironic because the government had moved to have the case dismissed before the Wilsons had the opportunity to uncover the details of how Ms. Wilson’s covert identity was revealed.

In a statement, the group’s director said they were “deeply disappointed.”

“We are deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to recognize the grievous harm top Bush White House officials inflicted on Joe and Valerie Wilson,” CREW chief Melanie Sloan said. “The government’s position cannot be reconciled with President Obama’s oft-stated commitment to once again make government officials accountable for their actions.”

David Waldman Devastates the Dim Bulbs on CNN

Waldman, always one of my favorite bloggers at Daily Kos, literally walked over a panel on CNN yesterday.

Our Man at Bilderberg

The common convention is that people who care about such organizations as the Bilderbergs are suffering from some paranoid obsession that often afflicts people who have seen too many episodes of the X-Files. But as Charlie Skelton demonstrates, writing for the Guardian, it is the Bilderberg crowd that clearly suffers from paranoia.

I've never had much interest in groups like these. This is because I have never seen evidence that a group like the Bilderbergs exercise direct political power like, for example AIPAC. But when a journalist like Skelton, working for a prominent newspaper like the Guardian, gets treated like a terror suspect to impede his coverage of what is billed as a benevolent chat among elites, I get interested. From the Guardian Series: Our Man at Bilderberg:

Ten years ago, when Jon Ronson dared to report on Bilderberg, he found himself "chased by mysterious men in dark glasses through Portugal". He was scared for his safety.

"When I phoned the British embassy and asked them to explain to the powerful secret society that had set their goons on me that I was essentially a humorous journalist out of my depth, I wasn't being funny. I was being genuinely desperate," he wrote. I know exactly how he feels.

Only out of sheer desperation did I try to arrest one of the goons following me and then follow my flimsy leads up the Greek police ladder, finally catching one of the goons wet-handed in the lavatory of the department of government security. And only then did I know the extent of Bilderberg's paranoia: they had set the state police on me.

So who is the paranoid one? Me, hiding in stairwells, watching the pavement behind me in shop windows, staying in the open for safety? Or Bilderberg, with its two F-16s, circling helicopters, machine guns, navy commandos and policy of repeatedly detaining and harassing a handful of journalists? Who's the nutter? Me or Baron Mandelson? Me or Paul Volker, the head of Obama's economic advisory board? Me or the president of Coca-Cola?

It makes me want to spit, the absurdity of it: the cost, not just in Greek tax euros, but on my peace of mind, of having (conservatively) a dozen Jack Bauers assigned to tailing me. I hope the operation at least had a cool name: Operation Catastrophic Overreaction, perhaps.

So, yes, Bilderberg's paranoia is half to blame. But there is another reason why Ronson was hounded round Portugal, why I was chased round Greece, and why on Sunday the Romanian journalist Paul Dorneanu was strip-searched by goons in Vouliagmeni, held for four hours and forced to purge his camera of images (for the crime of trying to film the delegates leaving). And it is this: they can harass and detain us only because so few of us are there.

Just now, I searched for "Bilderberg" on Reuters. I did the same on AP. And this is what I turned up:

Publicity is pure salt to the giant slug of Bilderberg. So I suggest next year we turn up with a few more tubs. If the mainstream press refuses to give proper coverage to this massive annual event, then interested citizens will have to: a people's media. Find the biggest lens you can and join us for Bilderberg 2010. No idea where it's going to be, but there's usually a few days' notice.

We'll have a barbecue selling bilderburgers (with extra lies), and we will set up our own press centre near the cordon. Get some lanyards. Email me at bilderberg2010@yahoo.co.uk and we'll start prepping.

Meanwhile, petition newspapers to send a correspondent. Petition your MP to ask a question in parliament. This happened a few days ago in Holland. Citing an article by Paul Joseph Watson on prisonplanet.com, a Dutch MP asked in parliament about the involvement of the prime minister, the minister for European affairs and Queen Beatrix, asking them to make public any items that were on the agenda, and whether the ratification of the Lisbon treaty was discussed.

I've got a couple of questions I would like to ask Peter Mandelson, mainly about the freedom of the press and what he thinks about a Guardian journalist being detained, shoved and intimidated by the Greek state police on his behalf. Mandelson's office has confirmed his attendance at this year's meeting: "Yes, Lord Mandelson attended Bilberberg. He found it a valuable conference."

Oh, good. Maybe he stole a bathrobe. Peter has been a busy baron these last few days: all that beach volleyball and global strategising, then straight back to address the Google Zeitgeist conference on Monday, where he talked about "the need for regulation" of the internet. "There are worries about the impact of the internet on our society," he said. I bet he is worried; but not half as worried as I am about "the need for regulation".

But these worries are small potatoes compared with the biggest concern Bilderberg 09 has given me. My experience over the last several days in Greece has granted me a single, diamond-hard opinion. Meaning I now have two: that John McEnroe is the greatest sportsman of all time; and that we must fight, fight, fight, now – right now, this second, with every cubic inch of our souls – to stop identity cards.

I can tell you right now that the argument "If I've done nothing wrong, why would I worry about showing who I am?" is hogwash. Worse than that, it's horse hockey. It's all about the power to ask, the obligation to show, the justification of one's existence, the power of the asker over the subservience of the asked. (Did you know that most Greek police don't wear a number? This is an obligation that goes one way.)

I have learned this from the random searches, detentions, angry security goon proddings and thumped police desks without number that I've had to suffer on account of Bilderberg: I have spent the week living in a nightmare possible future and many different terrible pasts. I have had the very tiniest glimpse into a world of spot checks and unchecked security powers. And it has left me shaken. It has left me, literally, bruised.

I can tell you this from personal experience: the onus upon the individual to carry with them some external proof of their identity is transformative of his or her status as a human being. The identity card turns you from a free citizen into a suspect. It is a spanner with which to beat the individual around the head. It is the end of everything. And how much easier to put all that information inside a microchip so you don't have to carry around that pesky card all the time. How much more efficient!

Listen. I don't care if you don't love liberty. For the love of yourself: fight identity cards. Don't let them happen. STOP IDENTITY CARDS. Stop identity cards. And while you're about it: stop identity cards. And that's all I have to say, you will be delighted to know, about Bilderberg 2009. Oh, except for a giant word of thanks to everyone who has written supportive or interested comments on these blogposts (let's meet up for a proper debrief!) And one little correction: for the record, Kenneth Clarke's office has said he was "in his constituency" at the weekend, not at the Astir Palace doing sambuca shots with the CEO of Airbus. Just in case he remembers differently when asked again.

The Embarassment that is the GOP: Con't

This is why I've almost stopped paying attention to these clowns. If it weren't for their sponsors in the corporate media, they would have probably dissolved by now. But as long as cable news and the Sunday talk shows still pretend they matter, the GOP will keep pretending they haven't completely self-destructed.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Party leaders are dropping a proposal aimed at changing the name of the Democratic Party.

In a deal reached Wednesday, the GOP will not vote on a resolution asking the Democrats to rename their party the "Democrat Socialist" party.

Two Republican National Committee members who had backed the measure say that supporters have agreed to change the resolution's language to urge Americans to oppose what the GOP is calling the Democrats' "socialist" agenda.

GOP Chairman Michael Steele had opposed the name-changing resolution, and other party leaders have called it "stupid" and "absurd."

Wow

Via The Hill

Arlen Specter defending Pelosi?

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to -- I was about to say candid, that's too mild -- to honesty."

TPM Muckracker has more...

"Director Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress," Specter said. "But that doesn't mean that they're all giving out the information."

Because of leaks that have come from Congress, Specter said he understands the agency's hesitancy to disclose all its information.

"The current controversy involving Speaker Pelosi and the CIA is very unfortunate in my opinion because it politicizes the issue and it takes away attention from ... how does the Congress get accurate information from the CIA?" Specter said. "For political gain, people are making headlines."

OK, you can chair the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

Greenwald on where idiocy and cowardice merge once again...

I really have nothing to add to this except read the whole thing.

The "debate" over all the bad and scary things that will happen if Obama closes Guantanamo and we then incarcerate those detainees in American prisons is so painfully stupid even by the standards of our political discourse that it's hard to put into words, and it also perfectly illustrates the steps that typically lead to America's National Security policies:

(1) Right-wing super-tough-guy warriors project some frightened, adolescent, neurotic fantasy onto the world -- either because they are really petrified by it or because they want others to be ("Putting Muslim Terrorists in our prisons will make us Unsafe! -- Keep them away from me, please!!!");

(2) Rather than scoff at the inane fear-mongering or point out simple facts to reveal its idiocy, Democratic "leaders" such as Harry Reid echo the right-wing fears in order to prove how Serious and Tough they are -- in our political debates, the more frightened one is, the more Serious and Tough one is -- and/or because they are genuinely frightened of being called mean names by Sean Hannity ("Harry Reid isn't as scared of this as I am, which shows that he's weak");

(3) "Journalists" who are capable of nothing other than mindlessly reciting what they hear then write articles depicting the Right's frightened neurosis as a Serious argument, and then overnight, a consensus emerges: Democrats are in big trouble politically unless they show that they, too, are as deeply frightened as the Right is.

Until recently, I thought the single most embarrassingly stupid event of the last decade's national security debates -- the kind that will make historians look back with slack-jawed amazement -- was the joint dissemination in the run-up to the war by the Bush administration and the American media of playing cards that featured all of the "Most Wanted" Iraqi Villains and their cartoon villain nicknames. Saddam Hussein was the Ace of Spades; Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash -- Mrs. Anthrax -- was the Five of Hearts; Ali Hassan al-Majid -- Chemical Ali -- was the King of Spades; sadly, Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha -- the dreaded "Dr. Germ" -- didn't make it to the deck, but she certainly had her day in the American media sun (AP: "Iraq's 'Dr. Germ' Surrenders to Coalition" -- CNN: "U.S. military holding 'Dr. Germ,' 'Mrs. Anthrax'").