Orrin Hatch made a fascinating statement this week on Capitol Hill:
I dream some day of having the Republicans have 60 votes. I’ll tell you one thing, I think we would finally have the total responsibility to get this country under control and I believe we would.
Didn’t we just see that movie?
Just when you thought there was enough reasons to hate reality TV. Now, a reality TV couple gate crashes a White House state dinner. Meanwhile , I’m stripping down to my under wear to get on a airplane. Can we have some sensible security in this country?
Mr. King said he had seen people turned away from similar White House events, including a congressman who brought his daughter instead of his wife, whose name was on the list. He also raised concerns about the Secret Service’s assertion that Mr. Obama was safe because all guests passed through metal detectors.
“The fact they went through the magnometer is incidental,” he said. “They could have had anthrax on them. They could have grabbed a knife from the dining room table.”
He added, “The next time it will be a far worse reality than a reality TV show.”
Obama had his chance to do a Nixonesque honorable withdraw from the tar baby war called Afghanistan. Instead he is doing an LBJ escalation. Hope it works better for Barak than it did for Lyndon.
The Christian Scientists,who believe illness is an illusion, nevertheless would like a piece of the action in all this healthcare reform. Mary Baker Eddy would be proud.
During Oprah’s benign, softball interview with the Republican right’s full-scale action figure, Sarah Palin, it was clear that Palin didn’t write her autobiography, hadn’t read her autobiography and that the only one who was prepared to promote the book was Ms. Winfrey. Sarah was like a deer in the headlights circling the same jumbled buzz words and phrases that she uses in lieu of communication. The saddest part of the interview was when Palin couldn’t even come up with the bittersweet words that her husband was alleged to have said when the couple discussed the down syndrome diagnosis of their son. Clearly, Palin is too undisciplined and too lazy to even do her homework on her own book tour. To think she could have been one heart beat away from a President McCain!
When Pro-lifers become a significant enough part of the Democratic Party to do what they did this Saturday, we are starting to witness tectonic plates shifting in U.S. politics. The Republican tent is shrinking as they move to further to the wacko fringe and ostracize their own moderate candidates and voters. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is going to have to figure out how pro-choice feminists can learn to play nice with big-government-social-justice-committed pro-lifers. It’s going to be interesting. The Daily Beast observes:
What Pelosi did last weekend has its roots in a rebellion against small-tentism that began in the mid-1980s, when a group of Southern and Western Democrats formed the Democratic Leadership Council, which campaigned inside the party for greater tolerance for cultural conservatives. Ideologically, the DLC incubated Bill Clinton, who spent the 1990s calling abortion a necessary evil and affirmative action a good idea taken too far, and enjoyed modest success in luring some conservative Democrats back. Then, in the Bush years, congressional barons like New York’s Charles Schumer began to aggressively recruit cultural conservatives to run in red states and districts. In Pennsylvania, they muscled a pro-choice candidate out of the way to clear room for anti-abortion Democrat Robert Casey, whose father had famously claimed that party bigwigs prevented him from discussing his opposition to abortion at the 1992 Democratic Convention. Barack Obama went even further, naming pro-lifer Tim Kaine as chairman of the Democratic Party.
The Health Care Reform bill has passed in the House. What put it over? Pro-life Democrats. You heard right. Pro-life Democrats. Sure, they are as scarce as unicorns and vegans in fur coats, but it was the pro- life Democrat congressmen who inserted a last-minute amendment that got the bill the votes.
The deal was cut verrrrry late last night, so maybe the news hasn’t gotten out everywhere. When Obama arrived on the Hill to rally House Democrats to pass health reform around 11:30 this morning, his motorcade passed anti-abortion activists protesting outside with “Kill the bill!” “Kill the Pelosi bill!” signs. Yet just a few hours earlier, the Democratic leadership decided to allow pro-life Democrat Bart Stupak to offer his abortion amendment for a straight up-or-down vote on the full House floor, a huge concession and perhaps the only way to pave the way to pass health reform in the House.
The Stupak amendment is a full-out ban on abortion coverage in the public exchange. In addition to language barring direct funding of abortion–which was already included in the bill as part of the Capps amendment that passed the committee this summer–Stupak would prevent private insurance plans that cover abortion from receiving subsidies if they participate in the exchange. Supporters of the Stupak amendment argue it simply continues the status quo and they bill it as the Hyde amendment for health reform. But that’s not true. It’s only half of Hyde amendment language, the half that says no funding without the half that allows exceptions for using other funds (like state funds) to cover abortion procedures.
SNL opened this week’s show with their President Obama trying calm the American people down by explaining that his presidency has accomplished nothing. Andrew Sullivan also argues that Obama is actually a very conservative leader. His foreign policy is far less expansive than the neocon imperialism of Bush. He is approaching Afghanistan with restraint and deliberation. And his proposed public option will provide coverage for a whopping 5% of the population. Hardly socialism. By contrast, Sullivan sees people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin as “populist radicals” who are simply hijacking the conservative movement for their fringe causes. Hard to argue with him there. So, you want a conservative in the White House? Congratulations, you just got your wish.
Depending on who you believe, Obama has either deftly played the Iranians like a violin or he has just let the lying-est country in modern history pull the wool over his limpid, doe eyes. Whatever the long-term results from Geneva’s multilateral talks, one thing we should remember is that Iran has probably never been the giant bogeyman that we have imagined it. Juan Cole elaborates:
Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the U.S.
Reality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the U.S. or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of “no first strike.” This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.
Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.
Reality: Iran’s military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.
Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to “wipe it off the map.”
Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of ‘no first strike’ to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel.
Belief: But didn’t President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to “wipe Israel off the map?”
Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that “this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time” This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.
The right wing cries wolf every time the public option is brought up. You don’t want a bureaucratic, option-limiting, send-you-home-to-die Canadian-ish system, do you? Do you know that Canadians have to wait years to have a procedure until Big Brother says so? Blah. blah, blah. To put such fear mongering perspective, journalist Jonathan Rauch compares the current American health care system with making an airline reservation.
“Hello! Thank you for calling Air Health Care, the airline that works like the health care system. My name is Cynthia. How can I give you travel care today?”
“Hi. My name is Jonathan Rauch. I need to fly from Washington, D.C., to Eugene, Oregon, on October 23.”
“Yes, I’d be happy to assist you with that. It does look like we can get you on a flight on January 23 at 1 p.m. or February 8 at 3 p.m. Which would you prefer?”
“Neither. I need to be in Eugene on October 23. As in, the 23rd of October.”
“I’m sorry, we have nothing open on that date. You might try another carrier.”
“I suppose I’d better. Who has availability?”
“I’m afraid I have no way to know that. I have no way to look into their systems.”
“Who would know?”
“You can call them individually and ask. I’m sure you can find one.”
“Look, I don’t have time to call two dozen airlines. It’s important that I get to Eugene on the 23rd. There must be something you can do.”
Social pyschologist Jonathan Haidt offers insight into the culture wars. He sees the religious right’s willingness to believe the most preposterous accusations against Obama and health care reform as tied to the soul-less, materialism of the left:
The materialism of the secular left opens it up to charges that it promotes a “culture of death.” Liberals are said to like to kill fetuses and the elderly; they don’t treat anything as sacred. This term has been bandied about on the right for many years, and while it is a gross exaggeration, it is based in a real truth, a real difference on the question of the sacredness of life. So when Palin threw out the term “death panels,” the term struck a chord that had been played many times in recent years. Liberals were flabbergasted, because it’s a blatant lie, but it’s false only in a logical sense, not an emotional one. And once again, logic has little to do with morality. If a pro-life social conservative asks himself whether Obama is secretly plotting to create death panels, he is not asking whether this is likely to be true, he is asking only “can I believe it,” and the answer is usually yes.
At least one couple in America love each other so much that they are getting a divorce:
For Mary McCurnin and husband Ron Bednar, money trouble has followed health trouble. In 2003, the couple declared bankruptcy after their insurance covered only 10 percent of treatment costs for her breast cancer and his intestinal bleeding. In 2004, McCurnin’s breast cancer returned, and Bednar underwent open heart surgery.
Now, after repeatedly refinancing their house to pay medical bills and living expenses, they’re broke. To improve their chances of growing old together, they’ve filed for divorce.
“It occurred to me that I could get my first husband’s Social Security,” said McCurnin. Her first husband, to whom she’d been married 20 years, died in 1989. When she turns 60 in November, McCurnin said she will be eligible for $1,200 in monthly survivor’s benefits from the previous marriage. As the Social Security Administration told her, she can’t have the survivor benefit if she’s married to someone else
You know how there is this crazy tidal wave of dissatisfaction with Obama? Well, according to a Washington Post poll, it is just not the case. Sure, the folks that were against him are still against him. The progressives who hope for Ralph Nader with a tan are dissappointed. But if anything, more people seem to think he is not the neophyte, train wreck of a president they had thought he would be. But it could change.
70% of doctors surveyed are in favor of the public option. This is across blue states and red states. This is across the board with salaried doctors and doctors who own their own practices. If that number surprises you, remember that doctors who routinely deal with Medicare prefer that to the headaches that come with staffing their office with enough clerical help to deal with all the various forms and redtape tied to a wide variety of insurance plans and companies. Many advocate a single payer plan for the same reason.
