++Nate Silver says the same. We assume both parties will hire the best teams available and will engage in a ground game, one side being better than the other, and the nominee will be qualified at a policy level. Then the fun begins. Ezra Klein writes that based on these assumptions it was widely thought the GOP would win this time and he cites polls showing Rubio and Kasich ahead of Clinton.
++But Ezra points to John Podesta and his record. "This is not his first radio." And Steven Bannon who has never run any campaign and has none of the qualifications to run a campaign. Klein points to the fact that Bannon at Breibart engages in anti-semitic and anti-Muslim conspiracies. He does want to persuade but reinforce the views of a very tiny but vocal minority in the conservative movement.
++Klein hasn't seen a ground game and thinks Trump's failure at the polls may only be the surface of his problem.
Showing posts with label Ezra Klein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ezra Klein. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
MunichKatrinaObamacareBenghazi
++Mark Halperin really did raise the issue of rationing care at the end of life and believes this will be a big issue about Obamacare.
++Paul Krugman thinks Obamacare will soon become another Benghazi as enrollments soar. Krugman and Ezra Klein both report smooth sailing on healthcare.gov. Klein now says the Administration will conduct their outreach.
++Politico reports that Obama has asked his team not to seek better national news coverage about Obamacare but focus on local stories that are positive.
++The Amazon Post actually wrote a positive story about the Kentucky exchanges after it had been covered for weeks by television stations.
++The Post now raises the question about how the IRS will be able to handle the deluge now that the website can handle 800,000 a day.
++Paul Krugman in another article wrote about how Californiacovered is doing quite well and that if Obamacare works in the largest state it can work anywhere.
++Republican governors are now faced with a dilemma of how to avoid expanding Medicaid. Apparently,Florida is in secret negotiations with the Administration to expand Medicaid.
++The Supreme Court is actually entertaining the Hobbyland Case, where the owner pretends his business is a religious organization and should not offer birth control in his insurance plans.
++NPR did a weirdly positive story about California's efforts on Obamacare. Weird because they had that nasty interview with Jerry Brown last week.
++The corporate television still repeats the strange meme that Obamacare is like Katrina, which left thousands dead.
++Ed Schultz to his credit is the only one on television who keeps pounding away on the positive news from Obamacare.
++Polls suggest that Obama and the Democrats have taken a pasting on this news coverage and the GOP now leads the generic congressional polls. This is incredible after the Democrats were posting "wave election" numbers during the shutdown.
++Patty Murray (D.-Wash) says that the budget conference will have a small budget deal, where the Democrats and GOP split the difference. It is still dubious whether the House GOP will go along.
++Bibi Netanyahu threatened President Obama in the phone call on Sunday after the Iranian deal saying that Obama should be concerned whether he will remain the most powerful person in the world after this.
++Think Progress wrote a piece showing how the world now looks according to Bibi's Bomb Cartoon, namely a helluva safer and Iran further away from a nuclear weapon.
++The GOP howling over the Iran deal continues, likening it to Munich, which is a reference always used on negotiated settlements.
++Rachel Maddow last night showed how deft the diplomacy was. Not only did the Iran deal get done but also it was agreed that the Syrian peace conference will be convened. The Syrian opposition has accepted.
++The one agreement that looks strangely in doubt is the Afghan security arrangement. Susan Rice met with President Karzai and he made more demands after having agreed to the last agreement negotiated with John Kerry. The United States now threatens to leave without one.
++President Obama has established parole boards for the remaining 167 prisoners in Gitmo. Today,the Amazon Post published a story that the CIA has operation "Penny Lane", which turned Gitmo prisoners into double agents and then released them. The sooner we close the base the better.
++China declared an air defense zone over the contested islands with Japan. Naturally, the US military flew through it without notifying the Chinese. There will be more bluffing as we pivot toward the Pacific.
++President Obama lobbied again in California on the immigration bill and challenged John Boehner to pass it even in a piecemeal fashion.
++Andrew Sullivan at The Dish had a fascinating article after the Iran deal on President Obama as the Liberal Reagan. I don't know about the liberal since the President said in California he doesn't have a strong ideology.
++Paul Krugman thinks Obamacare will soon become another Benghazi as enrollments soar. Krugman and Ezra Klein both report smooth sailing on healthcare.gov. Klein now says the Administration will conduct their outreach.
++Politico reports that Obama has asked his team not to seek better national news coverage about Obamacare but focus on local stories that are positive.
++The Amazon Post actually wrote a positive story about the Kentucky exchanges after it had been covered for weeks by television stations.
++The Post now raises the question about how the IRS will be able to handle the deluge now that the website can handle 800,000 a day.
++Paul Krugman in another article wrote about how Californiacovered is doing quite well and that if Obamacare works in the largest state it can work anywhere.
++Republican governors are now faced with a dilemma of how to avoid expanding Medicaid. Apparently,Florida is in secret negotiations with the Administration to expand Medicaid.
++The Supreme Court is actually entertaining the Hobbyland Case, where the owner pretends his business is a religious organization and should not offer birth control in his insurance plans.
++NPR did a weirdly positive story about California's efforts on Obamacare. Weird because they had that nasty interview with Jerry Brown last week.
++The corporate television still repeats the strange meme that Obamacare is like Katrina, which left thousands dead.
++Ed Schultz to his credit is the only one on television who keeps pounding away on the positive news from Obamacare.
++Polls suggest that Obama and the Democrats have taken a pasting on this news coverage and the GOP now leads the generic congressional polls. This is incredible after the Democrats were posting "wave election" numbers during the shutdown.
++Patty Murray (D.-Wash) says that the budget conference will have a small budget deal, where the Democrats and GOP split the difference. It is still dubious whether the House GOP will go along.
++Bibi Netanyahu threatened President Obama in the phone call on Sunday after the Iranian deal saying that Obama should be concerned whether he will remain the most powerful person in the world after this.
++Think Progress wrote a piece showing how the world now looks according to Bibi's Bomb Cartoon, namely a helluva safer and Iran further away from a nuclear weapon.
++The GOP howling over the Iran deal continues, likening it to Munich, which is a reference always used on negotiated settlements.
++Rachel Maddow last night showed how deft the diplomacy was. Not only did the Iran deal get done but also it was agreed that the Syrian peace conference will be convened. The Syrian opposition has accepted.
++The one agreement that looks strangely in doubt is the Afghan security arrangement. Susan Rice met with President Karzai and he made more demands after having agreed to the last agreement negotiated with John Kerry. The United States now threatens to leave without one.
++President Obama has established parole boards for the remaining 167 prisoners in Gitmo. Today,the Amazon Post published a story that the CIA has operation "Penny Lane", which turned Gitmo prisoners into double agents and then released them. The sooner we close the base the better.
++China declared an air defense zone over the contested islands with Japan. Naturally, the US military flew through it without notifying the Chinese. There will be more bluffing as we pivot toward the Pacific.
++President Obama lobbied again in California on the immigration bill and challenged John Boehner to pass it even in a piecemeal fashion.
++Andrew Sullivan at The Dish had a fascinating article after the Iran deal on President Obama as the Liberal Reagan. I don't know about the liberal since the President said in California he doesn't have a strong ideology.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Washington Confused
++At 2:30pmEST,Syria said it would sign the international chemical arms treaty, reveal its arsenal and open it to international inspection. Previously, they agreed to have the international community take control of them.
++Ezra Klein pronounces Obama a winner in this since he narrowed his focus to the use of chemical arms and deterring Syria from using them again. Signing the treaty would mean Syria would face retribution if they used them again.
++The Senate is now furiously re-writing the authorization for military force. Meanwhile, President Obama's writers are running around re-writing tonight's speech.
++Russia is opposing France's Security Council resolution because it wants a commitment from the West it will not use force against Syria. Stay tuned since earlier in the day both Russia and China said they would not veto a resolution against Syria. I imagine there is the usual dickering around with wording.
++David Ignatius also proclaims Obama won this one by the threat of force.
++Ezra Klein pronounces Obama a winner in this since he narrowed his focus to the use of chemical arms and deterring Syria from using them again. Signing the treaty would mean Syria would face retribution if they used them again.
++The Senate is now furiously re-writing the authorization for military force. Meanwhile, President Obama's writers are running around re-writing tonight's speech.
++Russia is opposing France's Security Council resolution because it wants a commitment from the West it will not use force against Syria. Stay tuned since earlier in the day both Russia and China said they would not veto a resolution against Syria. I imagine there is the usual dickering around with wording.
++David Ignatius also proclaims Obama won this one by the threat of force.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Coming Republican Obamacare Train Wreck
++The most impressive cabinet member has to be HHS' Kathleen Sebelius. You have not seen her much the last five years but HHS has been moving ahead with the implementation of Obamacare. You won't know it with all the hoopla over the House repealing Obamacare. This week they will make their 40th attempt or going by Dana Milbank it would be the 68th attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
++If you already have health insurance, Obamacare has already been implemented. Free preventive care, colonscopies, mammograms, and the ability to carry your adult children on your health plan for five years. For me personally,ACA has saved and saved me over $20,000. But I worry about the uninsured and whether the various attempts by the Republicans will stop it.
++About a week ago, Senator Al Franken appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about his contribution to the bill--health insurance companies have to pay at least 80% to healthcare and only 20% can be used for overhead and profit. Franken was very mellow in the interview saying in his trips around Minnesota that the 60-year olds and above liked Obamacare because health insurance companies no longer can deny people for pre-existing conditions and Medicare recipients like free preventive care and the closing of the Donut hole. His body language showed no apprehension about its further implementation.
++This week brought more news about the state exchanges and that they are projecting far greater savings on health insurance premiums than HHS and the CBO had projected. Maryland released its numbers which --so far--make it the lowest in the nation. Previous test projects in Oregon showed that ACA will work to expand the coverage of the uninsured.
++But what happens in the Republican states that opted out of the exchanges? I had assumed this was a broad attempt to sabotage the whole program. This was an out left in the Supreme Court decision. The federal government will allow citizens in these states to acquire health insurance on their exchange. But won't that be too complicated?
++Romneycare in Massachusetts was sold state-wide through the use of sports teams. When the Obama administration sent inquiries out to sports leagues for participation in selling Obamacare, Republicans in the Senate wrote threatening letters to the sports leagues to get them to back off. The Obama Administration has signed on comedy internet outlets and Hollywood to sell the program.
++As a reaction the Koch Brothers-funded front groups like Americans for Prosperity have started a campaign to urge young people not to have health insurance. Great idea, heh?
++Indiana led by Republican Governor Pence released figures that showed rate increases but reporters sank themselves into the figures and found it was not true.
++I wondered why Republicans are hysterical now in mid-2013 about Obamacare. It seems too early for the 2014 race. The reason is that October 1 is the date the state exchanges start working and when hospitals will sign up people for health insurance subsidized by Medicaid. If you are a young person and have an accident and injury and go to the emergency room, the hospital will automatically sign you up for pre-clearance for Medicaid and if you don't qualify they will pick up the cost of the emergency anyway. Tell me people will not take advantage of this.
++So if people start liking what they see or hear, can those states who refused state exchanges and Medicaid opt in at any point. The answer is yes.
++This morning Ezra Klein has a piece how entrepreneurs are taking advantage of Obamacare to break the insurance monopoly and create their own. And besides thousands of jobs will be created in the IT sector.
++While people have observed the legal suits by the Catholic Bishops over contraceptives, we've all missed the negotiations with Catholic hospitals on their ad campaign for Obamacare. Democratic Underground ran one yesterday that makes it plain and simple, something I thought couldn't be done.
++Paul Krugman has a piece about the Republican panic over Obamacare. In short, the wiser of the group knows it will work and that once it is working people will like it. I, for one, believed it would only get half implemented because of GOP obstructionism but the Administration has been far cleverer than I believed.
++An open fight has broken out in Washington among the GOP over Obamacare. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and the Presidential wannabes are threatening not to raise the debt ceiling unless Obamacare is defunded. Tom Coburn, a fiscal conservative, says this is all bunk and hype and these guys should be ashamed of themselves. Senator Roy Blunt has also chimed in by saying defunding Obamacare is not an option.
++AEI's Norm Ornstein wrote a blistering article for the National Journal basically calling GOP congress critters treasonous for trying to nullify and sabotage Obamacare. He wrote that it can not recall any other episode in American history where an opposition party willfully tried to ignore a law. Congessional offices have often refused to help constituents about how to access Obamacare.
++All this is being played out for the October 1 deadline for the budget, the debt ceiling and the implementation of the healthcare exchanges. So we can be assured of more hysteria. But the way this is going , we should all thank Sec. Sebelius for keeping under the radar.
++If you already have health insurance, Obamacare has already been implemented. Free preventive care, colonscopies, mammograms, and the ability to carry your adult children on your health plan for five years. For me personally,ACA has saved and saved me over $20,000. But I worry about the uninsured and whether the various attempts by the Republicans will stop it.
++About a week ago, Senator Al Franken appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about his contribution to the bill--health insurance companies have to pay at least 80% to healthcare and only 20% can be used for overhead and profit. Franken was very mellow in the interview saying in his trips around Minnesota that the 60-year olds and above liked Obamacare because health insurance companies no longer can deny people for pre-existing conditions and Medicare recipients like free preventive care and the closing of the Donut hole. His body language showed no apprehension about its further implementation.
++This week brought more news about the state exchanges and that they are projecting far greater savings on health insurance premiums than HHS and the CBO had projected. Maryland released its numbers which --so far--make it the lowest in the nation. Previous test projects in Oregon showed that ACA will work to expand the coverage of the uninsured.
++But what happens in the Republican states that opted out of the exchanges? I had assumed this was a broad attempt to sabotage the whole program. This was an out left in the Supreme Court decision. The federal government will allow citizens in these states to acquire health insurance on their exchange. But won't that be too complicated?
++Romneycare in Massachusetts was sold state-wide through the use of sports teams. When the Obama administration sent inquiries out to sports leagues for participation in selling Obamacare, Republicans in the Senate wrote threatening letters to the sports leagues to get them to back off. The Obama Administration has signed on comedy internet outlets and Hollywood to sell the program.
++As a reaction the Koch Brothers-funded front groups like Americans for Prosperity have started a campaign to urge young people not to have health insurance. Great idea, heh?
++Indiana led by Republican Governor Pence released figures that showed rate increases but reporters sank themselves into the figures and found it was not true.
++I wondered why Republicans are hysterical now in mid-2013 about Obamacare. It seems too early for the 2014 race. The reason is that October 1 is the date the state exchanges start working and when hospitals will sign up people for health insurance subsidized by Medicaid. If you are a young person and have an accident and injury and go to the emergency room, the hospital will automatically sign you up for pre-clearance for Medicaid and if you don't qualify they will pick up the cost of the emergency anyway. Tell me people will not take advantage of this.
++So if people start liking what they see or hear, can those states who refused state exchanges and Medicaid opt in at any point. The answer is yes.
++This morning Ezra Klein has a piece how entrepreneurs are taking advantage of Obamacare to break the insurance monopoly and create their own. And besides thousands of jobs will be created in the IT sector.
++While people have observed the legal suits by the Catholic Bishops over contraceptives, we've all missed the negotiations with Catholic hospitals on their ad campaign for Obamacare. Democratic Underground ran one yesterday that makes it plain and simple, something I thought couldn't be done.
++Paul Krugman has a piece about the Republican panic over Obamacare. In short, the wiser of the group knows it will work and that once it is working people will like it. I, for one, believed it would only get half implemented because of GOP obstructionism but the Administration has been far cleverer than I believed.
++An open fight has broken out in Washington among the GOP over Obamacare. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and the Presidential wannabes are threatening not to raise the debt ceiling unless Obamacare is defunded. Tom Coburn, a fiscal conservative, says this is all bunk and hype and these guys should be ashamed of themselves. Senator Roy Blunt has also chimed in by saying defunding Obamacare is not an option.
++AEI's Norm Ornstein wrote a blistering article for the National Journal basically calling GOP congress critters treasonous for trying to nullify and sabotage Obamacare. He wrote that it can not recall any other episode in American history where an opposition party willfully tried to ignore a law. Congessional offices have often refused to help constituents about how to access Obamacare.
++All this is being played out for the October 1 deadline for the budget, the debt ceiling and the implementation of the healthcare exchanges. So we can be assured of more hysteria. But the way this is going , we should all thank Sec. Sebelius for keeping under the radar.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Prop 8 Follow-up and Other Random Acts of Sanity
The hard right's heads exploded with the decision ruling Prop 8 unconstitutional. One Free Republic post decried how our culture has become a sewer. Others moaned why vote anymore.
And Pat Buchanan said gay marriage was unnatural. And Newt said that the decision ignored the wishes of millions of people.
In the last few days, we've been treated to some nice reminders about our better angels. Judge Susan Bolton striking down the most egregious portions of the Arizona immigration law. Mayor Bloomberg speaking at Governor's Island with a full array of religious leaders giving us a little history lesson on religious tolerance in Manhattan. In defending the construction of the alleged mosque near the site of the Twin Towers, he reminded the audience that the early leaders of New Amsterdam denied Jews permission to build a synagogue and that early Quakers were forced to leave the area after they were denied the right to worship. Aside from the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish community backed the decision to allow the construction of the cultural center in large numbers so much so that the Muslim community has been spending the last days thanking individual Jewish leaders.
Before we hear that Obama is allowing The Gay to infiltrate our government and banning the worship of Cheezits, it's useful to point out who the three judges who have ruled for gay marriage have been. The Boston judge who ruled that DOMA, the federal ban against gay marriage, was unconstitutional is Judge Joseph Tauro,a Nixon appointee. The Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court who penned the opinion upholding gay marriage in that state was Judge Mark Cady, a Republican appointed by Governor Branstad. And last night's hero, Judge Vaughn Walker was first appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan and elevated by George H.W. Bush. And, of course, the lead lawyer in the courtroom was America's most famous conservative attorney, Ted Olson, former Solicitor General of the Reagan Administration and the man who made George W. Bush president at the Supreme Court.
Apparently these remnants of the old Republican Party appreciate that the GOP's greatest achievement and legacy to the nation was the 14th Amendment. This has been so woven into the tapestry of our culture that we need to be reminded from time to time that you can not vote away someone's fundamental human rights. That's why it is stunning to see three sitting Republican Senators ask for hearings on the 14th Amendment as it applies to birthright citizenship. Even Alan Keyes, who has for years ventured off into our political fringes, appeared as the voice of reason yesterday objecting to any re-examination of the 14th Amendment.
Rights by plebiscite can lead to dangerous things like a vote on torture, which would have passed in the George W. Bush Administration, or on depriving illegal immigrants due process, which would pass in the most Republican areas of the country today. As Vaughn Walker wrote yesterday,you can not deprive people of their rights because of dislike, prejudice, or religious superstition.
It's now a race to the Supreme Court between the Massachusetts DOMA case and the California Prop 8 case. I would urge everyone to read Judge Vaughn Walker's Findings of Fact in the final opinion. He presided over a trial and during that trial the anti-gay side had ample opportunity to raise all their objections and evidence to the harm gay marriage would do to the institution of marriage, to the state, to the culture. Evaluating all the witnesses and their expertise, Vaughn Walker wrote out 80 Findings of Fact, which cumulatively demolished the anti-gay position in very measured, cool prose. His analysis of the quality of the anti-gay witnesses was more unrestrained and contemptuous.
The Findings of Fact provide a little guide to how to argue this issue to the layperson. But for the future appeals, it provides a bedrock of the case, which will be extremely difficult to overturn. The 9th Circuit Court--the next stop--will have to pay Walker due deference on the Findings of Fact and will only be able to adjust the Findings of Law. Legal experts believe that the 9th Circuit will fast track a decision, thereby setting the stage for the Supreme Court. For this, Judge Vaughn Walker already has peppered his decision with references to cases decided by Judge Kennedy.
The early bet is that a Supreme Court decision would be 5-4 in favor of gay marriage as the case has been argued so far. The deciding vote would be Kennedy, who has already penned decisions affirming rights of gays. But since this is the Roberts court, anything can happen. They could bring back slavery after the Citizens United fiasco, where foreign corporations gained more rights than average American citizens.
Public Policy Polling today came out with a poll that even surprised them. In the 27 Senate races they are monitoring for the 2010 midterms,24 of these races show moderates abandoning Republicans in greater numbers than they did McCain in 2008. Perhaps, the strategy of obstructionism is being perceived for what it is--an attempt to stop anything that might benefit average Americans.
Tan Man Boehner railed against the Jobs Bill because it favored those special interests groups-- those policemen and teachers. I'm sure he's just annoyed Nancy Pelosi called the House back next week to vote on the bill. He wants to relax and catch up on his golf. But House Republicans came out with their new jobs bill of their own--cut the corporate tax rate in half. At the same time, they have strenuously opposed cutting taxes for small businesses. Doesn't anyone feel some real "special interests" are at work here.
Ezra Klein appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show the other night to say that the Republicans have shrewdly backed the Democrats into a corner on the tax issue. I disagree. The Democrats are going to push forward in September their plan to raise the taxes on the top 1% and enshrine tax cuts for the rest of America. Republicans will have to publically defend the tax cuts for the upper brackets rather than get away with the scare tactics of massive tax increases across the board. If Republicans filibuster, then they would seal a tax increase for the entire country. Something I'm sure Democrats will point out everyday. And if Democrats cave, then they can say they sacrificed for the middle class and the Republicans will still be saddled with backing the very rich.
For the mid-terms, the Democrats would be well-advised to adopt a simple slogan such as "Who is working for you?" Make the choice plain and dramatic. Democrats this year are inheriting an atmosphere of total distrust of government. People forget that one other legacy of the Bush-Cheney years was the total collapse both here and abroad in faith in our federal government. Despite all the achievements of the Obama Administration and the House this past year,there is enough disinformation out there that arguing precise policy positions seems reactive. This is what the Republicans are banking on. But instead, every day the American public is treated to the negative behavior of Republicans in Congress. Whose on your side? That question is easier to answer than the pros and cons of a new Consumer Agency.
Senator Debbie Stabenow has introduced bill S3706 in the Senate to rectify the situation with the 99ers. This admits it will be almost impossible to pass. But it can serve as an organizing point for the unemployed, who are beginning to become more active.
It is rumored that Elena Kagan will be confirmed today. We've had another week of smears by some Republican Senators. So the radical, pacifist, sharia law-loving, homophile will get to take her seat in the fall session. She's probably receive in my view approximately the same vote total she got when she was confirmed as Solicitor General.
And, yeah, A-Rod hit his 600th. Next up he'll surpass Sammy Sosa this year.
And Pat Buchanan said gay marriage was unnatural. And Newt said that the decision ignored the wishes of millions of people.
In the last few days, we've been treated to some nice reminders about our better angels. Judge Susan Bolton striking down the most egregious portions of the Arizona immigration law. Mayor Bloomberg speaking at Governor's Island with a full array of religious leaders giving us a little history lesson on religious tolerance in Manhattan. In defending the construction of the alleged mosque near the site of the Twin Towers, he reminded the audience that the early leaders of New Amsterdam denied Jews permission to build a synagogue and that early Quakers were forced to leave the area after they were denied the right to worship. Aside from the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish community backed the decision to allow the construction of the cultural center in large numbers so much so that the Muslim community has been spending the last days thanking individual Jewish leaders.
Before we hear that Obama is allowing The Gay to infiltrate our government and banning the worship of Cheezits, it's useful to point out who the three judges who have ruled for gay marriage have been. The Boston judge who ruled that DOMA, the federal ban against gay marriage, was unconstitutional is Judge Joseph Tauro,a Nixon appointee. The Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court who penned the opinion upholding gay marriage in that state was Judge Mark Cady, a Republican appointed by Governor Branstad. And last night's hero, Judge Vaughn Walker was first appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan and elevated by George H.W. Bush. And, of course, the lead lawyer in the courtroom was America's most famous conservative attorney, Ted Olson, former Solicitor General of the Reagan Administration and the man who made George W. Bush president at the Supreme Court.
Apparently these remnants of the old Republican Party appreciate that the GOP's greatest achievement and legacy to the nation was the 14th Amendment. This has been so woven into the tapestry of our culture that we need to be reminded from time to time that you can not vote away someone's fundamental human rights. That's why it is stunning to see three sitting Republican Senators ask for hearings on the 14th Amendment as it applies to birthright citizenship. Even Alan Keyes, who has for years ventured off into our political fringes, appeared as the voice of reason yesterday objecting to any re-examination of the 14th Amendment.
Rights by plebiscite can lead to dangerous things like a vote on torture, which would have passed in the George W. Bush Administration, or on depriving illegal immigrants due process, which would pass in the most Republican areas of the country today. As Vaughn Walker wrote yesterday,you can not deprive people of their rights because of dislike, prejudice, or religious superstition.
It's now a race to the Supreme Court between the Massachusetts DOMA case and the California Prop 8 case. I would urge everyone to read Judge Vaughn Walker's Findings of Fact in the final opinion. He presided over a trial and during that trial the anti-gay side had ample opportunity to raise all their objections and evidence to the harm gay marriage would do to the institution of marriage, to the state, to the culture. Evaluating all the witnesses and their expertise, Vaughn Walker wrote out 80 Findings of Fact, which cumulatively demolished the anti-gay position in very measured, cool prose. His analysis of the quality of the anti-gay witnesses was more unrestrained and contemptuous.
The Findings of Fact provide a little guide to how to argue this issue to the layperson. But for the future appeals, it provides a bedrock of the case, which will be extremely difficult to overturn. The 9th Circuit Court--the next stop--will have to pay Walker due deference on the Findings of Fact and will only be able to adjust the Findings of Law. Legal experts believe that the 9th Circuit will fast track a decision, thereby setting the stage for the Supreme Court. For this, Judge Vaughn Walker already has peppered his decision with references to cases decided by Judge Kennedy.
The early bet is that a Supreme Court decision would be 5-4 in favor of gay marriage as the case has been argued so far. The deciding vote would be Kennedy, who has already penned decisions affirming rights of gays. But since this is the Roberts court, anything can happen. They could bring back slavery after the Citizens United fiasco, where foreign corporations gained more rights than average American citizens.
Public Policy Polling today came out with a poll that even surprised them. In the 27 Senate races they are monitoring for the 2010 midterms,24 of these races show moderates abandoning Republicans in greater numbers than they did McCain in 2008. Perhaps, the strategy of obstructionism is being perceived for what it is--an attempt to stop anything that might benefit average Americans.
Tan Man Boehner railed against the Jobs Bill because it favored those special interests groups-- those policemen and teachers. I'm sure he's just annoyed Nancy Pelosi called the House back next week to vote on the bill. He wants to relax and catch up on his golf. But House Republicans came out with their new jobs bill of their own--cut the corporate tax rate in half. At the same time, they have strenuously opposed cutting taxes for small businesses. Doesn't anyone feel some real "special interests" are at work here.
Ezra Klein appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show the other night to say that the Republicans have shrewdly backed the Democrats into a corner on the tax issue. I disagree. The Democrats are going to push forward in September their plan to raise the taxes on the top 1% and enshrine tax cuts for the rest of America. Republicans will have to publically defend the tax cuts for the upper brackets rather than get away with the scare tactics of massive tax increases across the board. If Republicans filibuster, then they would seal a tax increase for the entire country. Something I'm sure Democrats will point out everyday. And if Democrats cave, then they can say they sacrificed for the middle class and the Republicans will still be saddled with backing the very rich.
For the mid-terms, the Democrats would be well-advised to adopt a simple slogan such as "Who is working for you?" Make the choice plain and dramatic. Democrats this year are inheriting an atmosphere of total distrust of government. People forget that one other legacy of the Bush-Cheney years was the total collapse both here and abroad in faith in our federal government. Despite all the achievements of the Obama Administration and the House this past year,there is enough disinformation out there that arguing precise policy positions seems reactive. This is what the Republicans are banking on. But instead, every day the American public is treated to the negative behavior of Republicans in Congress. Whose on your side? That question is easier to answer than the pros and cons of a new Consumer Agency.
Senator Debbie Stabenow has introduced bill S3706 in the Senate to rectify the situation with the 99ers. This admits it will be almost impossible to pass. But it can serve as an organizing point for the unemployed, who are beginning to become more active.
It is rumored that Elena Kagan will be confirmed today. We've had another week of smears by some Republican Senators. So the radical, pacifist, sharia law-loving, homophile will get to take her seat in the fall session. She's probably receive in my view approximately the same vote total she got when she was confirmed as Solicitor General.
And, yeah, A-Rod hit his 600th. Next up he'll surpass Sammy Sosa this year.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The War Against America Continues
That was no mistake by Senator Kyl. He really did mean to say that tax cuts for the wealthy must be maintained, even if it costs the government $670 billion a year in revenues. And he really did mean to say that unemployment extension can not be passed because it would increase the deficit. As Rachel Maddow pointed out, unemployment generates $1.69 for every buck paid out, while tax cuts for the rich net only $1.06. So which is more stimulating to the economy?
But Ezra Klein coming back from his bummer article on the election has noted quite clearly that what you are seeing is really the GOP's ideological commitment to their past economic policies as a way to destroy government and not to strengthen the economy. There is no more pretending that tax cuts to the wealthy or corporations has anything to do with economic theory or policy.
The new twist in my mind is that the old rhetoric about welfare is now being applied to the unemployed for the first time. Extension of unemployment benefits when the rate of unemployment is so high has been an automatic on a bipartisan basis since 1952. This is the first time there has been a denial of these benefits. Now, the GOP are saying that the unemployed are too lazy to get a job and , in the words of Orrin Hatch, just going to spend their benefits on drugs. So we've now racheted up the rhetoric against Welfare Queens to apply to millions more people. There is a certain racial genious to this: white unemployment is around 8%; Hispanic about 15% and Black about 18%. Since the latter two demographics have been written off by Republicans, all you have to worry about is white and especially white 45 or over.
Diane Rehm had teabaggers on her show yesterday. They were people on social security and receiving naval pensions "for which they worked their whole lives". They repeated the whole teahdist schtick. But they was no irony or self-awareness that they essentially had worked for the government their whole lives and wanted these benefits cut for everyone else.
On top of all this is that state governments face a $220 billion shortfall this year and another $180 billion next year. Without the Federal government stepping in, the entire benefit of the stimulus package will be wiped out. And thousands upon thousands of teachers will be fired and state government services will be dramatically eliminated. As Lawrence Kudlow asked a local government official, "do you have anything to sell?" We can have a firesale of government buildings like in Arizona or the Grand Teton Park in Wyoming.
The Catfood Commission led by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson has uttered a statement that everyone over 58 will get their full social security benefits but the program will have to be changed for younger people. The House Republicans really do want to raise the retirement age to 70. That sounds reasonable if you are working a white collar job and see no prospects of losing your job. If you are blue-collar, it just means you die and lose. Now seniors can apply for jobs at McDonald's as they are doing today to make ends meet--as long as they don't get sick. What was once an entry level job for the young becomes the new safety net for the elderly. And we know that all those white collar folks will really be welcomed as younger workers would like to advance.
I hate to take potshots at my generation but it's quite clear the message to anyone younger is "We got ours, now you fend for yourselves." Trolling the rightwing websites, I noticed an interesting phenomenon the most vitriolic against Obama are people in their early 70s, who want revenge for something someone did to them in the 1960s. On the leftwing websites, you have old arguments from the 1960s being trotted out to refute their brethern across the ideological divide. And luckily, for our generation, are interests are being protected by filthy rich Senators, who will maintain the status quo at all costs. I wonder even if the aging baby bommers even listen to their old music anymore. I think they like to see Paul McCartney because he's had plastic surgery and is rich.
But maybe there are strands of sanity still surviving in the country. Billionaire Pete Peterson's roadshow on the national debt isn't generating the responses he wanted. Majorities polled at these townhall meetings want to adopt the McColm solution for Social Security--raise the FICA salary cap. A Majority wants an additional 5% tax on people earning over $1 million a year. And a Majority want defense spending included in considerations of cutting the deficit. So far, the Cat Food Commission will only own up to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as being the three major debt generating programs. But we can't address the national debt honestly--a loaded word--without tackling the issue of the cost of our empire.
Niall Ferguson, the British enthusiast for our American Empire, told the gathering at Aspen Insitute that the United States will have to make dramatic cuts in social programs over the next two years in order to maintain its position as a world power. Almost the same day, reports came out that Russia spends $88 billion on defense. This gave me the idea that the United States should calculate our nearest competitor in terms of defense outlays and simply accept a formula that we would double it. The Two Times plan would in fact slash our Defense Budget by about $200 billion a year. Any war would be paid for by a war tax. If we're supposed to be a nation at war, then we should pay for it. Remember the phone tax that paid for the Vietnam War? Something similar is called for here. So we're down to Medicare and Medicaid. It's looking easier to dramatically reduce our national debt every moment.
Did Republicans deliberately generate these deficits? For the Reagan years, the answer is yes. The Reagan deficits were aimed at bankrupting the SovietUnion by our escalation in military spending and by restraining any Democratic Administration from embarking on any domestic spending programs. We all remember Bill Clinton eliminating welfare. But the George W. deficits were part design and part chance. The Iraq War was totally under-budgeted by about $1 trillion and the revenue to be generated by tax breaks for the wealthy was totally under-estimated. There was literally no budget considerations for Medicaid Plan D, which costs $5 trillion in the outyears. The deficits were meant as restraining factors to inhibit Democrats. But once the world economy collapsed and our financial system was destroyed because of de-regulation all bets were off.
Instead, what we see today is that the Right has gone back to embrace their ideology of dismantling government as we saw in Thomas Franks'The Wrecking Crew. As we have seen by recent polls of the teahadists, their extreme positions mirror the Republican Party in general. In other words, these people mean what they say about government. And it's really not hypocritical, as long as our entitlements are protected, we don't care what happens to you and your children. That's why is seems so jarring to see elected Republicans double-down on their support for corporations, the big oil companies, banks and tax cuts for the wealthy. That's their world and their financial supporters.
TPM compiled videos of Rand Paul's positions over the years as expressed on a Kentucky PBS station. To the normal viewer, he sounds batty but through the lens of today's GOP he's fairly mainstream. It'll be interesting to see how the average voter takes this. Bob Bennett claims that Mitch McConnell has put a muzzle on Paul so he doesn't keep alienating people.
So now that we are bombarded with reports that independents have abandoned Obama, the blacks don't like him anymore, Hispanics are disillusioned, gays disappointed and the Left disgusted, how's he doing? According to the blarring headlines in today's Washington Post, only 42% of Americans believe his administration makes the rights choices for the country. The Washington Post poll screams that Americans have no confidence in Democrats. They didn't mention that only around 20% of Americans believe that Republican policies are better for America. 60% don't want to return to Bush economic policies, even though Ed Gillespie raved on Sunday talk shows about what a job creator Bush was. The facts actually indicate that W created less jobs than anyone as long as they have kept records--since Truman. And Americans in the high 40s still blame W for the economy.
So how is he doing? Well, according to the Washington Post, Obama's approval rating contnues to plummet to the ground--he's at 50%, only 15% above Reagan at the depth of the recession in the early 1980s. The lack of confidence in the Democrats shows--they have a 1% lead in the generic congressional poll. So, yeah, it is possible that the Republicans can take back the House but even this idea is getting some push back from Beltway pundits, who usually go for anything the herd believes. No one has any idea really.
Meanwhile Hapless Harry Reid seems to have picked up 60 votes to push for the Financial Reform Bill. Today is the vote on cloture again. The vote is scheduled for next week when West Virginia will have a Senator. The Republicans want to go home already so they want to delay a vote on Elena Kagan until after the August recess. As of today, Leahy says the vote will be next week sometime.
Just an aside, students of the Great Depression expect government to take a forceful role in stabilizing the economy and generating employment. But that is not the Republican view anymore. Their real goal in stopping Wall Street Reform is to return to the days prior to the New Deal when the American economy naturally crashed every 20 years. Unfortunately, a natural recovery takes about 10 years.
But Ezra Klein coming back from his bummer article on the election has noted quite clearly that what you are seeing is really the GOP's ideological commitment to their past economic policies as a way to destroy government and not to strengthen the economy. There is no more pretending that tax cuts to the wealthy or corporations has anything to do with economic theory or policy.
The new twist in my mind is that the old rhetoric about welfare is now being applied to the unemployed for the first time. Extension of unemployment benefits when the rate of unemployment is so high has been an automatic on a bipartisan basis since 1952. This is the first time there has been a denial of these benefits. Now, the GOP are saying that the unemployed are too lazy to get a job and , in the words of Orrin Hatch, just going to spend their benefits on drugs. So we've now racheted up the rhetoric against Welfare Queens to apply to millions more people. There is a certain racial genious to this: white unemployment is around 8%; Hispanic about 15% and Black about 18%. Since the latter two demographics have been written off by Republicans, all you have to worry about is white and especially white 45 or over.
Diane Rehm had teabaggers on her show yesterday. They were people on social security and receiving naval pensions "for which they worked their whole lives". They repeated the whole teahdist schtick. But they was no irony or self-awareness that they essentially had worked for the government their whole lives and wanted these benefits cut for everyone else.
On top of all this is that state governments face a $220 billion shortfall this year and another $180 billion next year. Without the Federal government stepping in, the entire benefit of the stimulus package will be wiped out. And thousands upon thousands of teachers will be fired and state government services will be dramatically eliminated. As Lawrence Kudlow asked a local government official, "do you have anything to sell?" We can have a firesale of government buildings like in Arizona or the Grand Teton Park in Wyoming.
The Catfood Commission led by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson has uttered a statement that everyone over 58 will get their full social security benefits but the program will have to be changed for younger people. The House Republicans really do want to raise the retirement age to 70. That sounds reasonable if you are working a white collar job and see no prospects of losing your job. If you are blue-collar, it just means you die and lose. Now seniors can apply for jobs at McDonald's as they are doing today to make ends meet--as long as they don't get sick. What was once an entry level job for the young becomes the new safety net for the elderly. And we know that all those white collar folks will really be welcomed as younger workers would like to advance.
I hate to take potshots at my generation but it's quite clear the message to anyone younger is "We got ours, now you fend for yourselves." Trolling the rightwing websites, I noticed an interesting phenomenon the most vitriolic against Obama are people in their early 70s, who want revenge for something someone did to them in the 1960s. On the leftwing websites, you have old arguments from the 1960s being trotted out to refute their brethern across the ideological divide. And luckily, for our generation, are interests are being protected by filthy rich Senators, who will maintain the status quo at all costs. I wonder even if the aging baby bommers even listen to their old music anymore. I think they like to see Paul McCartney because he's had plastic surgery and is rich.
But maybe there are strands of sanity still surviving in the country. Billionaire Pete Peterson's roadshow on the national debt isn't generating the responses he wanted. Majorities polled at these townhall meetings want to adopt the McColm solution for Social Security--raise the FICA salary cap. A Majority wants an additional 5% tax on people earning over $1 million a year. And a Majority want defense spending included in considerations of cutting the deficit. So far, the Cat Food Commission will only own up to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as being the three major debt generating programs. But we can't address the national debt honestly--a loaded word--without tackling the issue of the cost of our empire.
Niall Ferguson, the British enthusiast for our American Empire, told the gathering at Aspen Insitute that the United States will have to make dramatic cuts in social programs over the next two years in order to maintain its position as a world power. Almost the same day, reports came out that Russia spends $88 billion on defense. This gave me the idea that the United States should calculate our nearest competitor in terms of defense outlays and simply accept a formula that we would double it. The Two Times plan would in fact slash our Defense Budget by about $200 billion a year. Any war would be paid for by a war tax. If we're supposed to be a nation at war, then we should pay for it. Remember the phone tax that paid for the Vietnam War? Something similar is called for here. So we're down to Medicare and Medicaid. It's looking easier to dramatically reduce our national debt every moment.
Did Republicans deliberately generate these deficits? For the Reagan years, the answer is yes. The Reagan deficits were aimed at bankrupting the SovietUnion by our escalation in military spending and by restraining any Democratic Administration from embarking on any domestic spending programs. We all remember Bill Clinton eliminating welfare. But the George W. deficits were part design and part chance. The Iraq War was totally under-budgeted by about $1 trillion and the revenue to be generated by tax breaks for the wealthy was totally under-estimated. There was literally no budget considerations for Medicaid Plan D, which costs $5 trillion in the outyears. The deficits were meant as restraining factors to inhibit Democrats. But once the world economy collapsed and our financial system was destroyed because of de-regulation all bets were off.
Instead, what we see today is that the Right has gone back to embrace their ideology of dismantling government as we saw in Thomas Franks'The Wrecking Crew. As we have seen by recent polls of the teahadists, their extreme positions mirror the Republican Party in general. In other words, these people mean what they say about government. And it's really not hypocritical, as long as our entitlements are protected, we don't care what happens to you and your children. That's why is seems so jarring to see elected Republicans double-down on their support for corporations, the big oil companies, banks and tax cuts for the wealthy. That's their world and their financial supporters.
TPM compiled videos of Rand Paul's positions over the years as expressed on a Kentucky PBS station. To the normal viewer, he sounds batty but through the lens of today's GOP he's fairly mainstream. It'll be interesting to see how the average voter takes this. Bob Bennett claims that Mitch McConnell has put a muzzle on Paul so he doesn't keep alienating people.
So now that we are bombarded with reports that independents have abandoned Obama, the blacks don't like him anymore, Hispanics are disillusioned, gays disappointed and the Left disgusted, how's he doing? According to the blarring headlines in today's Washington Post, only 42% of Americans believe his administration makes the rights choices for the country. The Washington Post poll screams that Americans have no confidence in Democrats. They didn't mention that only around 20% of Americans believe that Republican policies are better for America. 60% don't want to return to Bush economic policies, even though Ed Gillespie raved on Sunday talk shows about what a job creator Bush was. The facts actually indicate that W created less jobs than anyone as long as they have kept records--since Truman. And Americans in the high 40s still blame W for the economy.
So how is he doing? Well, according to the Washington Post, Obama's approval rating contnues to plummet to the ground--he's at 50%, only 15% above Reagan at the depth of the recession in the early 1980s. The lack of confidence in the Democrats shows--they have a 1% lead in the generic congressional poll. So, yeah, it is possible that the Republicans can take back the House but even this idea is getting some push back from Beltway pundits, who usually go for anything the herd believes. No one has any idea really.
Meanwhile Hapless Harry Reid seems to have picked up 60 votes to push for the Financial Reform Bill. Today is the vote on cloture again. The vote is scheduled for next week when West Virginia will have a Senator. The Republicans want to go home already so they want to delay a vote on Elena Kagan until after the August recess. As of today, Leahy says the vote will be next week sometime.
Just an aside, students of the Great Depression expect government to take a forceful role in stabilizing the economy and generating employment. But that is not the Republican view anymore. Their real goal in stopping Wall Street Reform is to return to the days prior to the New Deal when the American economy naturally crashed every 20 years. Unfortunately, a natural recovery takes about 10 years.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Egrets, I've had a few.* Lazy Sunday at the Last Manatee
* shamelessly ripped off from DailyKos blogger "Kestrel".
The tension is mounting here as the Psychic Octopus is one away from a perfect World Cup. Germany has won and we are only hours away from Netherlands versus Barcelona (let's be honest here). Does the Octopus win a fish prize?
Remember the Hutaree Militia out of Michigan? It seems one of their members was arrested yesterday for plotting to kill President Obama, during his trip to the Midwest.
Amitai Etzioni has a new proposal for small government conservatives. He proposes that the Department of Justice prepare legal opt-out forms where you can have your taxes decreased by 2/3rds if you agree not to partake of any government services, with the exception of the military. My objection is that Etzioni calculates the cost of the military wrong--it's 40% of discretionary spending. So you get a 60% reduction on your taxes instead.
Ezra Klein, policy wonk at the Washington Post, saved us $4 trillion on our national debt this past week. So instead of going on a roll, he decides to play the party pooper. You know all the hype about elections, the media coverage, the campaign expenditures and the like. Well, it doesn't matter. Ezra found some geeks who have played around with their computers and says the results of the elections within 2% error depends on the state of the economy and that specifically means how much money people feel they have in their pockets. Forget everything else. Of course, this year that's bad news for Democrats. If this catches on, it may be bad news for all the political hired hands.
The American Psychological Association wants Dr. James Mitchell stripped of his license for his participation in overseeing the 2002 torture of Abu Zubayah,who was thought to be the Number 3 of Al Qaeda. The APA warned members from participating in all programs that were considered torture during the last eight years. Since the proceedings are in Texas, it's anyone's guess about the result. For the record, classified documents have come out within the past month from the Government which indicate Abu Zubayah may not even had been a member of Al Qaeda, let alone number 3.
Richard Minter, writing in the Daily Beast, says that some of us who are making fun of the gonad bomber and the Times Square bomber are missing the point about Al Qaeda. Since the end of the Bush Administration and the first 18 months of the Obama Administration, Al Qaeda has suffered crippling blows to their middle-level managers and can not maintain the basic organizational ability to mount sophisticated operations anymore. They are stuck with buying local cell phones, which are easily followed by intelligence, and their front businesses and mechanisms for laundering money have been closed down through international cooperation. With the constant assassinations of their number 3s and other high-ranking operatives, they lack the experience of developing backup plans and fielding supportive manpower to cover the primary actors in any given action. They are in their third generation, which lacks the military experience and spycraft of the previous plotters.
But never fear, Ryan Mauro of the Christian Action Network posts a piece on David Horowitz' www.frontpagemagazine.com "Muslim Enclaves U.S.A." Building on Daniel Pipes' 2004 work documenting how Muslims are creating seperate enclaves based on sharia law in the United States, Mauro outlines several groups in the United States who are creating little Muslim enclaves in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He claims Muslims of America, a group Homeland Security links to the Pakistan terrorist group Jamaat Ul-Fugra, owns 22 villages sporting such names as "Islamberg", "Holy Islamville" and "Aliville". While interesting, the article neglects the threat of rampaging Mexican Muslims. Perhaps, that's in the follow-up piece. I thought the caliphate ended in Cordoba.
Following up on Hillary Clinton's defense in Poland of the struggling civil society around the world, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote a defense of democracy promotion, admitting the whole idea got a little abused during the Bush Administration with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But she argued that President Obama should speak on the subject more frequently.
Not having any of this, Pat Buchanan in "The Democracy Obsession" at www.amconmag.com says that the United States blew the opportunity to adopt a policy of non-intervention right after the Cold War. He then blames the superfluous foreign policy elites for conjuring up the intervention in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He accuses the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House of subverting regimes in Belgrade,Caracas, Kiev, Tbilisi, Beirut and Bishkek. He argues that democratic states don't make us any secure and are not our friends. He slams W for pushing democracy in the Middle East. Pointing out that pressuring Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine to have elections yielded us the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbullah and Hamas. He points to South Africa, Brazil, India and Turkey as prime examples of democracies going their own way--away from the United States. He points to both India and Brazil lining up with China to fight caps on carbon emissions and Turkey drifting toward Iran and Syria because of its reactions to Israeli actions.
Coming off his book on World War II, where he blames Churchill, he gets his digs in at the Brits again. He points out that the British sided with Mexico during the Mexican War and with the South in our Civil War. He points out that democratic governments such as Sweden and Ireland were neutral during WWII but that the Soviet Union and Chang Kai Shek sided with the U.S. He says that France denied Reagan airspace for his attack on Libya but that Salazar's Portugal gave Nixon the use of the Azores during the Yom Kippur War. He also has to throw in his plug for Pinochet in Chile.
With the fade of the Third Wave of Democratization, democracy advocates will have to answer Buchanan on the merits of his case and not slam him as an isolationist , anti-semite as we used to. America's engagement with the world will have to be re-thought and the advantages and limits of democracy promotion will have to be honestly addressed. My reservations these days are about the corporatization of democracy promotion programs. Those involved literally constitute multi-million dollar industries. Democracy promotion became institutionalized during the Clinton Administration when USAID committed billions to the effort, spurring the creation of democracy programs in every NGO known to man and then some. At the time, I was proud of my small role in pushing this development but sometimes it seems we neglected the other issues of development and we sold people on what democracy promotion really wasn't. Even during George W. Bush, democracy promotion was heralded as conflict resolution and as a tool of peace, not war. Today, major defense contractors reap the benefits of democracy funding, pulling down contracts of $50 million or more to implement just small segments of a democracy program. And under few cirumstances can the development of democracies in previously underdeveloped countries yield automatic allies in foreign policy.
What is ruinous to democracy promotion is its militarization and integration into war efforts. Take the slogan of democracy advocates, "Democracies don't start wars." We just got through an American administration which adopted a strategic policy of pre-emptive war. Or the idea during the W administration that democracies don't create terrorists. Throughout the 1970s, we had the alienated young in Western Europe create the Baader Mienhoff Brigade, the Red Brigade and in the United States the Weathermen. On the Left, there is the notion that it is poverty that creates the terrorism of the Middle East. But the profile of Al Qaeda and others are of upper-middle-class , college educated young people, disgusted at the discrepancy of wealth in their countries and repulsed by Western policies, who reconstitute themselves with religion and react violently to their conditions. That's why I am dubious about efforts in Afghanistan about nation-building. While they can ameliorate the local conditions, they don't address the heart of the problem.
And, finally, Glenn Beck says that Woodrow Wilson is America's most evil President. Reading Pat Buchanan's article, he might agree since Wilson started the whole American thrust toward democracy promotion and self-determination. But I gather Beck suggests that Wilson kicked off the whole "progressive" agenda to bring about socialism in our time. It's an interesting topic to consider--evil American Presidents. One of the nice things about the United States is that we really only have nincompoops, mediocrities, inadequate and sometimes corrupt Presidents. But do we get to evil?
For my generation, Richard Nixon ranks high on the ugly scale but can we even suggest this maudlin, insecure man, who actually had to rehearse walking like a President, was evil? Corrupt, cynical and Machivellian, sure. Did he commit evil acts? Yes. But he doesn't rank with Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and the others in the evil pantheon. He envied them. That's for sure.
Even W, whom I would rank as one of and maybe the worst President of the United States, given the extensive damage he did in every area of our life, just didn't have the heart to implement Dick Cheney's scheme for an all-powerful President. I think this accounts for why he was absent for the last two years of his Administration.
So Woodrow Wilson? Wilson was a racist and embarked on a domestic crackdown on strikers and dissenters, but he also tried to embrace a reform agenda. For years, Wilson ranked about 16 in the Siena College rankings of Presidents. He too was crippled for the last years of his Administration by strokes and illness. But Woodrow Wilson as evil? C'mon.
The tension is mounting here as the Psychic Octopus is one away from a perfect World Cup. Germany has won and we are only hours away from Netherlands versus Barcelona (let's be honest here). Does the Octopus win a fish prize?
Remember the Hutaree Militia out of Michigan? It seems one of their members was arrested yesterday for plotting to kill President Obama, during his trip to the Midwest.
Amitai Etzioni has a new proposal for small government conservatives. He proposes that the Department of Justice prepare legal opt-out forms where you can have your taxes decreased by 2/3rds if you agree not to partake of any government services, with the exception of the military. My objection is that Etzioni calculates the cost of the military wrong--it's 40% of discretionary spending. So you get a 60% reduction on your taxes instead.
Ezra Klein, policy wonk at the Washington Post, saved us $4 trillion on our national debt this past week. So instead of going on a roll, he decides to play the party pooper. You know all the hype about elections, the media coverage, the campaign expenditures and the like. Well, it doesn't matter. Ezra found some geeks who have played around with their computers and says the results of the elections within 2% error depends on the state of the economy and that specifically means how much money people feel they have in their pockets. Forget everything else. Of course, this year that's bad news for Democrats. If this catches on, it may be bad news for all the political hired hands.
The American Psychological Association wants Dr. James Mitchell stripped of his license for his participation in overseeing the 2002 torture of Abu Zubayah,who was thought to be the Number 3 of Al Qaeda. The APA warned members from participating in all programs that were considered torture during the last eight years. Since the proceedings are in Texas, it's anyone's guess about the result. For the record, classified documents have come out within the past month from the Government which indicate Abu Zubayah may not even had been a member of Al Qaeda, let alone number 3.
Richard Minter, writing in the Daily Beast, says that some of us who are making fun of the gonad bomber and the Times Square bomber are missing the point about Al Qaeda. Since the end of the Bush Administration and the first 18 months of the Obama Administration, Al Qaeda has suffered crippling blows to their middle-level managers and can not maintain the basic organizational ability to mount sophisticated operations anymore. They are stuck with buying local cell phones, which are easily followed by intelligence, and their front businesses and mechanisms for laundering money have been closed down through international cooperation. With the constant assassinations of their number 3s and other high-ranking operatives, they lack the experience of developing backup plans and fielding supportive manpower to cover the primary actors in any given action. They are in their third generation, which lacks the military experience and spycraft of the previous plotters.
But never fear, Ryan Mauro of the Christian Action Network posts a piece on David Horowitz' www.frontpagemagazine.com "Muslim Enclaves U.S.A." Building on Daniel Pipes' 2004 work documenting how Muslims are creating seperate enclaves based on sharia law in the United States, Mauro outlines several groups in the United States who are creating little Muslim enclaves in Baltimore and Philadelphia. He claims Muslims of America, a group Homeland Security links to the Pakistan terrorist group Jamaat Ul-Fugra, owns 22 villages sporting such names as "Islamberg", "Holy Islamville" and "Aliville". While interesting, the article neglects the threat of rampaging Mexican Muslims. Perhaps, that's in the follow-up piece. I thought the caliphate ended in Cordoba.
Following up on Hillary Clinton's defense in Poland of the struggling civil society around the world, Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote a defense of democracy promotion, admitting the whole idea got a little abused during the Bush Administration with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But she argued that President Obama should speak on the subject more frequently.
Not having any of this, Pat Buchanan in "The Democracy Obsession" at www.amconmag.com says that the United States blew the opportunity to adopt a policy of non-intervention right after the Cold War. He then blames the superfluous foreign policy elites for conjuring up the intervention in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He accuses the National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House of subverting regimes in Belgrade,Caracas, Kiev, Tbilisi, Beirut and Bishkek. He argues that democratic states don't make us any secure and are not our friends. He slams W for pushing democracy in the Middle East. Pointing out that pressuring Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine to have elections yielded us the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbullah and Hamas. He points to South Africa, Brazil, India and Turkey as prime examples of democracies going their own way--away from the United States. He points to both India and Brazil lining up with China to fight caps on carbon emissions and Turkey drifting toward Iran and Syria because of its reactions to Israeli actions.
Coming off his book on World War II, where he blames Churchill, he gets his digs in at the Brits again. He points out that the British sided with Mexico during the Mexican War and with the South in our Civil War. He points out that democratic governments such as Sweden and Ireland were neutral during WWII but that the Soviet Union and Chang Kai Shek sided with the U.S. He says that France denied Reagan airspace for his attack on Libya but that Salazar's Portugal gave Nixon the use of the Azores during the Yom Kippur War. He also has to throw in his plug for Pinochet in Chile.
With the fade of the Third Wave of Democratization, democracy advocates will have to answer Buchanan on the merits of his case and not slam him as an isolationist , anti-semite as we used to. America's engagement with the world will have to be re-thought and the advantages and limits of democracy promotion will have to be honestly addressed. My reservations these days are about the corporatization of democracy promotion programs. Those involved literally constitute multi-million dollar industries. Democracy promotion became institutionalized during the Clinton Administration when USAID committed billions to the effort, spurring the creation of democracy programs in every NGO known to man and then some. At the time, I was proud of my small role in pushing this development but sometimes it seems we neglected the other issues of development and we sold people on what democracy promotion really wasn't. Even during George W. Bush, democracy promotion was heralded as conflict resolution and as a tool of peace, not war. Today, major defense contractors reap the benefits of democracy funding, pulling down contracts of $50 million or more to implement just small segments of a democracy program. And under few cirumstances can the development of democracies in previously underdeveloped countries yield automatic allies in foreign policy.
What is ruinous to democracy promotion is its militarization and integration into war efforts. Take the slogan of democracy advocates, "Democracies don't start wars." We just got through an American administration which adopted a strategic policy of pre-emptive war. Or the idea during the W administration that democracies don't create terrorists. Throughout the 1970s, we had the alienated young in Western Europe create the Baader Mienhoff Brigade, the Red Brigade and in the United States the Weathermen. On the Left, there is the notion that it is poverty that creates the terrorism of the Middle East. But the profile of Al Qaeda and others are of upper-middle-class , college educated young people, disgusted at the discrepancy of wealth in their countries and repulsed by Western policies, who reconstitute themselves with religion and react violently to their conditions. That's why I am dubious about efforts in Afghanistan about nation-building. While they can ameliorate the local conditions, they don't address the heart of the problem.
And, finally, Glenn Beck says that Woodrow Wilson is America's most evil President. Reading Pat Buchanan's article, he might agree since Wilson started the whole American thrust toward democracy promotion and self-determination. But I gather Beck suggests that Wilson kicked off the whole "progressive" agenda to bring about socialism in our time. It's an interesting topic to consider--evil American Presidents. One of the nice things about the United States is that we really only have nincompoops, mediocrities, inadequate and sometimes corrupt Presidents. But do we get to evil?
For my generation, Richard Nixon ranks high on the ugly scale but can we even suggest this maudlin, insecure man, who actually had to rehearse walking like a President, was evil? Corrupt, cynical and Machivellian, sure. Did he commit evil acts? Yes. But he doesn't rank with Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and the others in the evil pantheon. He envied them. That's for sure.
Even W, whom I would rank as one of and maybe the worst President of the United States, given the extensive damage he did in every area of our life, just didn't have the heart to implement Dick Cheney's scheme for an all-powerful President. I think this accounts for why he was absent for the last two years of his Administration.
So Woodrow Wilson? Wilson was a racist and embarked on a domestic crackdown on strikers and dissenters, but he also tried to embrace a reform agenda. For years, Wilson ranked about 16 in the Siena College rankings of Presidents. He too was crippled for the last years of his Administration by strokes and illness. But Woodrow Wilson as evil? C'mon.
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