Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is up for confirmation this Thursday for a second four-year term. Despite rising public anger at the Fed over the secretive bailouts, the Senate Banking Committee is widely expected to approve President Obama's choice.

But Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) says it's "not necessarily" a foregone conclusion. Now, a group of progressives are trying to make it a real fight.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a petition at StopBailoutBen.com, urging senators to vote against Bernanke. In an email to supporters, they highlight a conversation between the Fed chairman and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) in which Bernanke said "I don't know" which foreign banks got half-a-trillion U.S. dollars in exchange for foreign currency.

The full letter:

Pop quiz.

You are a U.S. senator deciding this Thursday whether to confirm Ben Bernanke for another 4-year term as Chair of the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve recently gave over a trillion dollars in new bailouts to various banks, and Bernanke refuses to say who got the money. He actively opposes attempts by Congress to audit his books.

What do you do?

If you think senators should vote "no" on Bernanke if he refuses to say where trillions of dollars went, click here to sign our petition. Then, tell your friends.

Here's a fascinating exchange that happened recently between Chairman Bernanke and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) about some of these unaccounted-for loans:

GRAYSON: So who got the money?

BERNANKE: Financial institutions in Europe and other countries.

GRAYSON: Which ones?

BERNANKE: I don't know.

GRAYSON: Half-a-trillion dollars and you don't know who got the money?

In total, over a trillion dollars are unaccounted for. Reps. Grayson and Ron Paul (R-TX) propose an audit of the Federal Reserve, but Bernanke opposes it.

Click here to tell senators to say "no" to Bernanke if he continues to say "no" to transparency. Then, tell your friends.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said on Sunday that Bernanke is "part of the problem" facing our economy and that he will vote "no."

But many senators are on the fence. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the head of the Senate Banking Committee, called the Federal Reserve an "abysmal failure" but said he was "waiting to see how members react" before deciding how to vote.

This week, senators need to hear from us. Click here to sign our petition. Then, tell your friends.

Thanks for being a bold progressive,

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has launched a petition calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to weaken the filibuster.

"Join me in calling for an end to this unfair system. Tell Majority Leader Reid to modify the rules of the Senate to require only 55 votes to invoke cloture instead of 60," Grayson writes.

Since the Democrats regained control of the Senate, Republicans have abused the filibuster rule like never before. Until 1970, no session of Congress had more than ten votes on cloture to end a filibuster. Until 2007, the record was 58. But since Democrats regained control of the Senate, filibusters have skyrocketed. The last session had a new record of 112.

The filibuster does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. If the Founding Fathers had wanted it, they would have included it. Instead, this undemocratic rule allows small-state Senators representing as little as 11 percent of the country to thwart the will of the other 89 percent. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes needed to end a filibuster from 67 to 60. Now, with the Party of No blocking majority rule on virtually everything the country needs, we need to do it again.

Of course, it's not that easy. It takes 67 votes to change a Senate rule, and it's unlikely Democrats will be able to get that many when they're struggling to corral 60 for health care reform. The rule was changed in 1975, when the number of senators needed to invoke cloture was dropped from 67 to 60. Chris Bowers suggests using the power of the vice president as presiding officer to force legislation through with 51 votes -- otherwise known as the "nuclear option."

WellPoint health insurance company, which has encouraged its employees to lobby against health care reform, is now cutting their benefits.

The insurance giant plans to raise deductibles and premiums for some of its employee health benefits. "Your cost per paycheck will probably increase," said a memo to Wellpoint employees that was obtained by Bloomberg News.

The company blamed the recession for the cuts. "Like many employers in today's economic environment, we are looking at all aspects of our business," including benefits, "and making adjustments to ensure we can continue to operate competitively in the future," wrote Chief Human Resources Officer Randy Brown.

WellPoint's CEO, Angela Braly, made nearly $10 million in 2008.

WellPoint illegally pressured California employees this summer to fight health care reform, according to Consumer Watchdog. "Regrettably, the congressional legislation, as currently passed by four of the five key committees in Congress, does not meet our definition of responsible and sustainable reform," said the company's Anthem Blue Cross unit in a company e-mail. The proposals would hurt the company by "causing tens of millions of Americans to lose their private coverage and end up in a government-run plan."

A House investigation found that WellPoint also rewarded employees for finding ways to drop policyholders who developed expensive conditions -- a practice known as rescission.

 

 

Lawrence Lessig's Change Congress is going after Blue Dog Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) for opposing a public health care option supported by his constituents while taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health care industry.

Not only does the ad urge Ross to vote for a public health care option, it challenges him to support publicly-funded elections so that he'll be less beholden to special interests in the future.

Narrated by Lessig, a Harvard law professor, the ad questions why Ross has fought against a government-run health care plan when a poll shows that 55% of people in his state support it. Ross, the ad notes, has taken $921,670 in campaign contributions from health insurers and the pharmaceutical industry since arriving in Congress.

After showing a clip of Ross lamenting his need to fundraise, the ad concludes, "Congressman, if you're so tired of raising money from special interests who oppose your constituents on issues like health care, then do something. Join the bipartisan bill to replace these corrupt special-interest-funded elections with citizen-funded elections and restore trust to Congress."

In an interview with National Journal in January, Lessig said, "After a while, more and more people begin to be convinced that, 'OK, my important issue is health care, my important issue is global warming. But I begin to see that until we solve this corruption issue, we're not going to get to solve these other issues at all.'"

Change Congress will be raising $15,000 online for an initial buy of 200 ads in Arkansas. Then the next $15,000 will buy 100 ads in DC. Additional money raised after that will go to more ads in Arkansas and DC.

On CNN Sunday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he didn't think the protests against the president are racially motivated.

Host John King asked Gibbs about signs that said "Bury Obamacare With Kennedy," describing the sign as "distasteful." In reference to a column by the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, King asked if the president thought his race had something to do with such vitriol.

"I don't think the president believes that people are upset because of the color of his skin." Rather, he said, they were upset by the financial collapse and the economic crisis.

"I do think... this rhetoric often just gets way too hot," Gibbs added. "I think if we have a debate that's based on fact, and not based on hot rhetoric, or what gets us on TV each and every day... we can actually solve a big problem for the American people."

King also asked the press secretary about some more famous opponents: Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

On Wilson, Gibbs said the president accepted his apology and that the incident was a good lesson in civility for his six-year-old. As for plans to censure Wilson, Gibbs he would "let the House figure out how to deal with that."

After playing a tape of Obama saying death panels are "a lie, plain and simple," King asked, "Does the president believe that Sarah Palin is a liar?"

"Despite many media outlets saying that what former Governor Palin was saying wasn't true, she continued to say it," Gibbs responded. "I'll let Webster define what one calls her. I think in the absence of fact... sometimes what happens is we fill the void with stuff that quite frankly isn't true." He said Obama helped fill that void in his speech Wednesday night.

In a full-page New York Times ad released Wednesday, Obama campaign workers demand that the president fight for a public health care option.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee raised over $100,000 online to fund the ad, which will be published in the paper this week. It features a petition signed by 400 former Obama campaign staffers, 25,000 Obama volunteers, and 40,000 Obama donors that states health care reform without a public option is not "change we can believe in." The full page can be seen at ActBlue, where the group is now raising money to turn it into a television spot featuring Obama organizers.

The 180,000-member organization raised $100,000 online in 72 hours to fund the ad. Over three thousand donated; the average contribution was $35.

The ad features a quote from Lance Orchid, Obama's Deputy Field Director in Georgia: "President Obama, I started making calls for you during the South Carolina primary from my recovery bed -- after a nearly fatal accident. I couldn't afford health insurance and racked up big bills. I worked for you because I believed you could bring real change on health care. The public option is that change -- please don't disappoint me and the millions of people who believed in you."

Obama is expected to voice his support for the public option in an address to Congress Wednesday night -- as he did at an AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati on Labor Day. For the PCCC, that's not enough.

"To avoid losing the grassroots army that got him elected, President Obama needs to do more than express a preference for the public option," PCCC co-founder Adam Green said. "He needs to draw a line in the sand and fight hard for it."

Blue Dog Democrats have defended their reluctance on health care legislation by saying their moderate constituents can't stomach a bill that's too far to the left. A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, however, shows that at least one Blue Dog, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), is not representing his district's desires. Sixty percent of those polled disapprove of the lawmaker's actions on health care, and 61 percent favor a public option.

That's even higher than the 44 percent of Montanans polled that disapproved of Sen. Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) work on health care.

Cooper was instrumental in helping kill health care reform under President Clinton. Ezra Klein explained:

Cooper was, from the beginning, an enemy of reform, not a constructive participant seeking compromise. He did not survey the assembled bills and try and forge a deal. Rather, he did everything he could to undermine the Clinton plan, and played a key role in destroying its chances by shattering the Democratic legislative strategy ("Thwarted on the Republican side of the aisle, Dingell turns back to his Democrats -- and once again finds Jim Cooper standing in his way.") and peeling off Blue Dogs and business. Without even the pretense of party unity, there was never the underlying foundation to force negotiations among the key players -- and so, contrary to Brad's claims, Cooper should be remembered not for trying to cut a deal, but for undermining the conditions and legislation that would've allowed a deal to have been cut. He was out for his campaign contributors and, as a read of The System makes clear, his own glory. He wanted to be the dealmaker of health care. He wanted it so bad that he killed the damn thing.

The poll suggests that if Cooper again moves against a public option, it could affect his reelection prospects. Thirty-four percent of all voters and 47 percent of Democrats said that if Cooper opposed a public insurance option, they would be less likely to vote for him.

The congressman, however, isn't worried. In a statement to the Nashville Scene, he said:

"Private polls are inherently inaccurate, and most people disregard them. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and the Daily Kos got what it wanted. The whole premise of the poll is that I oppose a public option, and that is simply not true. I have repeatedly said that I'm FOR a public option, and that there are multiple ways to do it. I agree with Sen. Chuck Schumer's position on the issue, and the Daily Kos is not attacking him.

"The Daily Kos can assign a false position to me if it wants, but it's not accurate."

While Cooper has stated his support for a public option, he has also said that Democrats don't have the votes to pass it without Republican support.

In an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday evening, former House Majority Leader and future "Dancing with the Stars" contestant Tom DeLay joined the ranks of those who are not sure the president was born in the United States.

While other prominent Republicans have said that people have a right to question the president or that he should release his birth certificate to put the rumors to rest, few have gone as far as DeLay did in supporting the birther movement.

On "Hardball," Chris Matthews tried repeatedly to get DeLay to comment on the conspiracy, an issue that often makes Republicans uneasy on television. Finally he said, "You keep skipping over this birther thing. A half dozen members of what was your delegation, you built that delegation, you built that republican stronghold down there ... people like that are birthers and raise the questions of the president's legitimacy. The implication is this guy ought to be picked up because he was never naturalized and therefore, in the country illegally. Where are you on that one?" Matthews was referring to the six Texas Republican lawmakers who have co-sponsored Rep. Bill Posey's (R-Fla.) "birther bill."

This time, DeLay did not avoid the question. On the contrary, he seemed to place himself firmly in the birther camp. "I would like the president to produce his birth certificate," he said. "I can. I can, most illegal aliens here in America can. Why can't the president of the United States produce a birth certificate?"

DeLay even went so far as to ask for Matthews' help in securing the document. "Chris, will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you ask the president to show me... his birth certificate." Matthews declined, and pointed out that there was a newspaper announcement of the president's birth in 1961. DeLay questioned that as well: "Is a newspaper article an official document?" At that point, Matthews appeared to give up. "It's common sense we're talking about here," he said. "Common sense ... They gave us the document that was made available to anybody in Hawaii who asked for a birth certificate. That document they give you. That's all I know." He then changed the subject.

Watch:

CNN's Rick Sanchez went hard after Rick Scott, leader of Conservatives For Patients' Rights, first on his role in the anti-reform town hall protests and then on his old company's Medicare fraud.

Scott questioned the organization's role in disruptive protests at Democratic town halls.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, yeah. Do you take credit... There is your website. We take it all the way to the very top. People can see it. It is CPR, Conservatives for Patients' Rights. There, you tell people where they can go, to these town hall meetings. You tell them what they can do. You show them videos of what's been done so far. Some people have used the word orchestrated. I'm not sure what word you would use. Do you take credit for making sure this is going on?

SCOTT: It would be nice to, right? I believe that people ought to show up to these meetings and be nicer about it. They ought to show up and tell them what they think. I think they ought to show up whatever side you are on. You ought to let people know. We are going through a significant debate about what ought to happen in health care. Show up and tell them what you think.

SANCHEZ: Let's be fair about this. You are not trying to get everybody to go. You are ginning up the people who are going to object on your side. You have a lot to gain.

Scott merely responded with his strong belief that "government-run health care will be bad for you as a patient and a taxpayer and bad for our country. Most important, it would be bad for you as a patient." So Sanchez went after Scott's stance as an unbiased observer, given that he founded Columbia/HCA, a health care company found guilty of huge Medicare fraud.

Scott was ousted by his own board of directors in 1997 in the midst of the biggest health care fraud scandal in U.S. history, a scandal that ultimately led to a payment of $1.7 billion to settle charges including the overbilling of state and federal health programs.

Scott defended his former company, saying other health care companies had paid fines too. Sanchez cut in: "You are the guy that is sitting here telling us we can't allow the government to do this because it won't work and they might take over or do some things that are wrong. How much more wrong can you be than what you just said? Not only has your company screwed up and you just admitted it ... You are saying, look at all the other companies, they did the same thing."

Scott dodged the accusations, denying any involvement in the fraud or in paying the fines. After accusing him of "playing with the facts," Sanchez concluded:

I guess the point I am making, though, is look... some people are going to look at your record and some of the things that you and I just talked about and say, this is the guy who is leading this charge. Is he the one that we should be listening to? Not exactly a perfect past when it comes to what's right for taxpayers and patients.

Watch:

Even with Al Franken finally seated, Democrats will have trouble getting their agenda through the Senate. Case in point: Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman, who told the New Haven Independent that public health care couldn't and shouldn't pass.

"I'm skeptical of it, both in substance and in the politics," Lieberman said to the paper. "And by the politics I mean I think we're not going to get the votes to pass the overall bill if that becomes a condition of it."

On the substance, Lieberman said: "Part of my concern is ... that inevitably if we create a public option, the public is going to end up pay for it and that's a cost we can't take on."

Watch:

Lieberman has declined to back a public option in the past.

Independent Bernie Sanders has challenged Democrats to commit to opposing a filibuster on health care, even if they don't vote for the bill.

"I think the idea of going to conservative Republicans, who are essentially representing the insurance companies and the drug companies, and watering down this bill substantially, rather than demanding we get 60 votes to stop the filibuster, I think that is a very wrong political strategy," Sanders said.

President Obama celebrated the anniversary of the Stonewall riots to at the White House Monday, and he used the opportunity to address some grumblings in the gay community.

"We seek an America in which no one feels the pain of discrimination based on who you are or who you love, and I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that," he said. "It's not for me to tell you to be patient anymore than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago. But I say this: We have made progress, and we will make more. And I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises that I made, but by promises that my administration keeps ... We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

Obama added that he was working with the Pentagon, as well as Congress, to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell." He called this period a "transition" toward that end but said it had to be done pragmatically, so the new policy works in the long-term.

Many gay donors dropped out of a recent Democratic National Committee fundraiser in protest of the Obama administration's legal brief defending the anti-gay Defense Of Marriage Act. Gay rights advocates are also dismayed that the president has yet to take action on the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy.

In an interview with MSNBC's Chuck Todd following Obama's remarks, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the president's promise to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell" would be fulfilled.

American neoconservatives have often used the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to bolster their case for aggressive action against Iran. So the assumption might be that they would be rooting for Iranians to take care of the problem themselves by electing reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi in today's vote..

Instead, they're rooting for the anti-American bogeyman to stay in power.

Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation that he would vote for Ahmadinejad if he could:

American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin suggested to National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez it might be better for Ahmadinejad to win, because a loss might give Obama the impression that diplomacy was working.

LOPEZ: Should we want Ahmadinejad to lose the election this weekend?

RUBIN: The Obama administration tends to conflate advocacy with analysis. They see in the Islamic Republic what they want to see, not what the Iranian leadership's intentions really are. As such, should someone more soft-spoken and less defiant -- someone like former prime
minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi -- win, it would be easier for Obama to believe that Iran really was figuratively unclenching a fist when, in fact, it had it had its other hand hidden under its cloak, grasping a dagger. What Ahmadinjead did was to expose the ideology of the power
holders in Iran for what it actually is. Holocaust denial, for example, is nothing new to the Islamic Republic. Both Rafsanjani and Khatami also encourage it. Ahmadinejad's bluntness, however, forced even the Europeans to react.

[Ed. note: Michael Rubin insisted via email that he was not rooting for Ahmadinejad to win. The quote and link to the interview is above. You can judge for yourself.]

Other neocons, worried a shift in power will signal a fresh start relations with Iran, are already deflating a Mousavi win. The same pundits who constantly point out Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, and nuclear ambitions as reasons to confront Iran now argue that the president doesn't matter. Martin Peretz wrote at the New Republic, "We've known for a long time that elected leaders do not carry the weight of those who have been anointed." Ilan Berman seconded at the American Spectator, "Whoever ends up becoming president will have little real power -- and even less influence over Iran's geostrategic direction."

In fact, Mousavi does disagree with Ahmadinejad on a key policy point. Unlike the current president, he would back nuclear talks with Iran and United Nations Security Council members.

In an interview with Fox News' Greta van Susteren, former Vice President Dick Cheney admitted that there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in the September 11th attacks.

"On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that," he told the "On The Record" host in a joint interview with his daughter Liz. "There was "some reporting early on ... but that was never borne out," Cheney said. "George ... did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11."

Asked in 2004 if Iraq was involved in the attacks, Cheney was less clear, telling CNBC, "We don't know." He criticized the "irresponsible" media for reporting that there were no links between al-Qaeda and Iraq. "There clearly was a relationship. It's been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said. In other interviews around that time, Cheney was similarly vague, suggesting that the link could exist. President Bush repeatedly encouraged a false connection between Iraq and the attacks, although he later claimed to have only said there was a "relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Liz Cheney complimented Obama's family, and said that she hoped he would "talk about democracy and I hope he'll also talk about women's rights" on his trip to Egypt. Asked if President Obama was "soft," Dick Cheney responded, "I can't say that. I think he's still learning."

Watch:

The attacks on Judge Sonia Sotomayor are growing more vicious by the day, sparking a racial divide within the Republican Party over how best to approach the Supreme Court nominee.

African-American and Hispanic conservatives who have questioned her judicial philosophy also note the historic nature of the appointment and praise her triumph over economic hardship. White conservatives, on the other hand, have been far more personal and aggressive in their attacks on Sotomayor's record, repeatedly accusing her of "reverse racism" and questioning her intelligence.

"I'm excited that a Hispanic woman is in this position," said Michael Steele on Bill Bennett's radio show Friday. He added that instead of "slammin' and rammin'" on Sotomayor, Republicans should "acknowledge" the "historic aspect" of the selection and stick to a "cogent, articulate argument" against her.

Steele argued that the GOP should not "get painted as a party that's against the first Hispanic woman" picked for the Supreme Court.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales echoed these views recently, telling CNN, "I have no questions in my mind about her qualifications in terms of education, experience. A president is not required to nominate the most qualified person to the court. I think he's obliged to nominate someone who is well-qualified, and I think by any measures, she is well-qualified. I think there are legitimate questions about her judicial philosophy."

White male conservatives, despite polling showing both the public and GOP insiders disagree, are maintaining that Sotomayor is an unqualified bigot.

Pat Buchanan described Sotomayor in a column Friday as an "anti-white liberal judicial activist" as well as a "lightweight" who "covers up her intellectual inadequacy by bullying from the bench."

John Derbyshire, at National Review Online, took admiration for Sotomayor's life story as an intentional insult to him and all other white people:

I get mighty annoyed by the unspoken implication in a lot of commentary that anyone not a member of a Protected Minority must have grown up in a twelve-bedroom lakeside mansion and been chauffered [sic] off to prep school with a silver spoon in his mouth. Judge Sotomayor was raised in public housing? So was I. Her mother was a nurse working late shifts? So was mine. When did white working poor people disappear off the face of the earth? Where are the eager listeners to their "compelling stories"?

On Bill Bennett's radio show Thursday, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes suggested that Sotomayor got into Princeton through affirmative action, and went on to suggest that most students probably get "some kind of Cum Laude."

BARNES: I think you can make the case that she's one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.

BENNETT: Yeah, well, maybe so. Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders.

BARNES: One wonders.

BENNETT: Summa Cum Laude, I don't think you get on affirmative action. I don't know what her major was, but Summa Cum Laude's a pretty big deal.

BARNES: I guess it is, but you know, there's some schools and maybe Princeton's not one of them, where if you don't get Summa Cum Laude then or some kind of Cum Laude, you then, you're a D+ student.

Bill O'Reilly claimed Thursday night that "the left sees white men as a problem" and putting women and minorities in power is the solution.

And Rush Limbaugh recently described the GOP as the true "oppressed minority."

Conservatives have also suggested that Sotomayor's fondness for Puerto Rican food will somehow "influence her verdicts from the bench."

John and Elizabeth Edwards appeared together on "Oprah" Thursday, in an intensely -- maybe uncomfortably -- personal interview. Based on Elizabeth's new memoir, "Resilience," the couple discussed her discovery of her husband's affair in the midst of her battle with cancer.

Oprah asked John Edwards if he was made uncomfortable by the renewed scrutiny the book would bring. "I think that's up to her, you know?" he said. "This is -- this is -- that's what this whole -- this book is about, and it's what's inside her, what she feels. It's what it should be."

Asked if he thought Elizabeth would leave him when she found out about the affair, John said, "I didn't know. I think the honest truth is I didn't know. I didn't know what she would do. I don't think anybody does when they go through something like this."

While she was very frank, Elizabeth Edwards did place one condition on the interview -- that the name of John's mistress not be used. (It never appears in her book, either.) Oprah asked why. In her response, Edwards suggested Rielle Hunter is a fame-seeker who shouldn't be gratified.

"You know, somebody wants to stand in the light, you know, that shines on John, that's one thing," she said. "If they somehow, you know, work at destroying my family and my home in order to get into that light, I'm really not interested in them being in the light too much. It's not about this woman. It's about this family."

Edwards also said, when asked about her kids' response to the affair, that "maybe the cancer's a bigger thing in their lives than this woman's passing through."

Oprah concluded, "You can see that this a home with love. It's a great place. And one of the things that I said to Elizabeth, the thing that I gathered from reading her book, is that the only way it can work out is because there has been so much love between you."

Watch part of the interview: