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New WaPo poll on health care

Details from the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll will be published tomorrow, but the Post posted a couple interesting bits today.  Despite media reports to the contrary, two thirds of Americans want Congress to finish the job and get a health care reform bill passed. 

The poll also quizzed respondents on their expectations about political compromise:

The poll was conducted Thursday through Monday and probably doesn't reflect any bounce President Obama may receive as a result of inviting Republicans to a televised conference to hash out their differences on health care reform.  One might expect Obama to be viewed more favorably and, as a result of juvenile posturing over the proposed summit, the GOP to be viewed as intransigent and unreasonable.

Brian Cox, Theo and Shakespeare

Brian Cox teaches young Theo, age 2 1/2, a little Hamlet.

(h/t Boing Boing)

The Temper Trap

I've always liked that big noise sound in rock.  Temper Trap is a Australian band with one album.  Here's "Sweet Disposition"

Michele Bachmann doubles down

I'm really surprised there are some Republicans who are taking the Paul Ryan bait.  Following the release of Ryan''s "Roadmap for America's Future", high level Republicans were running for the hills trying to distance themselves from proposals to privatize Social Security and replace Medicare and Medicaid with vouchers that pay only a dwindling portion of health care expenses.  Given that Republican Party membership has been skewing older for several years now, the logic of taking away entitlements that their constituents rely on seems somewhat counterintuitive.

Perhaps not wishing to be out-crazied by Paul Ryan, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann went one step farther.  Speaking at the Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis this last weekend, Bachmann came out for elimination of Social Security and Medicare.  Bachmann said:

"So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the (Medicare and Social Security) system(s), that don’t have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off. And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can’t do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is." (Link)

Yeah, that will work.  All they'll need is one of those Glenn Beck chalkboards to make us understand that, as seniors, we just need to cowboy up and figure out a way to live without Social Security and contending with medical costs that can rise 39% a year.

John Murtha

From CNN:

Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a longtime fixture on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending, died Monday following complications from gallbladder surgery, according to a statement from his office. He was 77.

Murtha had represented Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District since 1974, making him the chamber's eighth most senior member. According to his biography on the House of Representatives Web site, Murtha was the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress.

He was considered one of "the kings of pork" on Capitol Hill by taxpayer watchdog groups for requesting tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. On his House Web site, Murtha strongly defended earmarks, saying, "I believe that elected representatives of the people understand their constituents and districts best." Supporters said his efforts helped bring thousands of jobs to western Pennsylvania.

Before his death today, Murtha was running up against a number of ethics investigations in the House.  The most recent were charges that Murtha had influenced federal contracts benefiting his brothers business. 

Obviously no angel.  But John Murtha's forceful opposition to the Iraq War, at a time when opposition to the war was politically dangerous,  caused many to sit up and take notice.  Here was a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee with deep relationships in the Pentagon, calling the Iraq strategy flawed, highlighted that American troop morale was close to collapse, and the U.S. was dangerously close to getting our ass handed to us.  It's fair to say John Murtha's concerns, thought by many to be shared by senior Pentagon officials, was the impetus that forced the Bush Administration to fire Donald Rumsfeld and modify U.S. strategy in Iraq.

San Francisco pitches in for Haiti

Speaking of stereotypes...

(h/t James Fallows)

GOP using terrorism for partisan purposes

I'm shocked!  Obama Administration Senior Terrorism Adviser, John Brennan, said Sunday he had informed senior Congressional Republicans of the status of the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (aka The Underwear Bomber) and none had expressed concerns about Abdulmutallab either being given Miranda Rights or placed into the civilian judicial system. 

Brennan said that on Christmas night he had briefed four senior House and Senate Republicans about Abdulmutallab, who was "in FBI custody" and at that point "talking" and "cooperating." He said that at no point did any of the four -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate Republican minority leader; Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), ranking GOP member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader; and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking minority member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- raise concerns about Abdulmutallab being placed in military custody or being Mirandized.

That seems so odd, given that McConnell and Boehner have been so highly critical of the Obama Administration over its handling of the Abdulmutallab interrogations.

Brennan said "quite a bit of an outcry after the fact" led him to be "concerned on behalf of the counterterrorism professionals" that politicians are using the issue for partisan purposes, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. (Link)

But that just seems so unlike them...(heh)

Palin and her confusion over the TARP bill

Jed Lewison from Daily Kos has put together a video of Sarah Palin speaking about the bank bailout bill passed by Congress in the Fall of 2008.  As a vice presidential candidate, Palin spoke to Katie Couric about the importance of the bill and at last weekends Tea Party convention, Palin bashed the TARP bill as unnecessary cronyism. 

I know what you're thinking; what's the point?  And you're right.  Anyone who clicks "play" on this video already believes Sarah Palin is a know-nothing grifter, pulling a master scam on the Republican Party.  Conversely, her supporters believe any criticism of her is biased and issued only as a means of silencing her and her truth telling.

The whole crib notes, writing on the hand issue is more of the same.  Her supporters will argue public speakers commonly use crib notes, though they're usually written on note cards and writing on the palm of the hand is a trick typically abandoned with graduation from elementary school.  

The issue isn't really that she wanted or needed notes.  The real issue was what Palin felt she needed to jot down on her palm; her core principles.  As John Cole noted: "Put it this way, since this is Black History Month, this is akin to seeing “civil rights” written on MLK’s hand."

I know what you're thinking; what's the point?

Photos from space

Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut on board the International Space Station, has been sending Twitter pictures from space documenting the stunning views he has seen while in orbit. (Link)