But when you examine what Obama said on Saturday -- to business leaders at the APEC summit in Hawaii -- it's pretty clear that his critics are taking him out of context. He wasn't calling Americans lazy; rather, he was callingU.S. business practices to attract foreign investors lazy. In fact, you could interpret his full remarks as a call to arms to improve on that front.
MR. McNERNEY: I think one related question, looking at the world from the Chinese side, is what they would characterize as impediments to investment in the United States. And so that discussion I’m sure will be part of whatever dialogue you have. And so how are you thinking about that?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, this is an issue, generally. I think it’s important to remember that the United States is still the largest recipient of foreign investment in the world. And there are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity -- our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture.
But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted -- well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America. And so one of things that my administration has done is set up something called SelectUSA that organizes all the government agencies to work with state and local governments where they’re seeking assistance from us, to go out there and make it easier for foreign investors to build a plant in the United States and put outstanding U.S. workers back to work in the United States of America.
Meanwhile, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has been lying about the difference between his healthcare plan enacted for that state and the one enacted by Congress under President Obama -- so says his own former advisor, not mincing words:
He credited Mitt Romney for not totally disavowing the Massachusetts bill during his presidential campaign, but said Romney's attempt to distinguish between Obama's bill and his own is disingenuous.
"The problem is there is no way to say that," Gruber said. "Because they're the same fucking bill. He just can't have his cake and eat it too. Basically, you know, it's the same bill. He can try to draw distinctions and stuff, but he's just lying. The only big difference is he didn't have to pay for his. Because the federal government paid for it. Where at the federal level, we have to pay for it, so we have to raise taxes."
The danger is that lies become memes and they harden into "truthies" in the minds of low or mid-information voters. Hard to battle, but it must be done.
The poll indicates that 58 percent of the public opposes the Republican plan on Medicare, with 35 percent saying they support the proposal.
Ryan's sorry voucher plan was designed to pander, by making it affect only those age 55 or under. However, if the GOP thought that meant they'd keep the seniors in their camp, they may have actually helped push them into the Democratic column for 2012:
"Half of those we questioned say that the country would be worse off under the GOP Medicare proposals and 56 percent think that GOP plan would be bad for the elderly," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Opposition is highest among senior citizens, at 74 percent, suggesting that seniors are most worried about changes to Medicare even if those changes are presented as ones that would not affect existing Medicare recipients."
That means even the people you'd most expect to be for Ryan's Ayn Rand dream date -- those on the Right -- are against it as well:
"A majority of all demographic groups don't favor the GOP Medicare proposals," Holland adds. "That includes conservatives - 54 percent of them don't like the plan. As a result, rank-and-file Republicans are split right down the middle, with 48 percent favoring the GOP plan and 50 percent opposed."
Ryan's been lying about the healthcare reform passed last year, saying it "kills Medicare as we know it," which I thought would even be beneath him. I guess not -- he's that desperate for his plan to somehow be accepted as "bold" and "smart" when it is merely another gussied up attempt by GOoPers to dismantle New Deal and Great Society advances in order to better allow the wealthy to keep all the money in America for themselves.
But thank you, Lyin' Ryan, for -- even better! -- helping to bolster public support for the Affordable Care Act, i.e. health insurance reform, or what the GOP disparages as "Obamacare" -- a phrase they may come to regret as it becomes more popular in implementation:
But the most surprising numbers -- and possibly the best one for Obama -- are the results showing that political messaging against the Ryan budget may actually increase the numbers who support the Obama's health care law. The legislation is enemy number one for Republicans heading into 2012, who hope to use continuing wariness about the bill to attack the president and Democrats this fall.
Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who took his first steps into the Republican presidential field as a moderate, has over the past month turned himself into something far from the center when it comes to Medicare. From throwing Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) more love than anyone to grabbing onto Ryan's Medicare-destroying budget with both hands, Huntsman's separating himself from the pack: No one running for president, it seems, is more excited about the Republican budget plan than him.
In an op-ed published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, Huntsman calls Ryan's plan an "honest attempt to save Medicare" and he calls on critics to put up their own plan or shut up about the GOP's. But that's among the more subtle love he's thrown Ryan and his budget in the recent past -- on Tuesday, Huntsman called Ryan one of the two Republicans alive he admires most.
My own conviction is that anyone who follows the "teachings" of crank Ayn Rand, like avowed devotee Paul Ryan, should not be allowed near a position of governmental responsibility.
An incendiary device found along the route of a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Wash., was "likely capable of inflicting multiple casualties," the FBI said today.
I found myself taking a fresh look at Dr. Frist a few years after he left public office, when he appeared on the Real Time with Bill Maher and was quite sane and humanitarian, something he and his party were not especially known for during the W. Bush years on GOP dominance. I especially liked when he gently, but firmly, rebutted Maher on anti-vaccination b.s., one of Maher's most misguided positions.
So credit where credit is due, to the FBI and Dr. Frist. Happy Day After MLK Day.
Here's a first for Nettertainment: I'm linking to Erick Erickson at RedState because he's slamming the "new" GOP "Pledge For America" for being milquetoast garbage. While I diverge from Mr. Erickson on political issues (all?), I admire his integrity here towards his own side. As he closes, "I will vote Republican in November of 2010. But I will not carry their stagnant water."
And, of course, in the Internet Age we find out immediately that:
In a draft version of The Pledge that was being passed around to reporters before the official release, the document properties list "Wild, Brian" as the "Author." A GOP source said that Wild -- who is on House Minority Leader John Boehner's payroll -- did help author the governing platform that the party is unveiling on Thursday. Another aide said that as the executive director of the Republican leadership group American Speaking Out, Wild's tasks were more on the administrative side of the operations.
Until early this year, Wild was a fairly active lobbyist on behalf of the firm the Nickles Group, the lobbying shop set up by the former Republican Senator from Oklahoma, Don Nickles. During his five years at the firm, Wild, among others, was paid $740,000 in lobbying contracts from AIG, the former insurance company at the heart of the financial collapse; $800,000 from energy giant Andarko Petroleum; more than $1.1 million from Comcast, more than $1.3 million from Exxon Mobil; and $625,000 from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc.
I actually don't find the Democratic water at all stagnant. I like that there are healthcare reform benefits going into effect tomorrow. I like that Obama/Clinton have Middle East peace talks going again. I'm all for rescinding the Bush Tax Cuts for those who are doing estimably well while so many Middle Class and less fortunate Americans are not. I was delighted to hear Obama's old friend from Harvard grad, Elizabeth Warren, on NPR today talking about how she's setting up the new Consumer Protection Bureau to help average families across America keep more of their money from unscrupulous and predatory business practices.
California is a state without the media narrative enthusiasm gap. Jerry Brown is pulling ahead of Meg Whitman in the polls, while she's spending upwards of $115 million. Barbara Boxer is looking good against Carly. We need to keep the enthusiasm growing, beat back this reactionary threat that wants to (in the Pledge itself) dismantle the very health insurance reform advances we'll start experiencing this week. (And yes, there will be glitches, dodges and learnings as it works through the system -- and that's important to go through as well, pragmatically.) Their agenda is something the Dems and the White House should run against: it's a rollback agenda.
American moves forward, GOoPers. It's what's took our nation from frontier to superpower.
Young Barbara Bush, as opposed to the nightmarish grande dame of that family, seems pretty smart, or at least has her heart in the right place, dare I say progressive, per Huffington Post:
Barbara Bush, daughter of president George W. Bush, appeared as a guest on "Fox News Sunday" this week to discuss her non-profit Global Health Corps, whose mission is to bring health equity to the U.S. and Africa, and she made some comments that surprised host Chris Wallace.
"Why do, basically, people with money have good health care and why do people who live on lower salaries not have good health care?" Bush asked. "Health should be a right for everyone."
"What do you think about Obama health care reform?" Wallace asked.
"Obviously the health care reform bill was highly debated by a lot of people," Bush responded., "and I'm glad the bill was passed."
The link above gives video as well. Fox's Chris Wallace seems just on this side of patronizing, but like Megan McCain, there appears to be hope in the next generation of GOP scions, female.
Stressing the need for more competition among smaller banks and increased business lending, the senators believe that the largest financial institutions present too much risk to our economy to keep them around. They have the support of the Main Street Alliance, a group of progressive-leaning small business owners who have advocated for strong financial reform and set themselves up in opposition to the Chamber of Commerce.
The bill's central points:
Imposing a strict 10 percent cap on any bank-holding-company’s share of the United States’ total insured deposits
Reducing the maximum amount of non-deposit liabilities at financial institutions (to 2 percent of United States GDP for banks, and 3 percent of GDP for non-bank institutions)
Setting into law a 6 percent leverage limit for bank-holding companies and selected non-bank financial institutions
These steps would require several of the largest banks to, in effect, break themselves up to come in under the limits that this law would create. While most of the existing legislation in the House and Senate contains gestures toward these ideas, this is the first time they've been proposed as statutory limits, something called for by a number of public figures, including several Midwestern regional Federal Reserve presidents and former Fed Chair Paul Volcker.
Not to be too facetious but Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sue Lowden is suggesting that we repeal health care reform and go back to barter for medical treatment:
"And I would have suggested, and I think that bartering is really good. Those doctors who you pay cash, you can barter, and that would get prices down in a hurry. And I would say go out, go ahead out and pay cash for whatever your medical needs are, and go ahead and barter with your doctor."
Is this a woman who's lived without health insurance and had any kind of serious medical issues in her adult life? Does she really think that there's enough barter out there to pay for, say, breast cancer treatment?
She also suggests socking away $20,000 in a health savings account. Again, does she have any sense of what catastrophic medical treatment costs?
What's crazy is that she doubles down today on a local news show:
My favorite line: "I'm telling you this works." Sure, back in the 1860's.
Look, my father was an OB-GYN, and we had some pretty incredible artwork and craft items around the house from some barter deals he did with patients who were cash-strapped artists back in the 1960's and 1970's, maybe even into the 1980's. It was a very small percentage of his business, and he was actually instrumental in forming a regional doctors-owned HMO that went in direct competition with the big corporate outsider HMO. So I get that there's always room for other types of transactions between individuals.
A chicken, we'd have no need for. Well, maybe if it came plucked.
Scary thought: this removed-from-reality woman could end up replacing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
I hope that the new healthcare reform includes ample mental health insurance subsidies, via TPM:
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters he believed over 10 lawmakers have been threatened since they voted for the health care bill on Sunday.
Appearing before reporters alongside House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), Hoyer expressed concern about the recent spat of incidents targeting lawmakers, and blamed the violent rhetoric surrounding the health care debate for creating a potentially dangerous atmosphere.
"When people start talking in the rhetoric of putting people on firing lines, that if they don't do something they will have physical harm done to them... or they put a target on their faces, with cross-hairs -- that activity aught to be unacceptable in our democracy," Hoyer said, making reference to a Sarah Palin Facebook post that uses cross-hairs to identify members of Congress who voted for health care reform.
Who are the terrorists now and who's siding with them, arguably enabling them emotionally and philosophically, even mirroring them with undisguised sore loser abuse of Congressional rules, threatening our national security?
Vs. those who have legislated as the clear majority of voters, making their ballot booth choices in a free and democratic election, elected them to do?
Is it somehow okay now to be a sore loser if you've read enough Ayn Rand?
I'm a hope (and change) kind of guy. But here's a fear scenario that James Vegas lays out very plausibly, based on America's long history:
While some leading conservatives are continuing to stoke the flames, others are already trying to back away from the Pandora’s Box they have opened. It is not possible, however, for them to reverse the effects of an entire year of irresponsible rhetoric -- calling Democrats Nazi’s, fascists, Storm troopers and so on --with a few brief statements to the press. To the extent that many grass-roots conservatives have become sincerely convinced by the grotesque accusations against Obama and the Democrats, it becomes no longer irrational for them to think that violent resistance may be required and justified.
Unfortunately, the problem is inevitably going to become significantly worse in the coming period because of several reinforcing social trends:
• First, the failure to defeat the health care bill will cause many of the more moderate and less committed anti-HCR protesters to become demoralized and fall away, leaving a smaller hard-core group of the more extreme protesters in control of the websites, message boards and discussion threads of the anti health care movement. This hard core will include both traditional organized extremist groups – neo-Nazi, skinhead, White Power, LaRouche followers -- and individuals mobilized by the new generation of Fox News and internet-based commentary and social networks.
• Second, within this reduced group, the failure of legal protest to stop the health care bill will generate a strong pressure in favor of more extreme acts. The inability to stop the “slide into fascist dictatorship” will be offered as “proof” of the need for violence and also provide its justification. This social process of radicalization was evident in the 1960’s and early 1970’s – in the U.S. in the case of the Weathermen and Weather Underground and in Europe with the German Red Army Faction and the Italian Red Brigades.
• Third, a vicious cycle will quickly develop. Provocative acts like those noted today force federal and local authorities to begin investigations. To the hard-core protesters, their actions then “prove” the existence of the imminent fascist takeover and justify and stimulate more extreme acts.
The problem is profoundly exacerbated in the United States today because of the increasing number of states with “Open Carry” laws for firearms and the growing movement among conservative gun owners to aggressively assert these new rights by gathering and openly carrying their weapons in public places like coffee shops and political meetings.
It is therefore likely that there will soon be organized very intentionally provocative marches and demonstrations that feature the ostentatious display of both guns and also signs expressing clear threats to use them against Democrats. There will also be the creation of secessionist “militia camps” like those in the 1990’s that will violate various kinds of state and national laws in order to deliberately dare and provoke law enforcement officials to come in and create an incident.
Interesting that this appears on the 30th anniversary of the brutal assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, killed by right-wing death squads:
Our stories laid out, in the Salvadoran rightists’ own words, a vast plan to physically eliminate their political enemies and grass-roots activists based on “dirty war” techniques originally carried out by the governments of Guatemala and Argentina against rebellious segments of their own populations.
Although D’Aubuisson’s role as a leader of the death squads was always reported in the American press as “alleged,” curiously even by our own newspapers, he easily confessed to us that he had participated in death squad activities, and that he had drawn up a secret terror plan (a copy of which we had) that had become the basis of the political-military organization that evolved into the Arena Party. His lieutenants boastfully confessed to manufacturing false propaganda against the “left,” participating in arms smuggling, attacks against Jesuit priests, and assisting the security forces in identifying and killing opponents.
We just came through eight years where Vice President Cheney orchestrated a monarchical reading of Presidential powers including the ability to arrest anybody at any time without showing evidence just by calling them a threat to national security. Any legitimization of violent, democracy suppressing behavior, especially by Republican members of Congress, is legitimization of the thug class, one of the earmarks of fascism. So the Republican leaders need to start speaking out now, as McCain did quite decently at one of his campaign rallies, and that includes beginning the break with Palin.
I'll be interested to see who among them has the decency.
Gotta love Vice President Joe Biden. He talks like an American:
In case you couldn't hear, Biden told Obama this was a BFD, as if Baracky needed to be reminded. He does know that it ain't the world-ending disaster the GOP and their 'bagger buddies threatened:
And by far my favorite victory photo:
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Hillary '16.
Here's just ten things the healthcare reform bill bring to our nation over the next six months:
Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
Free preventative care for all
Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can't lose your insurance because you get sick.
Step back a minute, take a deep breath and tune out all of the spin and yammering to consider the magnitude of what has been achieved with the House vote on HCR: For starters, America will very soon be a country where no insurance company can deny health coverage to a child because of prior illness or condition. That alone is a truly monumental reform, which honest opponents of the bill will acknowledge.
Every family in America can now breathe a little freer with that knowledge, and great credit is due to the President his staff, Speaker Pelosi and House Majority Leader Hoyer, as well as the courageous House members who risked their careers to do the right thing. There's more, much more, that can be said about the positive impact of this bill, as well as the problems associated with it. But for now, the immediate health security it will provide for millions of children is a very great accomplishment for America, and not incidentally, the Democratic party.
Winning has a way of transforming public perception (it’s true in sports and in politics). Obama has gone from appearing unable to tame an unruly process to triumph and he will now sign a historic bill.4 This will alter the way a lot of people view the President, and in a way that will generate political capital.
Likewise, the GOP are now going to be perceived as losers. While this is not a permanent condition, it isn’t where any party wants to be.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is angry. So, too, are his fellow Republicans. And, McCain says, there will be consequences.
"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during a radio interview Monday. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."
Listen to the man. Even if something that he should agree with comes along, he's too pissed to help. Which is odd, considering how little The Party of No has helped out this past year.
In fact, it's become The Party of Anger. Sure, I was angry during the Cheney years (oh, and Bush was there, too, I guess) as were many people I knew -- tricking America into a war and allowing the country that never attacked us to be trashed in the process, the people subject to unspeakable horrors, trashing the U.S. reputation in the world, trying to destroy Social Security and, I'll continue to content, allowing the worst terrorist attack on American soil to happen due to gross negligence and discontinuation of policies under previous President Clinton. Oh, and creating conditions for the sub-prime crisis and crash of the economy, leaving yet another Democrat to clean up after yet another Bush.
But this anger is something different, something dark from our violent, reactionary, Klannish past. This is cries of n****r and f****t by a vocal minority who are now calling the tune for one of our two major political parties, rapidly turning from The Party of Anger and Fear to The Party of Hate -- per Stephen Schlesinger:
First there are the insensate attacks on those who dare to disagree with the party's views led by the Republican Minority leader John Boehner in his final remarks last night assailing the health reform legislation. Then there are the Republicans who cheered on the hatred and ire of the Tea Bagger protesters encircling the capital from the balcony of the House of Representatives over the weekend. Then there are the Tea Baggers themselves who hurled racial and homophobic slurs at various Democratic Party legislators.
And what about the vitriol mouthed through the months without any Republican regrets by the right-wing radio hosts like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and their cadres. All of this -- hatred, churlishness, pique, resentment, snarling, incivility -- has become the face of a political party which once reflected the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan. Let me ask -- when was the last time a political party gained power in America on anger alone?
In Germany, sure. They called themselves the Nazi Party. And if President Obama is successful in shoring up the Middle Class, as Bill Clinton did before him and as George W. Bush emphatically did the opposite (see tax breaks for the rich and personal savings wiped out), we may yet avoid a rightwing revolution.
The most dangerous aspect of this is how the GOP pretends they are the will of the people -- even through they were trounced in the last two national elections, even as they cry about "the tyranny of the majority," as James Zogby points out:
A Republican talking point repeated ad nauseam during yesterday's debate pounded on the theme that they, and they alone, had the right to speak for "the will of the American people." This took different forms: "the American people have spoken," or "you (Democrats) are ignoring/imposing your views on the American people" or "the American people have sent a message," etc. All making the same point -- that the GOP speaks for the American people.
Of course, the American people have spoken, and in November 2008 elected a Democratic White House and Senate and House of Representatives. But, elections and the workings of our democracy including the idea that the losing party respect the outcome of elections appear to be alien concepts to today's GOP.
The idea that the minority party represents the "will of the people" (not some of the people, but "the people") is the seedling of a totalitarian mindset. In this mindset -- democracy doesn't matter, ideas are not to be discussed, and opposing views are not to respected. What matters is that they alone have truth, they alone are metaphysically connected to the "mind of the people" can interpret their will, and because they have truth and speak for the people, others represent a threat and must be silenced and stopped.
This was a major concern last summer as violent demonstrators disrupted "town meetings" -- with angry chanting mobs claiming to represent the "will of the people" arrayed against the elected Congresspeople and their constituents who had freely assembled to discuss issues. The mobs didn't come to discuss or even debate. They were mobilized to disrupt discussion and silence debate.
The Republicans, stuck in a hermetically-sealed intellectual cyclone of extremist fantasies, are moving farther and farther from the American mainstream. Their willful confusion of socialism (or, more mildly, "government control") with government regulation of an untrammeled and imperfect market was an act of breathtaking dishonesty. Their use of this Big Lie almost derailed a middle-of-the-road health care reform bill. But it didn't succeed. They didn't prevent Barack Obama, and the American people, from enjoying this historic victory.
I'm not sure how many electoral defeats it will take. I have a friend who believes one assassination by this wing will snap America out of its stupor and finally put a bridle on them, but I doubt it. There's too much self-justification amongst these people, too much self-centered, self-righteous anger.
Sure, there are legitimate discussions to be had about cost and change and even individual mandates without a Public Option. But the GOP didn't make those points the centerpiece of their opposition. They senselessly repeated "government takeover of healthcare" like a mantra and it's just plain wrong. It is government regulation of health insurance, thank God. My friends further on the Left aren't celebrating -- they believe the rise in insurance company stocks today shows how hopelessly capitalistic the bill really is.
Well, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has informed the GOP that even though they fought the bill with $144 million, they will not support repeal, only fixes. And, as Joe Conason points out, the GOP arguments against the bill depended on it not getting passed in the first place:
The answer could be found in the subtext of Boehner’s speech, which did not dwell on the bill’s specific provisions, beyond its alleged expense. He knows that arguing the bill’s specific provisions is very dangerous to his party, because so many of them are quite popular and the public will hold Republicans in disrepute for opposing them.
An informed public was always the ultimate peril for the Republicans in this process, so distorted during the past year by wild propaganda about death panels, government takeovers, and the entire mythology of the Obama administration’s socialist-communist-Nazi-totalitarianism.
Creating those crazy expectations was a strategy that depended on the bill never passing. If and when people learn what is actually in the legislation, many of them will realize that they were misled, and will end up appreciating most of what the Democrats have passed, after all.
So when Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) declared that the GOP would beat President Barack Obama on healthcare reform and hence his whole Administration, he was partially right. Tonight's successful -- for Democrats -- vote passing healthcare reform in the House of Representatives was, indeed, Waterloo. Only DeMint's the Napoleon Bonaparte and Pres. Obama = Duke of Wellington, who beat Nappy's sorry ass back on Sunday, June 18, 1815.
Clearly there's reconciliation fixes and other future improvements to be had, but for now we will be able to get health insurance without worrying about preexisting conditions, without worry that it can be yanked away once we become sick, with the ability to change jobs or start businesses -- The American Way -- without fear of losing coverage for our families.
Republican David Frum is particularly savvy on how the GOP lost b-i-g on this process by stonewalling -- and any GOoPer who says they didn't have a chance is simply lying. Just ask Jim "Waterloo" DeMint. Per Frum:
I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
And what of the opposition? They seem transfixed by the teabaggers, who have shown their true colors this weekend with racist and homophobic epithets hurled at members of Congress. The GOP caucus cheers them on when they disrupt the Chambers. It seems to have been a GOP Congressman, probably from Texas, who yelled, "Baby killer!" at Rep. Bart Stupek (D-MI), an ardent anti-choice Dem who even got the President to sign an executive order reaffirming that no Federal money could be used for insurance plans which cover a woman's right to choose.
And, most horrifically of all, a Conservative blogger posted this tweet today:
Followed by this:
That's currently being investigated by the Secret Service and is punishable either by fine or five (5) years in prison. I'd vote for the latter.
The fact is that we now have on our hands, after he's been called dead-in-the-water so many times, a Class-A President, one who will go down in history as having a successful First Term, ideally a couple, barring (of course) scandal or great disaster. Even if they do what Solly will, ideally, serve time for advocating. Check out his accomplishments in a year and a quarter, from blackwaterdog:
He saved the economy.
In a few months he'll end the war in Iraq.
He actually has a plan and strategy in Afghanistan.
America is finally joining the world fighting climate change and aspiring for energy independence.
He single-handedly restored America's place and reputation in the world.
And now there's this little thing called health care reform.
This is what we’ve learnt this year: Obama does not mind defeats if they are procedural or about others saving face. He’s happy to admit error; to give his opponents a chance to lunge at his jugular; to let opponents enjoy a day in the sun; to shave off any small stuff as long as the big stuff remains. He seems oddly impervious to personal insult: he doesn’t mind being affronted by the Chinese or humiliated by Netanyahu as long as it’s a matter of symbolism. On substance, he wants what he wants; and, on the big stuff, he has given up on nothing yet.
He shares this victory with many others, foremost being House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who has also confounded the naysayers who have often written her off, and delivered one of the most productive House sessions in decades.
Yep, it took the first black President and the first woman Speaker to get done what seven Presidents tried and failed, what President Theodore Roosevelt (BTW, a Republican back when I guess it meant something very different) first dreamed of 100 years ago.
The heck with the haters and naysayers. The American people, who voted for these Reps and this President, just got a reasonable version of what they wanted. And even those who didn't vote for them won tonight -- they just don't know it yet.
According to the Associated Press, "End in sight, health care battle tilts Obama's way":
One by one, House Democratic fence-sitters began choosing sides Friday, and the long, turbulent struggle over landmark health care legislation tilted unmistakably in President Barack Obama's direction.
In full campaign mode, his voice rising, the president all but claimed victory, declaring to a cheering audience in Virginia, "We are going to fix health care in America."
No, it's not a done deal, not until the House votes on Sunday. It seems that there's still some anti-choice Democrats left to persuade and Pelosi trying to straddle the impossible with pro-choice women visiting her office today. But as is becoming clear (once again), President Barack Obama is not doing what is easy, nor is he doing it some shortcutty easy way, per Marc Ambinder:
You ought to be mighty frustrated by Obama's courage, blind as you believe it might be. But don't ever, ever call the guy a wimp.
As closing arguments are made (per Paul Krugman), we're hearing one story after another about health insurers trying to kick those who get sick off their rolls on technicalities or worse, about rates jacking up due to the recession causing more people to drop coverage and pools shrinking, i.e. the best argument possible for making this reform during a recession rather than waiting for it to be over, whenever. And Obama is known for the strong close.
Meanwhile the GOP have gone from lying about the bill (it is not a government takeover of healthcare, although it is a government regulation of it, as we accept for meat, water, roads, child labor, etc.) to producing fake memos they claim were written by Democrats. Yes, shades of Karl Rove, although he was better at making them stick. Check out Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) taking apart a GOP Congresstooge for bringing the hoax memo to the Floor:
There are even signs that the wiser voices in the GOP regret their rejectionist strategy, which I don't expect the lower intelligence types to realize (Boehner, Cantor, McConnell...well, the list goes on) but which I hope will lead to a change of sorts, like Obama promised to bring to Washington.
You see, if (and no premature victory dances, please) the President is successful in passing reform, even in this state that Progressives wish was better, he'll have proven all the Waterloo naysayers and vicious Fox pundits wrong. Sure, they'll wail about process and somehow claim that majority rule is "unconstitutional," as if they knew what the Constitution was during the Cheney Administration, but any GOoPer in the House or Senate who is serious about The Peoples' Business, and there are, I suppose, a few, will want to start getting wins under their belt. And the only way to do that will be to work with the President rather than vilifying him. Charles Blow may be a little over-the-top here. But the key is that we're still in the first half of the first term Obama Administration. A win now will reverberate for another 2 1/2 to 6 1/2 years. As I've said many times before the one thing Americans love more than money is a winner. And winners grow bandwagons.
How do you know when your piece of legislation is worthy of passage? When rabble-rousing charlatan Glenn Beck and psycho-right Rep. Steve King (R-IO) tell you it's "an affront to God" to cast a vote on a Sunday, when it is scheduled to come up. Funny enough, Think Progress points out:
On Palm Sunday in 2005, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a controversial bill to allow a federal court to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. The House passed the same bill shortly after midnight on Monday morning.
History lesson courtesy of Robert Reich. In 1994 Reich was working in the Clinton White House, and the Republicans were battling healthcare reform in exactly the same manner they are today -- lies and stonewalling:
On February 5, 1994, the National Association of Manufacturers passed a resolution declaring its opposition to the Clinton plan. Not long after that, Michigan Democrat John Dingell, who was managing the health care bill for the House, approached the senior House Republican on the bill to seek a compromise. According to Dingell, the response was: "There's no way you're going to get a single vote on this [Republican] side of the aisle. You will not only not get a vote here, but we've been instructed that if we participate in that undertaking at all, those of us who do will lose our seniority and will not be ranking minority members within the Republican Party."
The failure of the bill made the Democrats look weak, powerless, do-nothing, and they paid royally:
In early September, William Kristol of the Project for the Republican Future spelled out the next stage of the Republican battle plan: "I think we can continue to wrap the Clinton plan around the necks of Democratic candidates." And that's exactly what they did. On November 8 voters repudiated President Clinton. They brought Republicans to power at every level of government. Democrats went from a controlling majority of 257 seats in the House of Representatives to a minority of 204, and lost the Senate.
Lest anyone doubt the parallels:
Today's Republican battle plan is exactly the same as it was sixteen years ago. In fact, it's been the same since President Obama assumed office. They never were serious about compromise. They were serious only about regaining power. From the start, Republicans have remembered the lesson of 1994. Now, as they prepare to vote, House Dems should remember the lesson as well.
The next eight to twelve years of national U.S. politics is riding on the Congressional votes on healthcare/health insurance reform this upcoming week. And if the bill loses, you'll see Dems go down in flames in November...and your health insurance rates continue to rise, baby, rise.
How about this: reconciliation of health insurance reform is about to kick in:
The House Budget Committee will begin marking up the reconciliation bill on Monday, beginning the first step in the legislative process to pass reform.
It'll be exciting to see what hateful Republican and Faux News nonsense starts to come out in their desperation to kill it.
Part of this move forward is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi giving up on Rep. Bart Strupek's almost incomprehensible drive to load up the bill with anti-choice language, even as it's been proven that protections already exist to keep government subsidies from covering abortions. Nice, Nancy, and about time.
I'm loving that President Obama (writing that never gets old) is back in closer mode, just as he would do in the Democratic primaries and campaign when everyone thought he had somehow blown it. Pass that health care bill, D.C.!
And I love how Markos Moulitsas calls out self-righteous Dennis Kucinich for "making common cause" with the GOP in stating that he's voting against reform. Sure, it isn't pure enough. Sure, there's a mandate that will help insurance companies deal with having to take in the unhealthy as well. But he'll deserve to be primaried by Kos Nation.
I'll say it one last time, if there's no start, then there's no eventual reform of the reform, no building on the legislative landmark as with Social Security (which only covered like a third of Americans at the start), or my personal favorite, the Emancipation Proclamation, in which Lincoln freed the slaves "in the states in rebellion," i.e. The Confederacy where he wasn't currently in control, rather than the Union. However, it both set a benchmark to move up from, and also told the slaves that they would never be prosecuted in the North for checking out of the plantation without their sadistic master's permission.
And I'm LOVING White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs firing back at smug, whiny-ass Chief Justice John Roberts, the least distinguished Chief Justice in history, just taking dictation from The Federalist Society of corporatist Conservative ideologues in squeaking out asshole decisions like giving corporations the same rights as citizens, i.e. the right to use their untold billions to buy candidates. Roberts is one of the most dangerous men in America, a robot installed to lead our top court.
Ideally he's forced to step down in the middle of President Obama's second term.
And back to Barack (hey, that sounds like an album title!), he's clearly feeling it on the stump. I mean, he's got to be so fired up he's gotta be making shit up now on the stump. How else to explain his sudden embrace of the populist notion (although this is the first I've heard of it -- manufactured?) of having "high-tech bounty hunters" solve the healthcare fraud problem:
The White House released details of the anti-fraud plan hours after a fresh challenge to the administration from major business groups that unveiled a multimillion-dollar ad campaign arguing that under Obama's plan "health care costs will go even higher, making a bad economy worse."
The ad buy, costing between $4 million and $10 million, will start Wednesday on national cable TV outlets. Later in the week, the campaign shifts to 17 states home to moderate and conservative Democrats. Their votes are critical to Obama's endgame for passing legislation to expand coverage to millions who now lack it and revamp the health insurance system...
...The bounty hunters in this case would be private auditors armed with sophisticated computer programs to scan Medicare and Medicaid billing data for patterns of bogus claims. The auditors would get to keep part of any funds they recover for the government. The White House said a pilot program run by Medicare in California, New York and Texas recouped $900 million for taxpayers from 2005-2008.
I actually don't think the Republicans are wrong to be suspicious of President Obama's health care summit. But they called him into the brier patch -- nice job. Lately President Obama has shown a refreshing ability to call them on their bullshit, and I'm betting that most -- if not all -- of what they have prepared for the summit is politics rather than serious policy, and by serious I mean more than a notion or ideology. I mean something that might demonstrably lower health care costs and cover almost everybody.
If El Presidente Bush were to run one of these -- and he never did in his eight years, not bipartisan, not on C-Span, not once -- he might not even be chairing it. Whereas what I expect will keep this from being kabuki is that President Obama has already shown himself to be a fair meeting leader. And he actually studies and considers conservative ideas. Not Movement ideas so much as small "c" old school, un-hysterical style.
The bigger kabuki play is in my home state of New York, where a possible influence scandal is breaking with Gov. David Paterson in the wrong. Not sure how this will turn out because my guess from the vantage point of the opposite coast is that Paterson is considered a very weak Governor in the state with terrible poll numbers to match, the Democratic Party is all but coalesced around current NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Paterson is digging in his heels and somebody had to hit him with a smear or a real impropriety in order to try and loosen him up.
The question then becomes whether Paterson -- who's father was a politician, who made it in the Harlem political world, who made it to Lieutenant Governor and by resignation then the Governorship -- can handle a political attack like this in his sleep. He's calling for an investigation, whatever that means, but it's a smart start.
According to the creators of the new SyFy show, Caprica, the premise of the series is that Caprica is beautiful and technologically advanced on the outside, but completely corrupt to the core on the inside.
Think maybe that might be a comment on our times?
I just watched The Daily Show report on how banks are jacking up credit card fees right and left, in advance of new regulations going into effect. They can even charge you for underutilizing your credit card -- charging you for not buying things!
Good luck to Obama attempts to reform Wall Street, which is clearly rotten on psychotic profiteering and won't change their ways without a deathmatch loss.
And I just watched the moron who made a name for himself by moronic behavior, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) repeating over and over again that we have the best health care system in the world, when that is demonstrably false. (Credit to Dylan Rattigan for calling him out.) Meanwhile the GOP is playing pouty games over the possibility that we actually get comprehensive reform, saying instead there should be either no real reform or, worse, piecemeal reform -- the kind that doesn't work because it doesn't address all the interrelated elements of the existing system.
Hey, but the health insurance companies are currently -- I kid you not -- exempt from anti-trust laws! So we must have the best system!
Then we've got red states going nuts expanding gun rights for nuts, playing on the fear that Obama will someone take their guns away -- even though he doesn't talk about the issue and has neither proposed nor offered support for any new gun restricting legislation. This, as more guns go off in Littleton, CO schools.
Per BAGnewsNotes, you just can't deal with these people. It's all about money, that and inability to synthesize new information and grow with it. It's a recipe for disaster for America's future, and that includes any Democratic enablers.
It'll leave us to continue rotting from the inside out.
