Spain has pulled a fast one and taken politics to the arena of academic competition, refusing to let Israel's Ariel University Center - a university with both Israeli and Arab students - participate in Solar Decathlon 2010, after the Ariel U team already qualified for the finals.  Spain is the host of the Solar Decathlon 2010 - the goal of which is to build the best solar house.  According to one of this year's Solar Decathlon Europe's (the first year Europe is hosting it) official web site (click on Solar Decathlon Europe menu, then History),

The Solar Decathlon is a competition organized by the U.S. Department of Energy in which universities from across the globe meet to design and build an energetically self-sufficient house that runs only on solar energy, is connected to a power grid, and incorporates technologies that maximize its energy efficiency.

In the final phase of the competition, teams will assemble their prototypes in the so-called ‘Solar Village.’ The prototypes designed by the participating teams will then ‘compete’ in a set of ten contests (Decathlon) in order to demonstrate the self-sufficiency and energy efficiency of each house.

It is an academic competition, and it is wrong to exclude students that have worked hard and already qualified for the finals.   I believe that it is contrary to academic freedom, detrimental to the spirit of open competition and most importantly, counterproductive to the goal of the Solar Decathlon - which is to find the best group of student scientists that can produce a solar house and provide a model for the world's clean energy future.  That is why I am asking everyone reading this to sign the petition to Spain to have this decision to inject politics in academics reversed, and if they won't, ask the US Department of Energy to rescind its sponsorship of the event.

President Obama went to the House Republican Policy retreat today to talk to them and answer questions one-on-one.  The President mesmerized with intellect, honesty, mastery of policy and sincerity with no talking points or teleprompter during the Q&A session.  The White House insisted on televising both the President's speech and the Q&A session be televised.  So of course, like the cowards they are Fox Noise ran from the coverage in the middle of the President speaking.  Watch:



Luckily, MSNBC happens to have the whole thing on tape, so you can watch it.  I could tell you that the President delivered a smackdown, disarmed and schooled the Republicans, and give you my analysis.  But that's just not going to do in this instance.  So you are going to need about an hour and a half and watch this yourself.  Watch and marvel at the intellectual prowess and the ability of the President to drive the point home for the American people.

Here's the President's speech:



And here is the question-and-answer session:



This is why I am so proud to call this man my President.

So homophobia lives on in the world of sports, and in the Superbowl.  News just trickled in that CBS has rejected an ad from a gay dating site.  Yes, the ad had the audacity to show two men kissing.  I wonder, are there going to be ads showing heterosexual kissing during the Superbowl?  Given Online Booty Call's recent tweet about what team their followers want to see at the Superbowl, I'm assuming so.

Football can certainly be homophobic - but does it have to be?  There are plenty of lesbians and gay men who love sports, are football fans and will be watching the Superbowl.  I don't know that this will do any good, but you can contact CBS corporate and demand an explanation for this.

CBS Television
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
Or use this form to wrote them

If you receive a response, and it's that CBS had problems verifying the company's credit status, that's likely bullshit, since the company says it offered to pay cash.

Here is the YouTube video of the ad from ManCrunch.com, the group whose ad was rejected:

In his State of the Union address to Congress on Wednesday night, President Obama urged Democrats not to run for the hills.  And of course, our darling Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) runs for the hills.  Appearing on MSNBC's The Ed Show yesterday, Kucinich presented the idea that Congress should hit the pause button on health care, seeming to say that Congress can only tackle jobs or health care, but not both simultaneously.

I will let you watch first, and then discuss.

I want to start today with some good news.  The California State Senate just passed SB 810, a single payer health insurance bill, sponsored by the great Mark Leno.  The bill now goes to the Assembly.  Yes, Gov. Schwarzenegger has promised a veto, but he is not going to be governor for too much longer.  If the momentum keeps building, the next governor, in all likelihood a Democrat, will sign it and make California the first state with single payer health care in the nation!

Sen. Mark Leno made a statement on this, saying:

Leno argued the state-run plan would replace the $200 billion Californians already pay for their health care while eliminating insurance companies' share. He previously said the system could use existing state and federal money and a payroll tax, coupled with increased efficiencies from a government-run system.

"We are spending $200 billion currently," Leno said. "It is the same $200 billion used in a more efficient, cost-effective fashion."

Last night, President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress. With an estimated 90 million Americans watching, the President spoke directly to the American people as well as to Congress.  You can view the full address on the White House web site, but here are some of my favorite moments:

Here is my single most favorite moment from the debate.  The president called out the Supreme Court's recent decision to let corporations spend, without limit, advocating for or against federal candidates in elections - essentially, letting domestic and foreign corporations buy our elections and sell our democracy.  Here is that awesome, awesome moment.  Watch:

As usual, there are those who are running around with their hair on fire on the reports that President Obama is going to propose freezing non-security discretionary spending for the next three budget years in his State of the Union address to Congress on Wednesday.  According to news reports, the non-security discretionary spending will be frozen at the current level of $477 Billion.  Of course, any scream-tastic reaction is unwarranted at this point, since we have not seen the President's budget nor heard his State of the Union address.  Yet, people on the reactionary left are running around calling this decision a massive mistake, calling Obama the equal of Hoover, and throwing tantrums.

So let's look at what we know of the proposal so far, whether the freeze closes the door for a robust domestic jobs agenda and additional assistance for the middle class and the poor, and if there are in fact examples of things that can be streamlined in our non-security discretionary spending.

We cannot afford to lose health care reform.  This is not just a once in a lifetime opportunity, this is a once in a century opportunity.  Teddy Roosevelt first called for universal health insurance in America.  Harry Truman put it in the Democratic platform.  And today, some want to tell us that all the progress we made on this issue over the last year has to be scuttled because we lost a Senate race in Massachusetts.  I don't think so.

Health Care for America Now is pushing forward on health care reform:

Health Care for America Now is putting its money where its mouth is. Last week, the nation's largest reform campaign put itself on the side of major labor organizations, and leading members of Congress, saying the way out of the Democrats' health care conundrum is for the House to pass the Senate's legislation, and then pair it with a separate package amending key financing and structural aspects of the bill. This week, they're stepping up their efforts to make sure that happens.

If the Republicans were hoping for a timid, scared Democratic president after their victory in Massachusetts, they can kiss their wish goodbye.  President Obama has gotten the right message from that election.  Voters did not reject Barack Obama, and we did not lose Ted Kennedy's seat because we did not retreat enough.  Republicans exploited the anger and fears, and Barack Obama won't have any of it.  Retreat is not an option.  The President took his fight right to the people yesterday, in Ohio.  I can't do him the injustice of showing just clips, so here is the speech, in its entirety, including the Question and Answer:

We cannot let health care reform die because of an election gone haywire in Massachusetts.  There is a lot of chatter going on in Washington, DC, talking about how health care reform is dead now that Republicans have the 41 votes needed to block the measure from coming to the floor were it to return.  So that leaves one avenue open: pass the Senate bill through the House and have the President sign it.  Then, start the reconciliation process to pass improvement measures by 51 votes in the Senate.

Some Democratic members of Congress seem to be getting the wrong message from Tuesday's election.  People want boldness and leadership, not timidity and 'pause' button.  You can deliver that message personally to your member of Congress.  This is the weekend, and your member will be home for the weekend.  At their local office.  You can find the your member of the House at House.gov.  Once you do, visit the office over the weekend.  Tell their staffers that you want the Senate bill passed in the House and sent to the President.

Dylan Ratigan is the host of MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Show.  In my opinion, Ratigan has built his whole show based on substantive ignorance of policy issues and the exploitation of people's fear and anger at a time when our country is in dire straits.  In his show, he features a segment called 'Busted.'  In this segment, he purports to call out government and other important players in our country for hypocrisy and other public outrages.  On Wednesday's show, his segment was on what a great reception bankers received from Congress as opposed to what a terrible horrible no-good very bad reception was given to the party crashers at President Obama's first state dinner.

"First, we're busting Congress, for pandering to bankers who stole our money while slamming two party crashers who stole the spotlight!" extols Ratigan.  Then he shows footage of the hearings for both the bankers and the party crashers.  Here, it's a small segment.  Watch:

Well, this is sort of an addendum to my previous post, Dear Independent Voter.  So this one is for all of you that voted for Scott Brown for Senate in Massachusetts.  Mostly to the Democrats and independents that voted for him, because I can care less about how the Republicans vote, really.  But you all voted for a guy who implied that the President of the United States is a bastard child, born to a mother out of wedlock.

Just for the record, President Obama's mom, Ann Dunham, had Barack Obama when she was 18 and married.  And you, dear Scott Brown voter in MA, voted for a guy that scoffed at the idea after being told that Ann Dunham was married, saying "I don't know about that."   You voted for this guy:



Proud of yourselves yet?

With the election of Scott Brown to the US Senate, the Republicans now have the 41 votes they need to block a vote on health insurance reform were it to return to the Senate.  Keep in mind that the House of Representatives have the option of passing the Senate bill as is, however, thus sending it directly to the President for his signature, and thus avoiding the need for another vote in the Senate.  If you are a netizen of the blogosphere, it's possible that you have been picking up the vibe that organized labor is against passing the Senate health care bill as is.  Well, that's not true.

Andy Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union, the country's single largest and fastest growing union, penned a column at the Huffington Post today urging for a swift passage of the Senate bill through the House.  Once that happens, he wants the Congressional to use all of its power to push through ways to fix the bill right afterwords.

Let's be clear about something: voters aren't all of a sudden in love with the Republican party.  And most voters aren't rational.  Especially the so-called 'independents.'  Doing something to solve problems isn't enough.  You have to sell it.  You have to show voters that you are doing right by them, and that your opposition stands in the way of reform.

That is what a new poll reveals.  The poll focuses on voters in Massachusetts who voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008 but stayed home or voted for Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown yesterday.  That is, they polled dispirited Obama voters and the angry Obama voters who turned around and voted for Brown.  The results?  Unsurprisingly, these voters do not want, contrary to conventional wisdom, Democrats to dial reform back.  In fact, they think Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress aren't doing enough reform.  They think that the Democrats aren't taking on Wall Street and big business enough.  They think Democrats are looking out too much for the lobbyists.

Howard Dean appeared on the Rachel Maddow show last night.  He acknowledged that now Sen.-elect Scott Brown has run a great campaign.  Asked about the intra-party bickering, Dean told Democrats to get our eyes on the ball, and stop fighting.  "People who blame others are losers," said the former Chairman of the Democratic party under whose leadership Democrats went from a minority to a large majority in both Houses of Congress, and elected a Democratic president.  Here is the segment on Maddow I'm referring to:

Dear Independent Voter,

As you keep swinging with the wind, and 'revolting' against Washington, you are costing our country a great deal.  You flocked away from the Republican party in a rage against George Bush's policies of torture, tax breaks for the wealthy and Wall Street deregulation and corruption and elected Barack Obama president in a landslide in 2008.  Then, you figured, hey, why isn't he waving his magic wand and changing everything in one fell swoop?  Damnit!  So you turned right back to W's party in 2009 and 2010.

You know what, dearest Independent Voter?  You are acting like a five-year-old throwing tantrums.  A five year old who voted for a piece of candy, and now is turning around and voting for a piece of turd because the candyman didn't give him the candy fast enough.  A five-year-old with the fate of our nation in your hands.  You are having your buttons effectively pushed by the right wing thugs who want to destroy this country and what it stands for.  You are being had by the nutjobs that have no interest in being serious about solving whatever it is your particular problem happens to be.  You are walking right into the trap laid out by those who would represent anyone but you in Washington.  And why?  'Cause the guy's got a truck.  And the other gal didn't get on her proverbial political knees and beg for my vote.  You have "Look-at-me-I'm-important" syndrome.  And the dude talked about how b-a-d Washington is.  And did you hear?  The gal went to Washington for a fundraiser!  Oh, and who can forget, the lady called the bastion of public service and democracy, Curt Schilling a - gasp - Yankee fan!  Oh noes!

AP has called it for Brown.  Coakley has called Brown to concede, according to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

Roller Coaster!  Chuck Todd at 5:39 pm Pacific time:

17% in: Brown (R) 52%, Coakley (D) 47%. Just four precincts have reported so far.

Gap widening again.  Chuck Todd at 5:32 Pacific time:

11% reporting: Brown (R) 143,950 votes, 53%; Coakley (D) 126,037 votes, 46%

Coakley moving up slowly.  Countdown on MSNBC reporting

Brown 51.1%, Coakley 48.1%

Chuck Todd at 5:29 Pacific

7% reporting: Brown (R) 69,627 votes, 51%; Coakley (D) 65,533 votes, 48%

According to Chuck Todd's tweet at 5:22 pm Pacific:

4% reporting: Brown (R) 30,579 votes, 52%; Coakley (D) 27.551 votes, 47%

I will continue updating as often as possible.

If you at all can, you need to help Martha Coakley win today in Massachusetts.  First of all, if you are a voter in MA and need a ride to the polls, please call (800) 485-0444.  If you cannot reach that line, try the following also: 617-681-0543 or 617-681-0526.  If you are not sure where to vote, you can find your polling place here.

Now, for GOTV.  If you are in the Bay state:

There sits a diary on the recommended list on Daily Kos that tries to spread the idea that FDL supports Coakley, by citing this article on their front page. And to be fair, it does start off that way.

Just so there’s absolutely no ambiguity, let me get something out of the way: Democrats and progressives and anyone who doesn’t want crazy people running the country should get off their asses tomorrow and vote early and often for Coakley.

But the title of the article makes it clear that their goal is not to push for Martha Coakley, but take the opportunity to state nominal support for Coakley in order to bash President Obama.  The article goes on to slam the President for supposedly going in bed with Wall Street, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies (the latter two in the health care bill).  The article goes after the president for the individual mandate.  To me, that article is about bashing the President, and not about electing Coakley.  The Coakley portion of it was entirely C.Y.A.

As you know, Google has finally gotten fed up with the Chinese censorship and more importantly to it, Chinese snooping operations on its servers, and threatened to leave China.  Good for Google, I say.  Google should leave China.  Yes, the Chinese online population is growing fast, and it's an emerging market.  But China has quite a bit to lose if Google leaves.  The tax revenue, the jobs, the investments Google makes.  Not to mention, the access to the world's most popular - and best search engine.  Besides, Google should not be party to censorship, or more ominously, an unwitting party to China finding and persecuting political dissidents.

This is a courageous step by Google, and it should be rewarded by investors.  If you are an investor, buy Google stock!  Do some investing based on your values, do some good.

The picture about the deal on the excise tax is now becoming clearer.  Labor unions were up in arms about a tax on high-cost insurance plans, and pushed back against Democrats, warning of political consequences.  The White House, Congressional leaders and unions seem to have come to an agreement now.  The agreement, to say the least, does not fix any real policy problems with the excise tax, rather, it brings in an exemption for union plans until 2018, creating a rift in policy and politics between union and non-union workers.  Gah-reat.

First, here are the emerging details of the plan. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic puts it this way:

Two things that stay the same are:
1) The 40% tax rate
2) The rate at which the tax threshold grows

Three things that change are:
1) The threshold goes up (barely!) from $8500 to $8,900 for individuals and $23,000 to $24,000 for families.
2) The tax threshold won't count vision and dental coverage; and there are additional adjustments for age and gender.
3) Unions get a five year exemption from the tax.

As you all know, Haiti has been devastated by a 7.0 earthquake, which struck on January 13.  Relief efforts quickly kicked into gear, but up to 500,000 people may be dead.  The destruction is breathtaking, and the pain of Haitians are felt by every person with a heart.

First things first.  How you can help: USAID has a list of relief efforts and organizations you can donate to.  Monetary contributions are most valuable and most needed.

I have a personal ask that you give to UNICEF - children are the worst affected and the most in need.

But whomever you give to, please give.  Give $10 if you can.  Give $10,000 if you can.  Just give something.

And I will leave you with the President's remarks.  He has promised $100 million in aide to Haiti already, and there will be more.  This is one thing we can all be united behind our President for.

Do you watch the News Hour on PBS?  Well, you should.  Because they have incredible reporting and they go into depth about stories that need attention and light, and remove the heat.  Yesterday, Gwen Ifill, a journalist of unchallenged stature (well, leave it up to the Republicans to complain about her moderating a Vice Presidential debate), did something.  She put two policy wonk heads together: Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institue and Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at MIT.

There are a few striking things in the interview.  Apart from how civil  both of these people are to each other, it was quite interesting to see  them concede one major point to each other: Gruber concedes that the  excise tax is less progressive (but in his words, 'not that much less  progressive') than the millionaire's tax in the House.  This isn't something progressive proponents of the tax have ever argued with.  But contrary to its progressive opponents, Bivens seems to go against his own employer's report and a press release  with his name on it and admit that a tradeoff between wages and health  insurance exists.

The Economic Policy Institute report titled "Employer Health Care Costs Do Not Drive Wage Trends" has become the definitive study for those who oppose a "Cadillac (excise) tax" on expensive group (employer-provided) health insurance plans.  The EPI report has been cited by prominent bloggers on websites like Daily Kos and MyDD to "debunk" the supposed "myth" that health care costs are not a factor in wage growth or decline.  Well, it turns out that EPI gets it wrong on several fronts on the data and interpretation of the data alone.  Their conclusions, to say the least are at best simply mistaken.

The EPI's report is based on three fundamental (and as I will demonstrate, mistaken) claims.

For the past few days, some on the blogosphere have been simmering at the idea of the Cadillac tax, especially the claim that reducing costs of health insurance benefits might possibly result in higher wages.  Of course, opponents of the tax also address things like how bad it is that the Kaisaer Family Foundation's data, assuming average premium growth rate of 8.7% would show that by 2019, family premiums will hit over $30,000.  You should be scared if you are not paying attention to the selective use of the data and bad assumptions here.

So I plan to primarily address a few things today.  First, debunk the idea that one can claim that an excise tax will both force people to choose lower-premium plans and then turn around and say that premiums will still continue to rise at the current rate anyway.  As an aside to that, I will show that even under the status quo, a 5% or so growth rate assumption is not horribly off the marks.  Second, I will show that there is in fact real wage growth possible from the excise tax.  Not in the abstract, but I will demonstrate that health care premiums that employers pay come directly out of your wages.  Lastly, you will see that having a more expensive plan does not make you any healthier or even make you better covered.

An hour or so ago, we heard the sad news that the mother of Vice President Joe Biden, Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan Biden, has passed away today, surrounded by family.  Hers was a life well lived.  She gave us the greatest gift she could: her son, a great man who has served our country tirelessly and humbly for over three decades, and who we are proud to call Mr. Vice President today.

Mr. Vice President, my thoughts and best wishes are with you.

There is a ton of new energy on the side of the web-o-sphere that opposes the Cadillac tax.  It turns out that MIT Professor and economic luminary Jonathan Gruber, has been a paid consultant for the Department of Health and Human Services for a technical assistance contract.  And he advocates for the Cadillac tax.

Oooh, that's bad.  Mind you that the contract was for technical assistance, precisely,

Dr. Gruber is uniquely positioned to provide the analytic work ASPE requires based on over 15 years of experience in health care and health policy. Dr. Gruber is a recognized expert in health policy in economics including being widely published in peer-reviewed academic and health policy literature on the effects of changes in health benefit designs on the cost of enrollment in health insurance. Moreover, in order to estimate the impacts, Dr. Gruber developed a proprietary statistically sophisticated micro-simulation model that has the flexibility to ascertain the distribution of changes in health care spending and public and private sector health care costs due to a large variety of changes in health insurance benefit design, public program eligibility criteria, and tax policy. This model has been used for other health reform proposal. [emphasis mine]

Dr. Gruber was not paid for his opinions.  He was paid to lend the HHS his methods.

Would it have been better if he had disclosed?  Yeah, sure.  But it is absolute heresy to insinuate that Prof. Grubber was either paid for advocacy or that his advocacy for the excise tax had anything to do with the dollars he received in this contract.  He was paid to crunch numbers using a patented micro-simulation model that he developed.  If Jon Gruber wrote something that said "you must eat steak and wear fur to have great health care", there is not a thing the HHS could do about it.  Nor could they cancel the contract.  Once again, he was not employed to do advocacy or public relations.  His contract has nothing whatsoever to do with advocacy at all, much less the specific advocacy of the excise tax.  That is he plain truth of the matter.

Everything else is voodoo handwringing and character assassination.  It is that simple.

We learn with much fanfare from the recommended diaries list on Daily Kos today that "Obama prefers the excise tax on health insurance,"* and that he would like to crush puppies Speaker Pelosi to get it.  After all,

TPMDC reports that Speaker Pelosi is upset with the White House because they want her to largely adopt the Senate bill in its entirety, including the punitive excise tax on health insurance benefits

ZOMG!  President Obama wants to tax your health insurance plans instead of his fat cat millionaire buddies!  Heartless bastard!  Democratic pie fight to ensue!!  Prepare yourself.
  
Never mind that there is a near-consensus among economists about the merits of the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans as a cost-control method as well as in terms of upward wage mobility (I laid out a full informative and analytical piece about the Cadillac tax yesterday).  Never mind that the Senate has a millionaire's tax, too.  Well, a quarter-millionaire's tax.  They would raise the Medicare payroll tax by an additional 0.9% on individual incomes over $200,000 or joint filers making over $250,000.  Never mind that President Obama never actually said that the excise tax is his personal preference over the millionaire's tax (although he does think the excise tax is a cost-saver).  Never even mind that no final decision has been reached about what form the revenue model will actually take.  Never mind any of that.  Don't let any of that get in the way of your seething anger at the President.

There has been a lot of grumbling inside the progressive inner-divide on the health care debate about the so-called 'Cadillac tax.' The Senate-passed bill raises $150 billion over 10 years by this method. The idea is to recede the tax exemption on high-end employer-provided health insurance plans.  A lot of labor unions are understandably angry because their members have given up wages to keep and earn these benefits.  On the other hand, there seems to be somewhat of a meeting of the minds among the policy wonks that this is an effective cost control measure.  So what's going on?

I decided to actually look into the policy.  Who it applies to, whom it is going to affect and to what degree, and what the cost controls, if any, are.  I wanted to look into whether the claims of this being a cost control measure are true.  I also wanted to look into whether the claims of this being a policy that balances the health care woes on the backs of working people is true.  I must admit that I consider myself more of a policy wonk.  Perhaps I best self describe as a  empathy-driven policy wonk, however.

Seriously.  I have had enough of this mentality floating around in some parts of the liberal blogosphere that if the Blue Dogs like something, we must hate it.  Or take any other group.  If such and such group likes it, then we can't accept it.  So there are reports that ConservaDems in the House, formally known as the Blue Dog Coalition, prefers the Senate bill.  Color me surprised.

But let's discuss the merits of the respective bills, shall we?  Once you drop the public option, and if anyone thinks that the public option can still be included in this bill, they are sadly mistaken, the Senate bill is in many ways more progressive than the House bill, although the House bill is more progressive in other ways.  I'm going to try to attempt some comparisons, assuming that the public option is out.  I want us to get out of our "he says she says" mentality and focus on the merits, and then focus on what we should be doing as progressives.

Some of you know that I was born in India.  Like a lot of other countries, India is a place of apparent contradictions.  It is a country that has made great strides in women's legal equality, and yet remains woefully behind in addressing the actual social standards for rural women.  It is a country that has the world's largest film industry (Bollywood) and yet it is illegal for Indian films to show two people kissing with lip-to-lip.  So I guess it should surprise no one that in a country that prides itself on being a free society and the world's largest democracy, we have utterly stupid and censorship laws covering "online pornography."

This came to my attention from a CNET report about how India is forcing Google and Yahoo (and they are complying) to put up Internet censors preventing the public's access to online pornography.  Defending this law, the government of India makes a fool of themselves: