It's a fair question from a man who lost his son on 9/11:

Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war. What are the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn't make the cut?

The Obama administration decided to trash the detainee policies of its predecessor before the inauguration -- and before they'd even looked at the case files of the detainees being held at Gitmo. But when Obama came into office and signed the executive order setting a January 2010 deadline for closing Gitmo, detainee policy was placed under the purview of Obama's White House counsel Greg Craig. That is, detainee policy was to be set by the White House, not the Department of Justice. Now Craig is gone and all of a sudden the American people are to understand that these decisions need to be made independently of the White House, by an attorney general who isn't even asked to bounce his new policies off the president before announcing them to the public.

Beamer wants to know why Obama has shirked a decision with obvious implications for U.S. national security. There is no precedent that demands the president maintain distance from this process, and, of course, the administration had, for most of the last year, run this process out of the West Wing. Ultimately, Obama will be held responsible for whatever fallout comes from this decision -- from the spectacle of KSM berating the American people and calling for ever more jihad from his stand in federal court to the legal ramifications of giving full due process rights to terrorists picked up on foreign battlefields -- whether he was in the room or not.

So why wasn't he in the room? Obama has plenty of time for golf, failed Olympic bids, fundraisers, dozens of meetings on Afghanistan in which no decision is made, and apology tours on three seperate continents. Was Obama too busy even to vote 'present' on one of the most important national security decisions of his presidency?

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has taken another shot at the administration's war on terror policies with a letter yesterday to AG Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioning the decision to put the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in federal criminal courts rather than military tribunals:

Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions.

"As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military tribunals for these detainees should continue," Skelton said in a letter to the two officials.

You have to think that Gates isn't particularly pleased about getting caught up in Holder's ill-conceived plan to make American great again by giving terrorists a microphone and a platform in New York City. Skelton has already broken ranks with his party to support McChrystal's call for more troops in Afghanistan, giving Gates (and Obama) much-needed cover in in the fight to fund any additional forces. Now Holder is mucking things up and putting Gates in the position of defending a policy that, by all accounts, he has no interest in defending.

Mark Hemingway: Won't somebody think of the trustafarians?

Worse than waterboarding: Iraqi detainees use Favre to taunt Wisconsin soldiers.

Jay Cost: Of course 60 Democratic senators will vote yes on Saturday night's motion to proceed to debate on the health care bill.

Wesley Smith: Senate health care bill is assisted suicide friendly.

Sarah Palin is concerned that panels made up of health care bureaucrats recommend scaling back on mammograms and cervical cancer screenings.

Obama campaign calls Palin "dangerous" in fundraising letter.

Jim Geraghty: Fox finds no significant wrongdoing in henhouse.

Ace: Gallup shows Obama is under 50 for first time; Cook Political Report says he's "beyond radioactive" in many districts held by Democrats.

Ed Morrissey: Do hacked e-mails show global-warming fraud?

Andrew Malcolm wrote this up yesterday, news from the last stop of Obama's Asia trip:

Even President Obama himself during his just-concluded trip to Asia admitted that he was surprised to receive the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year without actually producing any peace.

In fact, the rookie American president ordered his own troop surge, boosting U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan to 68,000. Now, the Democrat may be preparing to send more. And a Gallup Poll showed 61% of Americans didn't think he deserved the prize either.

Anyway, there he was in Seoul, the last stop of his journey.

And out of the Seoul sky, President Lee Myung-bak hands over to the American leader a tae kwon do outfit. And then Lee, who practices tae kwon do himself, presents Obama with a coveted black belt.

After zero long years of study.

A friend sends along this picture, which has been making the rounds and goes quite well with the story:

Sen. Chuck Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder in a hearing Wednesday for a list of the employees at Dept. of Justice who might have to recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest over detainees. Some DOJ employees and their former firms represented and defended detainees in the past, raising questions about how DOJ might deal with their cases in the future.

Holder was cagey, promising only to "consider the request" despite Grassley's repeated requests.

Today, the Washington Times reveals some of the recusals already made:

The Obama Justice Department is having problems prosecuting terrorist cases because top department attorneys have conflicts of interest.

According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted...

Mr. Perrelli's recusals presumably stem from the work that either he or his former firm, Jenner & Block LLP, did on behalf of detainees while Mr. Perrelli served on the firm's management committee and on its appellate and Supreme Court practice groups. And Mr. Perrelli is just one official; a number of other Justice Department officials apparently did private-sector work on detainee cases.

DOJ has not provided a list to Grassley yet, but the list of Perelli's recusals was circulated at the department before being acquired by the Times.

John Noonan is correct in stating that NORAD will be sorely stretched by the requirement to stand alerts against incursions by Russian bombers and reconnaissance aircraft (even if these pose only a minimal objective threat, air sovereignty must be maintained). He overlooked, I think, the implications of long range Su-30 fighter/attack aircraft being acquired by Venezuela, which could pose a threat to Florida and the Gulf Coast, further increasing stress on NORAD. At the present moment, it does not appear that the administration will reverse its decision to terminate the FA-22 Raptor at just 183 aircraft, or that a larger number of F-15C Eagles will be modernized to provide front-line fighter-interceptor capabilities. The backbone of NORAD at present consists of aging F-15Cs (whose structural problems were recounted a couple of years ago), and F-16 Air Defense Variants, whose range and sensor capabilities are not really optimized for the continental air defense mission.

It is ironic, therefore, that the U.S. was sitting on a stockpile of perhaps the best bomber interceptor aircraft ever produced, the Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcat (of "Top Gun" fame). Retired from service in the U.S. Navy in 2006, the F-14, particularly in its upgraded B and D variants, combined long range and excellent performance with a powerful AWG-9 or APG-17 multi-mode radar capable of tracking 24 incoming targets while targeting six simultaneously, and a Television Camera Set (TCS) that allows long-range visual identification of potential targets (to avoid embarrassing and tragic accidents). Originally, the primary armament of the Tomcat was six AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles, backed up by a pair of AIM-9 Sidewinders and an M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling gun. A true beast of a missile, the 1000-lb. Phoenix has a maximum speed of Mach 5 and a range in excess of 100 nautical miles. It can attack targets flying anywhere between sea level and 100,000 feet -- and has demonstrated this capability. The ability to engage and detect very low flying targets will become more important as potential adversaries acquire or develop land attack cruise missiles.

It would have been a simple thing for DoD to transfer surviving F-14s and their Phoenix missiles to NORAD, but apparently long-range planning is not a Pentagon strong point. Instead, both missiles and aircraft were placed in the infamous "Boneyard" at Davis-Montham Air Force Base. There, they were placed in a state of preservation which could have allowed them to be reconditioned and reactivated under Air Force colors to meet the present crisis. However, in 2007, DoD decided to shred almost all of the 165 surviving F-14s to prevent spare parts from being sold to Iran (which says something about the USAF's security system, if nothing else). By the end of 2007, 23 of these magnificent aircraft had been shredded and sold for scrap; probably only a handful remain intact, mostly intended to become "gate guards" at various naval air stations.

With a little foresight, these aircraft could have been preserved and modernized to provide NORAD with a highly capable gap-filling interceptor at relatively low cost. Instead, we are likely to find ourselves short-handed just at the time when we would need them most.

Politico reporters will give right-wingers the kind of fair treatment that they can get almost nowhere else, but in this piece on McCain's shift on cap and trade includes a line that just drips with bias. Reporter Lisa Lerer, wrongly in my opinion, attributes McCain's shift on cap and trade to a changeover in staff -- in particular the departure of Mark Salter, who was always pretty green for a Republican. Lerer writes,

The staff that remains, say former aides, lacks the institutional history on the issue and the ability to steer McCain toward productive solutions.

Even if former aides said that -- and given the enormous number of former McCain aides, a reporter could find "a former McCain aide" to say almost anything -- what's with the nonsense about "productive solutions"?

If Lerer wants to assert that the current crop of McCain aides are eco-friendly incompetents who just can't manage to steer the senator toward a cap and trade compromise, fine -- though there doesn't seem much evidence for such an assertion. But "productive solutions"? I'd say the current staff is having more success at steering McCain to a "productive solution" on cap and trade than any that came before them.

As to the larger question of why McCain has dropped this issue, I'd offer a simpler answer: John McCain doesn't like Barack Obama and isn't about to spend his political capital on Obama's hugely unpopular domestic agenda. That's just a guess, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it's the truth.

What’s become of Captain Silvertongue Goldenvisage, bewitcher of men, mascot of children, icon of fools, fetish of knaves? His ship’s afloat, but barely. His sextant’s faulty. His rudder’s sluggish. His port side’s taking on water. His officers await his orders, flirt with mutiny. His crew is scurvy. Rats who followed him aboard as if he were the pied piper are clambering off. Grumbling is heard in the meeting rooms of his patrons. His coffers are shrinking, his debts increasing. The shores he seeks grow ever more distant. His dreamed-of spice route’s come a cropper. Pirates threaten. Shots fly across his bow. Disaster looms.

He has the boat but seems so terribly to regret it, to be averse to steering it, that well might his passengers be wondering: Where is he? What is he thinking? Holed up in his cabin, he’s scouring the pages of his predecessor’s log looking for a place to put the blame. It’s only human—the recourse of children and lesser men. But a captain must be more than only human. He must love the sea as much when it’s rough as when it’s glassy calm.

Is he less than he was? Was he good enough before but now, having gone off course, has he changed his mind in a surge of remorse? Or was he always less—his idolaters worshipping a chimera—just more enough, like so many of the other madly over-praised and pampered members of his class and generation, to desire the ship but not the captaining of it? Will he get it back on course, guide it away from the shoals, while there’s still time? Or will he, like the antecedent captains he is coming increasingly to resemble, Notacrook and Rabbitproof, sink it—and his passengers—in disgrace?

The New York Times has an interesting article up on the role of US and Canadian air defense in the post-9/11 world. Between 2001 and 2007, NORAD provided for regular combat air patrols over major US cities. Due to the spiraling costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, military planners swapped out those active CAPs for a Cold War style of alert posturing, where fighter aircraft are fueled and ready to scramble upon receipt of a tactical warning.

That system, it seems, is also too expensive for some in the government -- as the GAO recently launched an inquiry into the Air Force's self-evaluation processes for determining size and force structure of our air defense fleets. The Times emphasizes two points that support cutting the number of on-alert aircraft: an increasingly limited number of fighters, and cost. Both are valid -- to an extent.

But the irony is, while the internal homeland air defense load may have been mitigated by better airline security measures, the overall demands on NORAD fighter aircraft have increased. A few years ago, Russia resumed bomber flights within close-proximity of the US and Canadian borders. That upped Northern Command's alert requirement, in that they had to start looking externally as well as internally. The probability of a surprise Russian bomber attack is nil, but with 200 bombers -- many of them supersonic and all nuclear capable -- it's a threat that NORAD has to take seriously. Add that to the fact that the Air Force is working with roughly half the F-22 interceptors that they originally planned for, and you can understand why military strategists have become frustrated with what's becoming a Sisyphean task.

We're entering an era where our two oceans can no longer protect the US homeland. Military technology has just become too advanced to be restricted by range and distance. That means we need to be very careful about cutting our fighter forces and missile defense systems. 21st century homeland defense is too serious to do on a nickel's budget.

Another fun email from the NIAC treasure trove...Given that J Street blasted Sarah Palin for her support for the official policy of the government in Jerusalem, and given that even ADL chief Abe Foxman is questioning J Street's "pro-Israel" bona fides as a result, it's worth taking a look behind the scenes of J Street's campaign to scuttle new sanctions on Iran -- a campaign that the group coordinated with NIAC. Here's J Street political director Joel Rubin congratulating the legislative director of the National Iranian American Council, Emily Blout, on their successful push to defeat new sanctions legislation in late 2008:

From: Joel Rubin
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:30:43 -0400
To: Emily Blout
Subject: Re: Hi - get together in mid-October?

I just got airtight confirmation that no 362 language will be included in the Iran sanctions subsection of the India nuclear bill. My bet is that that subsection will get dropped in conference, if it even gets that far. Of course, who knows if they'll be back in November and if the other side makes another play. In any event, you guys did great work this year. Really great

I don't think anybody would make the claim that NIAC is on the "pro-Israel" side, so when Rubin talks about "the other side," it's the genuine pro-Israel community he's talking about, right? Sanctions are the number one priority for Israel and the pro-Israel community in the United States. Why is J Street conspiring with an organization run by an Iranian national -- an organization that Congress has asked AG Holder to investigate for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws -- to kill that legislation?

Parsi was invited to speak at J Street's conference last month. At the time, I asked Hadar Susskind, J Street's director of policy and strategy, what he was doing there. "Some people say Parsi is the regime's man in Washington," I told him. "Those people are wrong," Susskind said. He insisted that Parsi "supports the Iranian people, he is not here on behalf of the regime." Maybe, but that isn't the way the Iranian people see it. When Eli Lake first broke this story, he closed with a quote from Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the unofficial spokesman for Iran's Green Movement. "I think Trita Parsi does not belong to the Green Movement. I feel his lobbying has secretly been more for the Islamic Republic," Makhmalbaf said. It seems J Street isn't just redefining "pro-Israel" -- they're redefining "pro-Iran" as well.

It was reported this morning that Obama would not be letting us enjoy our Thanksgivings without a cameo from him, and now THE WEEKLY STANDARD has acquired this copy of the upcoming ad:

All right, I kid. The real ad is here, but almost equally weird.

Senator Ben Nelson announced today that he will vote yes on the motion to proceed Saturday night. Politico reports two Democrats remain undeclared: "A few moments ago, Sen. Dick Durbin walked back a statement he made earlier today that Sen. Blanche Lincoln told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid how she is going to vote tomorrow. Lincoln and Sen. Mary Landrieu are the only two Democrats who have not yet publicly stated their intentions."

The National Iranian American Council denies it engages in lobbying, yet the organization's internal emails tell a different story. The group calls itself the National Iranian American Council, but it's run by Trita Parsi, an Iranian national who didn't even have a green card when he started the organization. NIAC claims to represent an Iranian-American community that may number a million or so, but just 500 people responded to the group's most recent membership survey. And NIAC claims to support the Obama administration's policy on Iran, but it coordinated a secret campaign to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross to serve as the administration's Iran envoy. The emails show why that campaign was secret -- "Our views on Ross may resemble Tehran's," Parsi wrote.

There's so much smoke here you wouldn't be able to see the fire if it was right in front of your face. Which is why Senator Jon Kyl has asked Attorney General Eric Holder whether there is an investigation ongoing, and if not, why not? Politico reports on the written questions submitted by Kyl to Holder after Wednesday's hearing:

The November 13, 2009 Washington Times article, “Iran advocacy group said to skirt lobby rules” alleges that the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) may be operating as an undeclared lobby and may be guilty of violating tax laws, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and lobbying disclosure laws.

• Is DOJ investigating the allegations put forward in this article? If not, why?

• Has DOJ found the allegations in this article to be true?

• What is the proper recourse against a 501(c)(3) group that engages in lobbying activity on behalf of a foreign government without registering as a lobbyist or filing papers with DOJ indicating that the group is a local agent of a foreign government?

It's not every day that a United States senator asks the Attorney General to investigate whether a Washington-based organization is actually a front for a hostile regime. Holder is required by law to answer such questions, so we ought to have our answers soon enough, but at this point the evidence seems to indicate that NIAC has, at the very least, skirted federal lobbying disclosure laws. Of course this all leads to the more serious question of who, exactly, Parsi represents -- but that is really a question for the FBI to answer.

Old and busted storyline: Tea Parties are aggressively, throughly corporate-organized Astrotuf.

New hotness: Tea Parties not organized enough.

Tea Parties: Illegitimate if you do. Illegitimate if you don't.

Here are four key facts about the costs of the Democrats' 2,074-page Senate health bill:

1. According to the CBO, only 1 percent of the bill's costs would kick in prior to the fifth year of its alleged "first ten years" (2010 to 2019). Starting in 2014, 99 percent of the bill's costs would hit -- meaning that the bill's true first 10 years are from 2014 to 2023. Before then, it wouldn't really take effect.

2. In the bills' real first decade (2014-23), it would cost $1.8 trillion, raise Americans' taxes by $892 billion, and siphon $802 billion out of already barely-solvent Medicare to spend elsewhere -- according to CBO projections.

3. According to CBO projections, in the bill's real first decade (2014-23), it would do one of two things: It would either cut doctors' pay under Medicare by $431 billion (as it claims it would but as nobody believes it would), or it would raise United States deficits by $286 billion

4. So, if the bill doesn't follow through on its pledge to cut doctors' pay by a drastic 23 percent under Medicare and never raise it back up, it would violate President Obama's very public and very emphatic pledge in his Sept. 9 speech to the joint-session of Congress that he would "not sign" any bill that "adds one dime to the deficit, now or in the future, period." This bill would raise deficits by $2.86 trillion dimes. Read my lips, what?

It is things like this that make me love the Internet. This week, MSNBC's intrepid Norah O'Donnell, with the help of a team of producers and researchers, bravely confronted a 17-year-old girl in line for a Palin book signing about the ideological consistency of her t-shirt.

The young woman is, predictably, getting a bunch of flak from liberals who are under the impression that throwing a 17-year-old slightly off her game in her first live TV appearance is a great political score for them. From the right side, Norah O'Donnell has been the one receiving flak. The video is below:

But now, O'Donnell's interview subject is responding in her own blog post, noting the behind-the-scenes machinations, her own understandably flustered state, and O'Donnell's factual inaccuracies. Unsurprisingly, she comes out looking sympathetic, sweet, and smart. Read the whole thing, if you've got the time, and if you've only got a minute, click through for the very last paragraph, which is a winner.

I was first approached by a New York Times writer who wrote what my shirt said and then asked me a couple questions. She asked me what it was I liked about Sarah Palin. I said, “As a young female she is someone I can look up to, before her the only prominent female in politics I had known about was Hilary Clinton, whom I respect don’t get me wrong, I respect her but when you don’t agree with someone it’s hard to really look up to them. I like how Sarah Palin will speak her mind, regardless of what the media will say about it.”

After that I just stood in line eagerly waiting for Sarah Palin to arrive. I then see Norah O’Donnell approach a man all decked out in Palin garb. She asked him a few questions (camera not rolling) then said she’d like to have a woman in the shot. She asked a woman who refused then pointed at me and said “Hey talk to her” So I walked over. I knew I was walking into hot water with MSNBC- thought I was prepared….Seconds later I met her… One of the many faces of liberal media bias.

She asked me my name and then before going on air asked me why I liked Sarah Palin, I repeated what I told the NYT reporter. Norah didn’t seem to like that much. So what did she do? I mean she couldn’t ask me that question on television, heaven forbid her not have a biting response.. I noticed her look down at my shirt then, she turned around blackberry in hand spoke to a man, thumbs tapping the blackberry (I don’t remember if she called or not, she may have. But she was on her blackberry), then jotted down a quick note. Little did I know that note would be used against me...

O'Donnell asked the man identified as Joe in the video the same question she asked him on-air, so he was prepared, before she moved onto the young woman, whom she proceeded to debate on the history of bailout politics:

She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me “Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout” to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me...

Immediately after the interview I said to my dad “Oh man, I have so many great responses now about my shirt” I could have said, well my shirt doesn’t say anything about Sarah Palin supporting the bailout or “Hey Norah, have you read the book? She talks about how during her debate prep she was handed a list of note cards that had questions and ‘non-answers’” Of course they told Sarah Palin to support everything McCain did. Call me crazy but it would have looked pretty bad had Sarah Palin been against something John McCain was against while they were running together.

The teenager also claims a factual inaccuracy on O'Donnell's part:

Norah also claims I told her I voted (on her twitter). That is not true. She never asked my age or if I voted. I’m 17 I couldn’t have voted…and I don’t live in an ACORN district so I didn’t have a chance to even register illegally.

Good on her. Click through for the whole, entertaining account, or to leave her a message of support.

The University of Georgia is mourning its mascot, Uga VII, who unexpectedly died of a heart attack yesterday at four years old. He had served fewer than two seasons as the football team's mascot, the shortest tenure of any in the long line of English Bulldogs who represent the university, and are owned by the Seiler family of Savannah.

"This Thanksgiving, you'll see public-service announcements about the importance of fitness for America's children, featuring NFL stars and a skinny smoker."

The 25 funniest Sports Center commercials. Why not? It's Friday.

Frum criticizes Palin: "This is a woman who has got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals." Sheesh, what a demagogue that Palin is, always relying on tired talking points and whingy personal attacks, huh?

White House reversing on the bullying tactic with Afghanistan.

How much does AARP's health-care support cost? About $18 million in stimulus money.

Mary Landrieu drives a much better bargain. Watch and learn, AARP.

Krauthammer: "'Failure is not an option,' replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place."

Jay Cost: Seriously, Democrats, the oldsters are going to do you in for cutting Medicare.

Congress now stealing our money and our Satuday nights from here on out. Way to win friends, Harry.

A pro-Palin piece in Salon? Are we turning some kind of corner, here?

The perils of an angry, scared Congress for Obama administration's goals.

Aww, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, Levi. Also, your lipgloss is poppin'.

When Sarah Palin offered her unqualified support for the Israeli government's policy of settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J Street blasted her for "pandering to her right-wing base . . . at the expense of the security of the State of Israel." The group added that "the majority of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans . . . view the growing settlement enterprise as a threat to Israel’s very future as a Jewish democracy." So according to J Street, Palin's support for the official policy of the Israeli government raised questions about Palin's pro-Israel bona fides.

Anti-Defamation League chief Abe Foxman sees things differently. JTA reports:

he head of the Anti-Defamation League says J Street's attack on Sarah Palin's defense of Israeli settlements was "over the line" and questioned whether the group should be calling itself "pro-Israel."

In a call to JTA late Thursday, ADL national director Abraham Foxman called "the height of chutzpah" J Street's statement Wednesday which said "Palin's pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel" and her remarks "reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts."

"Who authorizes them to detemine what the security of Israel is?" Foxman asked of J Street. "Israel determines its security."

"They're attacking a celebrity for supporting Israel, but not in the way they want her to support Israel," he said referring to the former governor of Alaska.

Two days ago J Street flacks were promoting the ADL's attack on Glenn Beck, now they're on defense -- J Street chief Jeremy Ben-Ami responds in a statement this morning that takes the form of an open-letter to Foxman:

You, of course, have every right to disagree with us. It’s a free country.

But you have no right to decide who is and is not pro-Israel based on whether they agree with your views.

Anyone who's been following the travails of J Street over the last few months has to be amused by that. Questions have been raised from all sides about J Street's claim to be "pro-Israel," including from those featured at J Street's conference, some of whom refused to self-identify as pro-Israel and others of whom went so far as to declare themselves anti-Zionist. And all the while, J Street has questioned the pro-Israel credentials of legitimate and well established pro-Israel organizations like Christians United for Israel.

J Street has explicitly worked to change the definition of what it means to be pro-Israel by pushing people like Palin out of the tent and letting self-described anti-Zionists in -- so is Ben-Ami the only one who gets to decide who is and who is not pro-Israel based on whether they agree with his views? Palin is without a doubt pro-Israel, and yet Ben-Ami blasted her -- why? Because she doesn't agree with his views, and because J Street is not a pro-Israel group but a partisan political organization that, in Ben-Ami's own words, seeks only to be Obama's "blocking back" in Congress.

Ben-Ami's writes today,

To quote the most recent Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert – if the two-state solution collapses and Israel faces a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, the state of Israel is finished.

Perhaps you believe the former Prime Minister is not pro-Israel either?

Of course Olmert supported precisely the policies of settlement expansion that Palin was defending. And of course the current government of Israel has publicly denounced J Street, refusing to send its ambassador or any other government official to its recent conference on the grounds that J Street's policies threaten to "impair Israel's interests."

So just to be clear: nobody's saying the Prime Minister of Israel is not pro-Israel, the Prime Minister of Israel is saying that J Street is not pro-Israel. And now he's being joined by the head of the ADL, Abe Foxman. And that's what J Street gets for opposing sanctions on Iran, questioning Israel's right to self-defense, and supporting the Goldstone report.

Last week, the West Virginia Supreme Court issued a well-deserved slap in the face to a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, which all too often makes up the law out of whole cloth to meet its latest view of what is socially and politically correct.

In June, the Court issued what may have been one of the worst opinions of the term in Caperton v. Massey Coal Company, a case I wrote about previously. In a 5 to 4 decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined with the liberals on the Court to opine that if there was an appearance of possible bias by a judge, it violated the right to a fair trial under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It didn’t matter that there was no actual or real bias in the case, no financial impropriety, or that even the Court’s analysis of the “appearance” of bias was completely wrong. Instead, the majority conjured up a vague standard so broad and undefined that Chief Justice Roberts said in his dissent that it provides “no guidance to judges and litigants about when recusal will be constitutionally required.”

The end result of this decision was that West Virginia Chief Justice Brent Benjamin was forced to recuse himself from a case involving a $50 million judgment against Massey Coal. Benjamin had been part of a three-judge majority that had overturned the $50 million judgment, with two other judges of the West Virginia Supreme Court dissenting. This was actually unusual--Benjamin had voted against Massey Coal on 15 prior occasions.

Benjamin had been elected to the court after receiving the endorsement of almost every newspaper in the state. He defeated the incumbent, a judge who had refused interviews, ignored debates and gave a speech that the media characterized as “deeply disturbing.” But Benjamin had received a (shudder) $1,000 contribution from the owner of Massey Coal, who had also spent large sums of money in a totally independent campaign to defeat the incumbent, a well-known ally of the plaintiffs’ bar which itself spent huge sums trying to get him reelected.

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June, the case was remanded to the West Virginia Supreme Court. With Benjamin disqualified from the case and another West Virginia judge sitting in his place by special designation, the West Virginia Supreme Court overturned the $50 million judgment against Massey Coal last week again, but this time by a 4 to 1 vote. This is exactly what one would expect since no one had ever presented any evidence in the U.S. Supreme Court case--and the majority opinion certainly did not point to any at all--that there had been any factual or legal errors in the original decision that was the basis of the “bias” claim.

So once again, we have a bad decision from the Supreme Court establishing a new legal right that does not actually exist in the Constitution that will live on forever, causing far-ranging and damaging consequences that the majority failed to adequately anticipate. It is an expansion of a “constitutional mandate in a manner ungoverned by any discernable rule.” Just more evidence of how important Supreme Court nominations are and how bad the liberal justices can be on far too many cases.

Congress as an institution will never win any popularity sweepstakes. More than any other branch of government, it’s a forum for open, raucous, and partisan debate. And as a result, it also exposes the lack of consensus on many public policy questions.

Yet as this recent Gallup poll finds, public trust in Congress is particularly anemic this year, dropping to the lowest point since these surveys have been conducted.

One of the critiques the public hears most about Congress (at least the House) is its lack of transparency and lack of fairness to the minority. Republicans regularly complain that they are precluded from offering amendments, that the Democrats deliberate in secret, and that lawmakers rarely have the time to read mountainous bills rushed to the floor.

House Republicans, seeking to address some of these issues and improve the congressional transparency, announced a new initiative yesterday:

House Republicans today launched a new effort to change the way Congress works, calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to schedule an immediate vote on five common-sense reforms that will bring greater transparency to the legislative process and make Congress more open and accountable to the people it serves. The House GOP congressional transparency initiative includes “read the bill” reform that would ensure all bills are posted online at least 72 hours before coming to a vote, a ban on “phantom amendments” being added to bills in secret after they pass committee, a resolution requiring the upcoming House-Senate health care negotiations to be open to the public, and other critical reforms.

Don’t expect Speaker Nancy Pelosi to do anything with this new plan. Voters may have to wait until she’s back in the minority to see her show any interest. But if her party’s numbers continue to drop, and trust in Congress doesn’t rebound, that could happen sooner than you think.

The new Rasmussen poll for the 2010 Arizona GOP Primary—John McCain 45%, J. D. Hayworth 43%—will generate a fair amount of buzz. But August is a long way away, and I assume that when McCain gets back to Arizona and campaigns, he’ll pull it out.

Still, who could help McCain beat back a populist conservative challenger? Sarah Palin. I predict that Palin will come to Arizona next summer to campaign for McCain, will make an impassioned case for him, and will help him win. She will thereby repay McCain for his confidence in picking her last year, help keep McCain as a crucial voice in the Senate for a strong foreign policy, and get credit for being a different kind of populist conservative—a Reaganite, not a Buchananite, populist—than the immigration-obsessed, voter-alienating (he was ousted in 2006 in a Republican district) Hayworth.

Senate Republican aides say that Harry Reid has scheduled the first vote on his health-care bill for Saturday night for 8:00 p.m. after 10 hours of floor debate. Ed Morrissey notes that registered voters oppose the House health care bill 51 percent to 35 percent; a poll done by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling shows registered voters oppose "President Obama’s health care plan" 52 percent to 40 percent.

All eyes are on Democratic senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to see if he will vote Saturday night on the motion to proceed. Nelson is threatening to filibuster the final bill over funding of abortion and the "public option," but he's said this about voting on the motion to proceed:

the meaning of the motion to proceed is very simple:

It’s a motion to commence debate and an opportunity to make changes.

Let me say it again: it is a motion to start debate on a bill and to try to improve it.

If you don’t like the bill, then why would you block your own opportunity to amend it? Why would you stop senators from doing the job they’re elected to do—debate, consider amendments, and take action on an issue affecting every American?

If Senator Nelson is really dead-set against things like taxpayer-funding of abortion, it would make sense to vote against the motion on Saturday night. While there's a chance language like the Stupak amendment could get 50 votes in the Senate, it can't get 60 votes. Nelson can always vote against cloture at the end if the bill pays for abortions. But the Senate could get 60 votes for cloture without Nelson if Reid drops the public option and keeps its abortion-funding provisions, thereby potentially snagging the vote of Olympia Snowe. (Of course, that would also require self-proclaimed pro-lifer Bob Casey to sell out, and voting for abortion-funding could end the careers of senators like Kent Conrad, Harry Reid, and other Democrats.)

Right now Nelson has a stronger hand to play: either his colleagues promise to vote for Stupak language or he doesn't vote for the motion to proceed.

A series of internal emails and documents from the National Iranian American Council, headed by Iranian national Trita Parsi, released as part of the discovery process in a lawsuit initiated by NIAC, reveal a major effort by the group to "clean house" at VOA's Persian-language service of Voice of America. Emails show NIAC using its muscle on Capitol Hill, aggressively lobbying individual members of Congress, to impose greater oversight over the radio station including "an independent review of the organization" to address what NIAC considered "poor journalism" and declining credibility.

But the group's emails show that NIAC was far less concerned about VOA's impact on Iran than about its impact on NIAC. The leadership at NIAC perceived VOA's reporting as a threat to its own credibility, and they were determined to prevent their critics from having a voice on the station. NIAC officials used two strategies. First, they sent cease and desist letters to VOA threatening legal action if the network continued "airing the views of a fabulist with malicious intent." The alleged fabulist was Hassan Daeoleslam, the man whom NIAC has since sued for defamation (the case is still pending) leading to the release of these internal documents.

On February 3, 2009, Siamak Namazi, a close confidant of Parsi, wrote to Jeffrey Trimble, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors that oversees the operations of VOA and Radio Farda:

Dear Mr. Trimble,

Once again VOA has chosen to bring Mr. Hassan Daeoleslam at its guest and once again he makes a slanderous claim that my father and my business associate – Mssrs Baquer Namazi and Bijan Khajehpour – are fronts for the Iranian government.

I have brought the matter to your attention in the past, stressing that such comments not only hard [sic] the reputation of respectable democrats, but also put them in direct danger in Iran. I told you in detail how after Daeoleslam’s fictitious claims against me I was subjected to problems in Iran and also how it harmed my reputation in the Iranian community. We spoke at length about this issue when we met in August 2007 and you promised to look into it.

I am once again asking the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to make it known to VOA, which falls under your umbrella of responsibility, that it cannot just air slanderous garbage at will. You have been served several notices about the harm that such acts have brought in the past and is likely to bring in the future. BBG and VOA will be held responsible if any harm comes to my family and I due to such irresponsible behavior. I once again urge you to pay greater attention to the programming at VOA and to cease and desist from airing the views of a fabulist with malicious intent.

Here is a link to the VOA program in question: http://www.voanews.com/wm/voa/nenaf/pers/pers1730vSAT.asx

I expect immediate action to rectify this situation, specifically by barring VOA from bringing Mr. Daeoleslam on air. Consider this a formal complaint which can be used as evidence of serving notice of harm in a court of law. While my family and I do not desire to make a legal issue out of this matter, we reserve all right if you fail to take adequate measures and continue to allow Mr. Daeoleslam to air his malicious commentary.

Sincerely,

Siamak Namazi

So NIAC wanted one of its critics barred from ever appearing on the government funded network. The left often gripes about imagined efforts by the "Israel Lobby" to silence its critics. Here we have the Iran Lobby literally threatening media outlets with legal action if they continue to give voice to a NIAC critic.

Likewise, NIAC sent two cease and desist letters to the Washington Times threatening legal action if the paper published Eli Lake's story that first reported these internal emails and which raised serious questions about the legality of NIAC's activities, specifically its claims that it is not engaged in lobbying and therefore does not need to register as a 501(c)4 rather than its current tax-exempt 501(c)3 status.

Of course, 501(c)3 groups are supposed to engage in education. Was it education or lobbying when NIAC engaged in efforts to bring the hammer down on VOA with the help of members of Congress who were well disposed to their cause?

On September 11, 2007, Emily Blout, NIAC's legislative director, sent an email to Celes Hughes, an aide to Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski. Blout writes that "Per our conversation this afternoon, I am sending some background information regarding the Iran democracy funding included in HR 2764." Blout's email makes a series of allegations against VOA, asserting that "VOA has struggled to find experienced staff and has instead hired political activists with loyalty to their agenda rather than to the VOA mandate." Further, Blout says that "According to insiders at VOA, this has led to its loss of credibility among the Iranian public."

However, Blout wants to be clear: "This is not to say the US should not promote democracy in Iran, rather it should employ other means towards this end." There are two such "other means" suggested by Blout: "Lift US sanctions on NGO activities" and "Reinvigorate VOA Persian’s credibility by cleaning house."

Further emails reveal that NIAC's war against VOA was a top agenda item for the group -- right alongside its fight against new sanctions on Iran -- in its contacts with numerous members of Congress. After lunch with Markus Rose, an aide to Rep. Barney Frank, Blout follows up with an email that starts off with some flattery about Rose's knowledge of Iran and then proceeds,

Two things:

1) I’ll be sending you information on NGO to NGO exchanges, Voice of America Persian (VOA), and sanctions on humanitarian aid (it is illegal for US citizens to give more than $100 to an orphanage in Tehran for example) shortly. Let me know if you think of anything else you’d like information on.

2) I wanted to make a correction. H.R. 2347, which your boss sponsored, does not include a provision that prohibits export of civilian aircraft parts. However, HR 1400, which your boss co-sponsored, does. It is my understanding that the counterpart to HR 1400 in the Senate- S.970- is getting ready to move (mid-spring). This presents a great opportunity for your boss to a) insert language into HR 2347 saying that humanitarian exports, including exports relating to civilian aviation, cannot be prohibited by any new or existing law, or b) for your boss to make sure that the provision barring export of civilian aircraft parts is stripped from HR 1400 during conference. (Sec. 203.1 in the House, Sec 7b.2 in the Senate).

I cannot emphasize enough how important is for the US to make clear that sanctions are not directed or intended to hurt the Iranian people. It is the Iranian government that is to blame. Expressing a “sense of congress” or giving $10 million for exchanges is not enough. It is congress’ responsibility, in my view, to do everything in its power to ensure that the Iranian people do not suffer at our hands and are not isolated from the rest of the world. It also the US’s responsibility to ensure that Iranian planes, which are US made and aging, do not fall out of the sky for lack of replacement parts.

Smells like lobbying. (What's more, there are reasons for those sanctions on airplane parts, and Parsi's old boss Rep. Bob Ney went to jail for violating them.)

Here is another email from Blout, this one debriefing NIAC leadership on her day of meetings on the Hill:

Thank you for joining us for the meeting on democracy funding yesterday. Your commentary and insight was extremely valuable. The following is a summary of all of yesterday’s meetings. Please make any additions/corrections necessary.

The meeting with Ven Neralla from Rep. Barbara Lee’s office was positive, although the discussion was not as focused as we would have liked on the democracy funding. When I follow-up with Ven today with the promised information on sanctions (Ivan Eland’s report, the report by Dewey Ballantine (commissioned by Jake Colvin’s group), NIAC’s analysis of HR 1400, and the report by Terror Free Tomorrow), I will reiterate our message on the democracy funding.

I think the meeting with the appropriations staffer from Nita Lowey’s office went well. Trita and I were pleased to find Steve Lopes, who works specifically on the democracy program funding, willing to consider our concerns and suggestions. He asked that we get back to him with information about how other countries have approached democracy funding in Iran.

After you departed, Trita and I met with Paul Grove, minority clerk for the Senate state and foreign operations sub-committee (Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH)). Trita and Paul hit it off right away. We were delighted to find Mr. Grove’s views in line with our own, as he has had extensive knowledge of the problems posed by explicit “democracy” funding programs enacted by congress in the past and present, most recently in the case of Egypt. He was extremely critical of the state department’s administration of middle east democracy initiatives such as MEPI and said such operations/funding would be better left to the National Endowment for Democracy (as that was what it was created for). As for what could be done, he brought up the idea of “burying the money” in the greater context of funding for the Middle East, rather than specifically appropriating it to “democracy programs in Iran”. Specifically, he talked about providing NED “not withstanding authority” to appropriate funding for Iran- thus deflating the role of the State department and USAID. He also raised the possibility of including a “blanket waiver” for non-profit NGO exchanges between the US and Iran. He asked me to identify and analyze all of the provisions of law necessary for inclusion in such a waiver. Hopefully, I’ll have this analysis to him soon.

Following the meeting with Paul, I attended a meeting with two staffers, Chris Homan, Foreign Policy Legislative Assistant, and Reema Dodin, Legislative Aide, from Senator Dick Durbin’s office. Durbin (D-IL) is the assistant majority leader in the Senate and sits on the state and foreign operations sub-committee. He is also the co-sponsor of the Iran Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007 (S970).
This meeting was also very productive. Homan used to work for USAID and his wife works for NED. Homan was very responsive to our concerns and pointed out that this had been a problem in regards to other countries in the past. He said it was important to get a meeting with Tim Rieser, the majority clerk on the sub-committee (Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) ) and said we could use his name to get one. He also expressed interested in including a provision in HR1400 that would lift sanctions on NGO-NGO exchanges. He said he would be willing to pitch our argument to reduce or remove the democracy funding appropriation (or to take other positive measures) to the Senator, provided that he felt he had all the necessary information to make his case. He asked me to get back to him with a summary of the cultural exchange programs currently being conducted, including what types of exchanges are being done (not just those conducted by NGOs) and what is and what is not allowed under current law.

I also attended a meeting in the morning with Tim Morrissey and Peter Frosch from Representative Betty McCullum’s office. McCullum is on the House sub-committee and voted ‘yes’ on Iran sanctions. Other than that, she has not been active on Iran. Frosch worked on the state and foreign opps bill when it was being debated by the House, but was unaware of our concerns and the problems with VOA. He asked me to provide him with a breakdown of the Iran-related funding in the bill as well as some numbers on VOA Persian listenership historically and compared to other broadcasters in Iran (such as BBC). He also said to keep him up to date on who else from the committee is on-board, and said that the congresswomen might be able to make a few calls to members (say,when its in conference).

Keep in mind, this is an organization that claims on its tax forms that it DOES NOT engage in lobbying. Moreover, all of the group's efforts seems focused on preventing additional sanctions, eliminating U.S. democracy funding initiatives, and destroying the Voice of America's Persian service and Radio Farda. The regime couldn't come up with a better set of priorities for NIAC, which may explain why so many people are wondering on behalf of whom NIAC is working.

A doctor who's been following the health care debate closely writes in an email:

The Senate bill has a demonstration project, section 2074, that seeks to control costs in Medicaid by trying to create a fixed payment for doctors and hospitals for a given patient’s stay in the hospital. The goal is to reduce costs but part 6 of the plan (page 541), copied below, states that one cannot reduce services as part of the project! So same services but less payment. Great demonstration. Great bill.

And by the way, the Secretary of HHS can change anything anytime he/she wants to.

(6) The Secretary and each State selected to participate in the demonstration project shall ensure that the demonstration project does not result in the Medicaid beneficiaries whose care is subject to payment under the demonstration project being provided with less items and services for which medical assistance is provided under the State Medicaid program than the items and services for which medical assistance would have been provided to such beneficiaries under the State Medicaid program in the absence of the demonstration project.

(c) WAIVER OF PROVISIONS.—Notwithstanding section 1115(a) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1315(a)), the Secretary may waive such provisions of titles XIX, XVIII, and XI of that Act as may be necessary to accomplish the goals of the demonstration, ensure beneficiary access to acute and post-acute care, and maintain quality of care.

Everyone seems to know Rudy Giuliani's political future -- except Giuliani. First the New York Times reported that Giuliani "has decided not to run for governor of New York next year after months of mulling a candidacy, according to people who have been told of the decision." Then the Daily News reported that "Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided not to run for governor next year - but will run for U.S. Senate instead, sources told the Daily News." So, is it true?

Not so, according to the Giuliani camp. They want to dispel any rumors. Giuliani aide Maria Comella issued this statement: "Rudy has a history of making up his own mind and has no problem speaking it. When Mayor Giuliani makes a decision about serving in public office, he will inform New Yorkers on his own." Perhaps Giuliani hasn't made up his mind after all.

In recent polls, Giuliani doesn't fare well against probable Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo. He'd fare better against the horribly unpopular incumbent Gov. David Paterson. And he'd have an even better shot, it seems to me, against the unelected incumbent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

If elected to the Senate, Giuliani would immediately become a prominent spokesman for an assertive U.S. foreign and counter-terrorism policy. But who's to say? At the moment, Giuliani's future, like the political future in general, remains unknown.

In my piece yesterday, I noted that the ACLU released a video earlier this month that features former Gitmo detainee Moazzam Begg. Begg made news earlier this year when he became the front man for a video game in which players could pretend to be Gitmo detainees capable of shooting their way out of the detention facility. The game’s producers canceled it as public pressure to nix it mounted.

But that hasn’t stopped Begg.

In fact, Begg has compiled an extensive and troubling resume since being released from Gitmo. (This is in addition to the disturbing jihadist dossier he compiled prior to ever being detained.) One of Begg’s more troubling associates is Anwar al Awlaki – the al Qaeda cleric who became a confidant for the Fort Hood Shooter.

The relationship between Begg, Cage Prisoners (Begg’s organization), and Awlaki has been detailed by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens of The Centre for Social Cohesion, which has released a dossier on Awlaki’s supporters in the UK.

On the relationship between Cage Prisoners (CP) and Awlaki, Mr. Meleagrou-Hitchens writes (footnotes omitted):

The relationship between CP and Awlaki dates back to 2006, when they organised campaigns appealing for Awlaki to be released from custody by Yemeni authorities. Among other things, the campaign asked CP supporters to “Write to the Yemeni Ambassador to UK, Mohamed Taha Mustafa and urge him to work for the immediate release of Imam Anwar al-Awlaki,” and “Write to the Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett to make representations to her Yemeni counterparts to work for Imam Anwar al-Awlaki’s immediate release.” In the ‘sample letter’ provided by CP, Awlaki is referred to as a “prominent Muslim scholar.”

The relationship between CP and Awlaki appears to have strengthened after this, and in December 2007, CP announced Awlaki’s release, telling readers that any messages of congratulations they had could be passed to Awlaki through them – suggesting that CP were at the time in direct contact with Awlaki.

In December 2007, Begg interviewed Awlaki for CP’s website and Awlaki praised CP for its support. (A transcript of the interview is available online here and you can also find audio of the interview, with pictures of Begg and Awlaki, on You Tube.) Meleagrou-Hitchens rightly observes that the interview is “extensive and friendly” and notes:

Sayeth the British Spectator:

'The Afghan issue has made clear the astonishing disregard with which Mr Obama treats Britain . As he decides how many more troops to send to Afghanistan – a decision which will fundamentally affect the scope of the mission – Britain is reduced to taking a guess. The White House does not even pretend to portray this as a joint decision. It is a diplomatic cold-shouldering that stands in contrast not just to the Blair-Bush era, but to the togetherness of the soldiers on the ground.'

That's an accurate enough summation of Obama's foreign policy. Coddle the bad guys, freeze out our friends. Though perhaps our British allies didn't get the memo. We're a world of "shared interests" now. No need for "alignments of nations rooted in the cleavages of a long gone Cold War."

Except, of course, when you're trying to supplement American troops with European ones. No wonder the Brits are peeved.

H/T - The Corner

The numbers in California:

A new Rasmussen Reports survey in California finds next year's race for governor now a dead heat with Jerry Brown (D) and Meg Whitman (R) tied at 41%.

In other match ups, Brown leads Steve Poizner (R), 43% to 32%, and tops Tom Campbell (R), 42% to 33%.

And in Florida:

Charlie Crist – 47 percent (-10)
Marco Rubio – 37 percent (+26)

Keep in mind that the second set of numbers comes from a DailyKos/Research 2000 poll -- and the lefties think they're being very clever in boosting Rubio in what is expected to be a bloody Republican primary, but whichever Republican emerges from that contest has a pretty good shot of winning the seat. The left may outsmart themselves on this one.

As you may have noticed during the health-care debate, on almost every iteration of the bill, we get a CBO score and then a real cost revealed later, which Democrats reluctantly own up to once confronted with it. For the House bill passed last week, the true cost was $1.2 trillion.

This is because, though my love for Douglas Elmendorf is well-known, Elmendorf has to calculate the bill given to him, which is carefully crafted by Democrats to earn the score they think the President and the American people can stomach with minimal outcry.

Such bills can leave out large parts of the cost of a bill and assume savings Congress promises will come to pass, even while it's simultaneously planning to pass another bill that will eliminate the savings entirely, as in the case of the doc-fix for the House health bill:

On Thursday, the House is expected to pass a $210 billion measure — known as the “doc fix” — that will adjust Medicare payment rates to avoid a 21 percent cut in January and continuing cuts in the years ahead.

The House originally included the provision in its big health care bill. But it was dropped because its steep cost would have meant the bill would add to future federal deficits, violating one of President Obama’s central requirements for the health legislation.

Another tactic is for Congress to front-load the benefits of a bill while back-loading the costs. This is what CBO found Reid doing:

The Democrats cite the bills’ projected costs from 2010-19. Yet, as the Congressional Budget Office reports, the bill would cost just $9 billion total from 2010 through 2013 — versus $147 billion in 2016 alone. In the first 40 percent of what the Democrats are calling the bill’s “first 10 years,” only 1 percent of its costs would yet have hit.

As the CBO analysis indicates, the bill’s real 10-year costs would start in 2014. And in its true first decade (2014 to 2023), CBO projects the bill’s costs to be $1.8 trillion — double the price Reid is advertising.

Phil Klein examines how we'll be paying for it:

To pay for the bill, Reid would impose $371.9 billion of new taxes over 10 years, including $67 billion on health insurers; $23 billion in on drug companies; and $20 billion on medical device makers. All of these taxes are likely to be passed directly on to consumers in the former of higher health care costs.

In addition, the bill would tax employer health care plans that cost more than $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families. And, during a time of double-digit unemployment, it would hike payroll taxes by 0.5 percent on individuals earning more than $200,000 or couples making $250,000.

You'll find Elmendorf's caveats about the real nature of government buried in each CBO report:

The CBO estimates assume that politically unpopular cuts (mostly to Medicare) will actually get implemented, which the office reminds us is "often not the case for major legislation." The report goes on to say that the bill "would put into effect a number of procedures that might be difficult to maintain over a long period of time."

This is the latest video from Keep America Safe and I think the best one yet. Justin Germany put this together after a trip up to Standish, Michigan, with KAS board member Debra Burlingame, who was all over the Holder hearings yesterday. It now seems unlikely that the detainees will end up in Standish, in no small part because the community there rallied against the plan even as statewide Democrats tried to turn the town into a cash-for-jihadis stimulus program.

You can bet that KAS will be in Illinois or South Carolina or anywhere else this administration tries to make America less safe by bringing terrorists into the United States simply to appease the ACLU and their liberal base.

Watch the whole video -- and visit Keep America Safe.