Ah, July 4th weekend. Nothing kicks off summer like a time-honored, all-American holiday that encourages the mass consumption of animal flesh (charcoal-grilled to carcinogenic perfection), binge drinking, and subsequent drunken handling of highly explosive materials. Well, for most people. Being the semi-reclusive weirdo that I am (although I prefer the term “gregarious loner”), nothing kicks off summer for me like holing up for the holiday weekend with a case of Diet Dr. Pepper, a decent ration of Wha Guru Chews (I’m partial to cashew flavor) and an armload of my favorite rock musicals.
So, for your consideration (or condemnation) I now submit my Top 10 personal favorites of the genre (and some B-sides as well). As per usual, I present them in no particular ranking order (to prevent fistfights). And for those who are about to rock…I salute you.
The Commitments --“Say it leoud. I’m black and I’m prewd!” Pulling together a cast of talented yet unknown actor/musicians to "play" a group of talented yet unknown musicians was a stroke of genius from director Alan Parker. This "life imitating art imitating life" trick makes The Commitments one of the better “behind the music” movies. In some ways a thematic remake of Parker's own 1980 musical Fame, the scene moves from New York to Dublin (look fast for a sly reference when a band member starts singing a parody of the Fame theme). These working class Irish kids don't have the luxury of a performing arts academy, however, and there's an undercurrent referencing the economic downturn in the British Isles (several band members are "on the dole"). The acting chemistry is superb, but it's the amazing musical performances that really astonish, especially from the 16-year old lead singer, who has the pipes of someone who has been drinking a fifth and smoking 2 packs a day for 30 years. Gritty, realistic and spiced up with a goodly amount of ribald humor (“Fook yew, yew fat fooker!”)-this one’s a winner.
Expresso Bongo - I’ve always wondered if this 1959 British gem from Val Guest gave inspiration to Julien Temple for his Absolute Beginners- from the opening shot that swoops through London's Soho district coffee bar/music club milieu, to its story about naive show biz beginners with stars in their eyes and exploitative agents' hands in their wallets. Laurence Harvey plays his cheeky, success-hungry hustler/manager character with real chutzpah. The perennially elfin Cliff Richard plays it fairly straight as Harvey's "discovery", Bongo Herbert. The film includes performances from the original Shadows (Richards’ classic backup band) which features guitar whiz Hank Marvin (whom Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page have cited as a seminal influence). The smart, droll screenplay (by Julian More and Wolf Mankowitz) is far more sophisticated than most of the U.S. produced rock’n’roll musicals of the era (films like The Girl Can't Help It and Rock Rock Rock!) do feature priceless performance footage, but the storylines are pretty dopey).
Hair -In the hands of a lesser director, Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s late 60s hit stage musical about the peace love and dope generation’s zeitgeist could have easily been laughed off as a dated nostalgia piece when it was belatedly brought to the screen in 1979 (at the very height of the disco era, no less). Luckily for us, Milos Forman was at the helm (he had already proven quite adept at translating theatrical pieces to the screen with a little film called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-you may have heard of it). Forman and screenwriter Michael Weller wisely accentuate the more timeless themes from the original play (or at least it’s nice to believe that humanism, friendship and love ultimately trumps dogma, jingoism and war, eh?). The harmonious integration of the choreography with the various New York City locations is comparable to West Side Story (I wrestled with adding that film to this list BTW, but decided that it is really closer to a “jazz ballet” than a “rock musical”). The amazingly versatile Treat Williams brings mucho verve and energy to the screen as the Zorba-like George Berger (when he jumps up on that banquet table and exults “I got my AAAAAsssss!”-you don’t doubt him for a second). The great cast includes John Savage, Beverly D’Angelo and Annie Golden (music geeks may recall her as being the lead singer of an early 80s new wave band called The Shirts). Also look for the great director Nicholas Ray in a cameo as “The General” (he died that same year).
A Hard Day's Night -This 1964 masterpiece has been often copied, but never equaled. Shot in a semi-documentary style, the film follows a “day in the life” of John, Paul, George and Ringo at the height of their youthful exuberance and charismatic powers. Thanks to the wonderfully inventive direction of Richard Lester and Alun Owen’s cleverly tailored script, the essence of what truly made the Beatles…well, the Beatles has been captured for posterity. Although it is in reality very meticulously constructed, Lester’s film has a loose, improvisational feel-and therein lies its genius, because it still feels just as fresh and innovative as it was when it first hit theatres 45 years ago (yes, it’s been that long). There’s much to savor in every frame; to this day I catch “little” things that continue to surprise me (ever notice John “snorting” the Coke bottle?). And then, there’s the music-“I Should Have Known Better”, “All My Loving”, “Don’t Bother Me”, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and of course the memorable title song (with that opening chord that I STILL have not been able to figure out). Lester and the Fabs teamed up again for Help!in 1965; despite the fantastic musical segments, it suffers overall from a corny plot.
Jailhouse Rock -The great tragedy of Elvis Presley’s film career is how much more exponentially insipid each successive script became. Even the part of the films that mattered the most (which would be the um, music) progressively devolved into barely listenable schmaltz (keep in mind I’m referring specifically to the movie soundtrack fodder, and not to his studio albums, which had more artistic peaks and valleys). Fortunately, however, we can still pop in a DVD of Jailhouse Rock, and experience the King at the peak of his powers before Colonel Parker took his soul. This is one of the few films where Elvis actually gets to breathe a little bit as an actor (King Creolewould be another example). Although he basically plays himself (an unassuming country boy with a musical gift from the gods who becomes an overnight sensation), he never parlayed the essence of his “Elvis-ness” so un-self-consciously before the cameras as he does here. In addition to the iconic (and downright feral) “Jailhouse Rock” song and dance number itself, Elvis rips it up with “Treat Me Nice” and “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care”.
Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains- A sort of punk version of A Star Is Born, this 1981 curio (initially shelved from theatrical distribution) managed to build a rabidly devoted cult base, thanks to showings on USA Network’s “Night Flight” back in the day. As a narrative, this effort from legendary record mogul turned movie director Lou Adler would have benefited immensely from some script doctoring (Slap Shot scripter Nancy Dowd is off her game here) but for punk/new wave nostalgia junkies, it’s still a marvelous time capsule. Diane Lane plays a nihilistic mall rat who decides to break out of the ‘burbs by forming an all-female punk band called The Stains. Armed with a mission statement (“We don’t put out!”) and a stage look that appears to have been co-opted from Divine in Pink Flamingos, this proto riot-grrl outfit sets out to conquer the world (and learn to play their instruments along the way). Music biz clichés abound, but it’s still a guilty pleasure, particularly due to the real-life rockers in the cast. Fee Waybill (surprisingly effective) and Vince Welnick of The Tubes are a hoot as a couple of washed up glam rockers. The fictional punk band, The Looters (fronted by none other than an angry young Ray Winstone) features the talents of Paul Simonon from The Clash and Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols. There’s also a memorable cameo by Black Randy (“Who?”) Well, he’s exciting to “deep catalogue” geeks like me (what can I say?).
Rock 'n Roll High School-As far as guilty pleasures go, this goofy bit of anarchy from the stable of legendary low-budget producer Roger Corman rates pretty high (and one suspects the creators of the film were, um, “pretty high” when they dreamed it all up). Director Alan Arkush invokes the spirit of all those late 50s rock’n’roll exploitation movies (right down to having 27 year-old actors portraying “students”), substituting The Ramones for the usual clean-cut teen idols who inevitably pop up at the school dance. To this day, I’m still helplessly in love with P.J. Soles, who plays Vince Lombardi High School’s most devoted Ramones fan, Riff Randell. The great cast of B-movie troupers includes the late Paul Bartel (who directed several of his own cult classics under Corman’s tutelage) and his frequent screen partner Mary Waronov (as the uptight, iron-fisted principal). Although no one’s ever copped to it, I’m fairly sure this film inspired Square Pegs, the short-lived cult TV series from 1982. R.I.P. Joey, Dee Dee and Johnny.
Starstruck -Gillian Armstrong has primarily built her reputation on helming female empowerment dramas (My Brilliant Career, Mrs. Soffel, High Tide , The Last Days of Chez Nous, Charlotte Gray), making this sparkling and energetic “feel good” trifle from 1982 a bit of an anomaly in the Australian director’s otherwise serious-minded oeuvre. That being said, it’s the only Armstrong film I’ve watched more than once. In fact, I’ve watched it many times; it’s one of my favorite “movie therapy” prescriptions (I defy anyone to remain depressed after a viewing). It does feature a strong female character, a free spirit named Jackie (Jo Kennedy) who aspires to become Sydney’s next break-out new wave singing sensation, with the help of her kooky, entrepreneurially-minded (and frequently truant) teenaged cousin Angus (Ross O’Donovan) who has designated himself as publicist/agent/manager. Infectiously goofy and genuinely sweet-natured, featuring lots of catchy power pop (with contributions from members of Split Enz and Mental as Anything). Highlights include “I Want to Live in a House” and “The Monkey in Me”.
Tommy-There was a time (a long, long, time ago) when some of my friends insisted that the best way to appreciate The Who’s legendary rock opera was to turn off the lamps, light a candle, drop a tab of acid and listen to all four sides with a good pair of cans. I never got around to making those precise, um, arrangements, but it’s a pretty good bet that watching director Ken Russell’s insane screen adaptation is a close approximation. If you’re not familiar with his work, hang on to your hat (I’ll put it this way-Russell is not known for being subtle). Campy, raucous, garish and gross…but never boring. Luckily, the Who’s music is powerful enough to cut through all the visual clutter, and carries the day. Two members of the band have roles-Roger Daltrey is charismatic as the deaf dumb and blind Tommy, and Keith Moon has a cameo as wicked Uncle Ernie (Pete Townshend and John Entwistle only appear in music performance). The cast is an interesting cross section of film veterans (Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret, Jack Nicholson) and well-known musicians (Elton John, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner). Musical highlights include “Pinball Wizard”, “Eyesight to the Blind” “The Acid Queen” and “I’m Free”. And you haven’t lived until you’ve watched Ann-Margret, covered in baked beans and writhing in ecstasy!
True Stories-New Yawk musician/raconteur David Byrne (that’s MISTER Talking Heads to you) enters the Lone Star state of mind with this subtly satirical Texas travelogue from 1986. It is not easy to pigeonhole this one- part social satire, part long-form music video, part mockumentary. The episodic vignettes about the quirky but generally likable inhabitants of sleepy Virgil, Texas should hold your fascination once you buy into "tour-guide" Byrne's bemused anthropological detachment (some might say, "conceit", but there is no detectable mean-spiritedness here). Among the town’s “residents”: John Goodman, “Pops” Staples, Swoosie Kurtz and the late, great Spalding Gray. The outstanding cinematography is by Edward Lachman. Byrne’s fellow Heads have cameos performing “Wild Wild Life”. Not everyone’s cup of tea, perhaps- but for some reason, I have an emotional attachment to this film that I can’t even explain (shrug).
President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.
In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to "true" health-care reform.
"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."
Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.
In the call, leaders of both chambers expressed optimism that they will hold floor votes on legislation to overhaul the $2.2 trillion health system before Congress breaks in early August.
For his part, the president vowed to use his strong approval rating with voters to continue making the case for sweeping reform, according to one congressional staffer with knowledge of the conversation. Obama also hinted that efforts are under way to discourage allies from future attacks on Democrats, according to the source, who did not have permission to speak on the record about the discussion.
God I hate it when politicians insult your intelligence right to your face. That simplistic kumbaaya bullshit is about as useful as telling us to join hands and think happy thoughts and then we'll all have health care. I hated it when george W. Bush spoke to the public as if they were 5 year olds, but at least it was clear that he actually thought like a 5 year old himself. When Obama does it, it's infuriatingly condescending. (These comments remind me of a month or so ago when the white house official was asked by a reporter why the insurance companies were offering up all these cost savings and replied, "because they're good Americans.")
All you have to do is read the paper to know that the people standing in the way of any workable health care reform are mushy, centrist robots and insurance company whores in the Democratic Party. We have the majority, the Republicans are imploding, there is no debate at the moment among anyone but Democrats. In the middle of this hot negotiation, putting ads on the air that say "let's get some health care!" is a joke.
I suspect that the truth is that he thinks he's clumsily triangulating. But the groups that he's criticizing are actually trying to support his position on the public plan and attacking them undermines the public plan as well. (Of course, it's always possible that's the intention, but I hope not.)
The problem is that triangulation is for the purpose of positioning the president between two poles in the debate. He's just set one of the poles as the public plan, which says to certain wobbly Senators that it's negotiable. I would have thought the better way to deal with this is to assure these congressional twits (who gladly ate tremendous amounts of shit from right wingers for years, but get livid at the tiniest criticism from the left) that he isn't endorsing any of these attacks, but that there's not much he can do about it. It's a free country. These waverers might just realize that he's serious about getting a public plan without him having to explicitly tell them so.
By now it's obvious that dismissing and humiliating the base is a conscious White House strategy and I'm sure it's sometimes quite useful, even though it's a distinctly unsavory political tactic (and one that erodes support over time.) But in this case, if they really want health reform, it's counterproductive. He needs the outside groups to play this role and by publicly reprimanding them he's undermining these groups with their already skittish donors --- and the cause itself.
But again, that's assuming that's not exactly what they want to do. If they want to undermine the public plan then this is one good way to do it.
Update: FYI, I am aware of Ceci's perfidious antics. I wrote about it just last week. She is a Village kewl kid through and through. But it pays to remember that the Village is now in Democratic hands.
The military officers who rushed deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya out of the country Sunday committed a crime but will be exonerated for saving the country from mob violence, the army's top lawyer said.
In an interview with The Miami Herald and El Salvador's elfaro.net, army attorney Col. Herberth Bayardo Inestroza acknowledged that top military brass made the call to forcibly remove Zelaya -- and they circumvented laws when they did it.
It was the first time any participant in Sunday's overthrow admitted committing an offense and the first time a Honduran authority revealed who made the decision that has been denounced worldwide.
''We know there was a crime there,'' said Inestroza, the top legal advisor for the Honduran armed forces. ``In the moment that we took him out of the country, in the way that he was taken out, there is a crime. Because of the circumstances of the moment this crime occurred, there is going to be a justification and cause for acquittal that will protect us.''
I think this is a natural outgrowth of the example the US has set over the past few years. People no longer believe that the rule of law is something they must adhere to as long as they can justify their actions as being done to "protect the country." I suppose it was always so, but America has made a fetish out of this excuse through this decade so I think it's taken on a new veneer of legitimacy. Certainly, it has made it impossible for any American leader to condemn this sort of thing with even the slightest bit of credibility.
This is the paternalistic view espoused by Henry Hyde during the Iran Contra scandal, in which he claimed that if the executive broke the law for the good of the country it wasn't a crime. (He said this to justify his view that Reagan's breaking of the laws was ok while Clinton allegedly lying in a deposition was an impeachable offense.) I suppose this concept is also an outgrowth of Nixon's famous statement that if the president does it it's not illegal. When President Nixon said that, however, it was shocking to average people. However obvious it was in practice that presidents routinely evaded the power sharing intent of the constitution, very few people thought it was a good thing that the president actually wasn't required to follow the rule of law. I'm not so sure about that now.
For the last several years, many people have been saying that the president has to do whatever's necessary to keep the country safe. That's what both Bush and Obama say to justify something like preventive detention and that's what the Honduran military says it was doing when it deposed a democratically elected president. (Cap'n Ed called it a "military impeachment.") And it seems to me that people are beginning to accept this idea --- when it comes to national security, the president and the military must not be limited by such prosaic concerns as the constitution. Someone might get hurt and that must be prevented at all costs.
Once again, I think we have to ask why, as an individual American, that logic wouldn't then apply to other things. Why should the government be hindered by the rule of law at all when lives are at stake? The police and the FBI and the DEA and the ATF and Homeland Security and the Border Patrol and any of the other agencies in the vast security state apparatus should not be hindered in their jobs to keep Americans safe any more than the president is hindered in keeping America safe from terrorists. Certainly, I can't understand how you could take a chance that someone like Charles Manson or Tim McVeigh or some sociopathic gang member might be released back onto American streets, but the mere possibility that a terrorist suspect could be free anywhere in the world precludes them even having a trial. It makes no sense.
Implicit in the constitution is the understanding that we cannot be safe from all dangers --- and that one of the gravest dangers to our safety is a government which does not respect civil liberties and the principles of democracy. This "protect at all costs" mentality stands that on its head. Once you say that the government doesn't have to adhere to the rule of law for the good of the country, the whole thing loses its meaning --- and unpredictable things start to happen. Like "military impeachments."
The Urban Institute has released a study on the public plan option that should be of interest to those who are following this debate. They focus on the competition factor, particularly on the fact that consolidation and concentration have already made any complaints on that count moot, something we've written about here a few times:
This paper makes the argument that a public plan is important to health reform because it will contribute to cost containment, primarily by addressing problems caused by increased concentration in insurance and hospital markets. We describe how the public plan might be structured, how many people might be expected to enroll, and how much money the public plan might save. We discuss the most frequent arguments that are made in opposition to the public plan. We conclude that the private insurance industry would survive at about the same size but be more efficient and more effective in controlling health care spending.
Unfortunately, the debate over whether to provide a public health insurance option as a competitor to private plans under comprehensive health care reform seems to have become an ideological litmus test. Conservatives are fervently aligned against the option while liberals are as strongly in favor it. Those who oppose it fear that the public plan will have so many inherent advantages that private plans will be unable to compete, eventually leaving the system entirely in government hands by destroying a competitive insurance market. Supporters believe that a public plan is a critical fallback option in a universal system that would cover many high-need and low-income groups.
The arguments around the public plan too often ignore what we believe is the central reason for including a public plan as a component of reform: that health insurance markets today, by and large, are simply not competitive. And as such, these markets are not providing the benefits one would expect from competition, including efficient operations and consequent control over health care costs. We believe that the concentration in the insurance and hospital industries that has taken place over the past several years has been a significant contributor to this problem. The role of the government plan is to counter the adverse impacts of market concentration and, in doing so, slow the growth in health care costs.
In this paper, we first describe problems with competition in current insurer and provider markets, in particular focusing on the implications of consolidation in both markets. We then discuss how a public plan could help address these problems. Next, we examine how a public plan might be structured and how much money a plan might save. We address how large the public plan would be and what impact it would have on the current private insurance industry. We then examine the most common arguments against the public plan. We conclude by arguing that private insurance plans would survive but be more efficient and more effective controlling health care spending.
The survival of the insurance companies isn't something I personally lose much sleep over, but this info might be useful to those who need to refute the idea that the insurance companies will all be driven out of business if they are forced to constrain their enormous profits and pay their CEOs less than 15 billion dollars in compensation.
* United Health Group CEO: William W McGuire 2005: 124.8 mil 5-year: 342 mil
* Forest Labs CEO: Howard Solomon 2005: 92.1 mil 5-year: 295 mil
* Caremark Rx CEO: Edwin M Crawford 2005: 77.9 mil 5-year: 93.6 mil
* Abbott Lab CEO: Miles White 2005: 26.2 mil 5-year: 25.8 mil
* Aetna CEO: John Rowe 2005: 22.1 mil 5-year:57.8 mil
* Amgen CEO: Kevin Sharer 2005:5.7 mil 5-year:59.5 mil
* Bectin-Dickinson CEO: Edwin Ludwig 2005: 10 mil 5-year:18 mil
* Boston Scientific CEO: 2005:38.1 mil 5-year:45 mil
* Cardinal Health CEO: James Tobin 2005:1.1 mil 5-year:33.5 mil
* Cigna CEO: H. Edward Hanway 2005:13.3 mil 5-year:62.8 mil
* Genzyme CEO: Henri Termeer 2005: 19 mil 5-year:60.7 mil
* Humana CEO: Michael McAllister 2005:2.3 mil 5-year:12.9 mil
* Johnson & Johnson CEO: William Weldon 2005:6.1 mil 5-year:19.7 mil
* Laboratory Corp America CEO: Thomas MacMahon 2005:7.9 mil 5-year:41.8 mil
* Eli Lilly CEO: Sidney Taurel 2005:7.2 mil 5-year:37.9 mil
* McKesson CEO: John Hammergen 2005: 13.4 mil 5-year:31.2 mil
* Medtronic CEO: Arthur Collins 2005: 4.7 mil 5-year:39 mil
* Merck Raymond Gilmartin CEO: 2005: 37.8 mil 5-year:49.6 mil
* PacifiCare Health CEO: Howard Phanstiel 2005: 3.4 mil 5-year: 8.5 mil
* Pfizer CEO: Henry McKinnell 2005: 14 mil 5-year: 74 mil
* Well Choice CEO: Michael Stocker 2005: 3.2 mil 5-year: 10.7 mil
* WellPoint CEO: Larry Glasscock 2005: 23 mil 5-year: 46.8 mil
* Wyeth CEO: Robert Essner 2005:6.5 mil 5-year: 28.9 mil
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor's Picnic at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks the weekend of July 25, Palin said.
There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Palin made the announcement flanked by Parnell and most, if not all, of her cabinet.
Why not serve out her term? The presidential election doesn't begin for at least another two years. Wouldn't it be better to have a full term as governor of Alaska under her belt? In fact, I assumed she'd want to run for governor again so she could run for president as the second term Governor of Alaska. Give her a tiny bit of gravitas, which she badly needs.
I guess the base loves her so maybe all she has to do is run the megachurch and teabagger circuit for the next three years to get the nod. Who knows what the path to GOP leadership is these days? But whatever she does, it looks like she's going to do it her way. It should be fascinating to watch.
Update: And by the way, to those who insist that Palin hasn't governed as a social conservative, this pretty much proves otherwise.
And I don't know if you saw her press conference, but I almost expected her to start babbling about soul mates and David and Bathsheba. The Republicans are getting more deeply weird every day.
Thank you all for being so generous with your time, comments and donations to Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice and our project to tell Finance Committee Senator Blanche Lincoln that health care reform without at least a public plan is no plan at all. Now that the HELP Committee has released its report and all the Democratic Senators have committed to it, the action moves to Finance --- and Blanche Lincoln is one of the only Senators on that committee who is up for reelection in 2010. Next week she's going to be hearing from her constituents about her unwillingness to back a quality public plan.
You've been amazingly supportive and we appreciate it. You can still vote for the ad of your choice by clicking here.
But we aren't the only ones doing this sort of thing. Change Congress is also pressuring Mary Landrieu to support a public plan. Landrieu has been pretty strident and explicit in her condemnation of the public plan choice, but needless to say, if there was ever a state that needs more support, not less, it's Louisiana. It's outrageous that she would stand in the way of health care reform:
And the PCCC, DFA and Move On are running an ad in Washington DC with the names of thousands of people who are asking for a public option. You can ad your name to the ad here.
Finally, MoveOn is running this one in California, which is giving Difi heartburn. (The other day she sniffed that it "wasn't helpful," which means, it wasn't helpful to her. And that, of course, is the point.)
Obviously, nobody knows what's going to come out of the legislative meat grinder yet. Everything is very fluid. (What happened to those co-ops?) The devil, as always, is in the details and the details are changing every day. But we're hopeful that we can help guide the basic contours of the debate with this insistence on the inclusion of the public plan. We'll see what happens.
Reid says he expects the tactic of gentle persuasion to work best, given the size of his Senate Democratic flock and the political divergences within it. “I don’t dictate how people vote,” he said in an interview this month. “If it’s an important vote, I try to tell them how important it is to the Senate, the country, the president ... But I’m not very good at twisting arms. I try to be more verbal and non-threatening. So there are going to be — I’m sure — a number of opportunities for people who have different opinions not to vote the way that I think they should. But that’s the way it is. I hold no grudges.”
I'm sure that other Senate Democrats would say that this style works well - for them. They don't get pestered into votes they don't like to take, they don't have any consequences for their actions on the floor of the Senate.
But Lyndon Johnson just came back from the dead, read this profile, and stabbed himself in the heart.
Democratic politicians of this age like to speak about raw numbers and votes and lament the lack of the same. Even in this age of 60 Democratic votes, Reid in particular has worked overtime to downplay the significance, in that gentle, not arm-twisting manner of his. Of course, the facts are that 60 votes are only required to end debate, not for every particular bill. And participation in the caucus should mean, almost by definition, not joining in filibusters from the other side.
If I'm not mistaken, there was at one time at least some power in the office of Majority Leader of the Senate, after all. There are committee assignments to dole out, and decisions on funding vulnerable incumbents, or appearing in their states, and legislation that wayward members might need to get to the floor, among other things. There are a whole set of incentives that can work in both directions - carrots and sticks, in the vernacular. Harry Reid's a carrot man in a stick world. And the carrots haven't exactly been enough.
The only person who seems to understand the power of the office of Majority Leader is someone who isn't even in the party, Bernie Sanders, who gets that you can demand the caucus not to participate in Republican filibusters, which would necessarily end them. As soon as we get 40 or so more social democratic-leaning independents in the Senate, I nominate Sanders for Majority Leader. He seems to know what to do with the job.
One of the best arguments in the health care debate is the one that says every American should get the same health plan that members of congress have. Taxpayers pay for it so why shouldn't they be able to choose the same plan?
Just for informational purposes, for those who may not know, here's a brief primer on what we're already paying for:
As soon as members of Congress are sworn in, they may participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). The program offers an assortment of health plans from which to choose, including fee-for-service, point-of-service, and health maintenance organizations (HMOs). In addition, Congress members can also insure their spouses and their dependents.
Not only does Congress get to choose from a wide range of plans, but there’s no waiting period. Unlike many Americans who must struggle against precondition clauses or are even denied coverage because of those preconditions, Senators and Representatives are covered no matter what - effective immediately.
And here’s the best part. The government pays up to 75 percent of the premium.
Grants to aged, blind or disabled persons People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs People in drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services Persons with developmental disabilities People in mental health treatment Small Business Vendors
University of California Public Employees’ Retirement System Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees Judges Department of Corrections Health Care Services payments to Institutional Providers
Thank God the legislature and appointees are being paid. God knows they're indispensable...
Business is back on Wall Street. If the good times continue to roll, lofty pay packages may be set for a comeback as well.
Based on analysts' earnings forecasts for 2009, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is on track to pay out as much as $20 billion this year, or about $700,000 per employee. That would be nearly double the firm's $363,000 average last year, and slightly higher than the $661,000 for the average Goldman employee in fiscal 2007, according to analyst estimates reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Well, that was a close one! For a second I thought the banksters would have to SUFFER for the damage they caused blowing a hole in the global economy. Thankfully, that task will fall only to the rest of the population.
By the way, you really shouldn't miss Matt Taibbi's epic takedown of Goldman Sachs, arguably the most devious actor in this whole mess, in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. They haven't put it on their website yet, but Zero Hedge has a very hard-to-read copy. It's a comprehensive look at Goldman's increasing ubiquity throughout practically all of modern life, and their role in manipulating Wall Street and K Street to get favorable outcomes. Goldman is like the Borg, and the ruling class has been assimilated. Needless to say, Goldman's none too happy about having their agenda exposed. Taibbi responds here. He's one of the only journalists who would dare to write this story, and he should be credited for that.
...Taibbi's article is on the Rolling Stone site. But I agree with those in comments, anything that can be done to support Taibbi's work in this matter ought to be encouraged. Also, he appears to have stumbled upon a very serious issue about Goldman Sachs front-running its clients, which is basically buying a stock before executing a large trade for its clients and taking the profit.
The American economy lost 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate edged up to 9.5 percent in a sobering indication that the most painful downturn since the Great Depression has yet to release its hold.
“The numbers are indicative of a continued, very severe recession,” said Stuart G. Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. “There’s nothing in here to show that the economy and the market are pulling out of the grip of recession.”
The latest monthly snapshot of the nation’s job situation, released on Thursday by the Labor Department, reinforced a consensus that high levels of unemployment were likely to remain for many months and perhaps years. That will almost surely increase the difficulties of finding work for millions of jobless people while limiting wages and working hours for those employed.
After a May report that showed the pace of deterioration was moderating — with a revised figure of 322,000 net jobs lost for the month — some economists expressed hopes that an economic recovery might finally be emerging. But the June report tempered such visions with the monotony of continued decline.
For another month, manufacturing jobs disappeared, dipping by 136,000, while construction jobs shrank by 79,000 and retail by 21,000. Health care remained a rare bright spot, adding 21,000 jobs.
The losses for June brought the tally of jobs shed since the beginning of the recession to 6.5 million — a figure equivalent to the net job gains over the previous nine years.
“This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said in a research note. She called this fact “a devastating benchmark for the workers of this country and a testament to both the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth from 2000 to 2007.”
Douglas MacKinnon, former press hack for Bob Dole, asks:
Why do so many on the left have such an unhinged hatred of [Sarah Palin]?
Well, Doug, I just want you to know, that, personally, I don't have an unhinged hatred of Sarah Palin. Repeat: I do NOT have an unhinged hatred of Sarah Palin. Not in the slightest.
My hatred hinges quite sensibly on her advocacy of a psychotic extreme rightwing ideology, her radical christianism, her courting of organizations that ooze contempt for American democracy, her propensity to lie the way normal people breathe, her enormous pride in her blithering ignorance, her sheer incompetence, and her mind-boggling megalomania.
And truly, Mr. MacKinnon, the Vanity Fair article you object to are the least of the reasons to hate Sarah Palin, even if they make the rightwing love affair with such a repellent personality seem rather...unhinged, if you know what I mean.
For those who are worried about the health care reform that's being hashed out in congress right now because you believe that single payer is the only answer, I would just ask if you think that France, Holland and Germany should change their systems? They all offer universal coverage, their statistics are far superior to ours and their people would probably kill you before they'd let you change them. And none of them have what we think of as strict "single payer" plans.
Here's a brief overview of what these three countries have:
Health care in the Netherlands is financed by a dual system. Long-term treatments, especially those which involve (semi-)permanent hospitalization, and also disability costs such as wheelchairs, are covered by a a state-run mandatory insurance. This is laid down in the Algemene Wet Bijzondere Ziektekosten (AWBZ, see article in the Dutch Wikipedia), "general law on exceptional healthcare costs" which first came into effect in 1968.
For all regular (short-term) medical treatment, there is a system of obligatory health insurance, with private health insurance companies. These insurance companies are obliged to provide a package with a defined set of insured treatments [1].
This system came into effect in January 2006. For those who would otherwise have insufficient income, an extra government allowance is paid to make sure everyone can pay for their health care insurance. People are free to purchase additional packages from the insurance companies to cover additional treatments such as dental procedures and physiotherapy. These additional packages are optional.
A key feature of the Dutch system is that premiums are set at a flat rate for all purchasers regardless of health status or age. Risk variances between funds due to the different risks presented by individual policy holders are compensated through risk equalization and a common risk pool which makes it more attractive for insurers to attract risky clients. Funding for all short term health care is 50% from employers, and 45 percent from the insured person and 5% by the government. Children until age 18 are covered for free. Those on low incomes receive compensation to help them pay their insurance. Premiums paid by the insured are about 100 € per month with variation of about 5% between the various competing insurers.
Prior to 2006 (and since 1941) there were two separate systems of (short-term) health insurance: public and private. The public insurance system was executed by non-profit "health funds", and financed by premiums taken directly out of the wages (together with income taxes). Everyone earning less than a certain threshold income could make use of the public insurance system. However, anyone with income over that threshold was obliged to have private insurance instead.[2].
Germany has a universal multi-payer system with two main types of health insurance. Germans are offered three mandatory health benefits, which are co-financed by employer and employee: health insurance, accident insurance, and long-term care insurance.
Accident insurance (Unfallversicherung) is covered by the employer and basically covers all risks for commuting to work and at the workplace.
Long term care (Pflegeversicherung) is covered half and half by employer and employee and covers cases in which a person is not able to manage his or her daily routine (provision of food, cleaning of apartment, personal hygiene, etc.). It is about 2% of a yearly salaried income or pension, with employers matching the contribution of the employee.
There are two separate systems of health insurance: public health insurance (Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung) and private insurance (Private Krankenversicherung). Both systems struggle with the increasing cost of medical treatment and the changing demography. About 87.5% of the persons with health insurance are members of the public system, while 12.5% are covered by private insurance (as of 2006).
The entire population must pay compulsory health insurance. The insurers are non-profit independent agencies not linked to the State. A premium is deducted from all employees' pay automatically. An employee pays 0.75% of salary to this insurance, and the employer pays an amount to the value of 12.8% of the employee's salary. Those earning less than 6,600 euros per year do not make health insurance payments.
To allow full reimbursement of health costs, many employees also pay a voluntary premium (up to 2.5% of salary) to a mutual insurer. In the 1960s, 30% of the population paid for supplementary health insurance. This rose to 50% in the 1970s. By 2000, 85% of the population were paying privately for additional insurance coverage.[5]
In addition to payroll contributions, a general social contribution (or social security tax) of 7.5% (known as the Contribution Sociale Generalisée or CSG) is levied on employment and investment income. Most goes to health insurance.[5]
After paying the doctor's or dentist's fee, a proportion is claimed back. This is around 75 to 80%, but can be as much as 85%. Under recent rules (the coordinated consultation procedure [in French: parcours de soins coordonné]) General practitioners ("médecin généraliste" or "docteur") are more expected to act as "gate keepers" who refer patients to a specialist or a hospital.[5] The incentive is financial in that expenses are reimbursed at lower rates for patients who go direct to a specialist (except for dentists, gynecologists and psychiatrists).
As costs are borne by the patient and then reclaimed, patients have freedom of choice where to receive care.[5] Around 65% of hospital beds in France are provided by public hospitals, around 15% by private non-profit organizations, and 20% by for-profit companies.[5]
England and Canada have more straightforwardly government sponsored "single payer" systems.
All of these systems have their good points and their bad points. But every last one of them is better than what we have in the United States right now in one important respect: universal coverage. They all guarantee that everyone has access to affordable insurance and have created systems to make that happen, which are dependent upon the government to regulate and administer. All of them have changed over time and continue to evolve today. Many of them are facing the same financial pressures we are, but still to a lesser degree. (Aging populations, expensive treatments etc...) The satisfaction rate is much, much higher among citizens of those countries than here. I've been sick in those European countries and believe me navigating their systems was a breeze compared to what I've experienced in the health care maze here. I would take any of them over what we have now.
So, while I am a proponent of single payer, (which I am defining as medicare for all, even though that too is a private, public partnership) I recognize that there are other ways to get to affordable, universal health care and I'm willing to see what the congress comes up with before I decide to bail on the whole thing.
I don't know if the plan the congress and administration produces will be any good, but I do know that the concept of having a public plan operating alongside private insurance with mandates, employer contributions and public subsidies did not come out of thin air. Various forms of that kind of system are in place elsewhere and they can work. It remains to be seen if they can pull it off but I see no reason to be reflexively hostile to it at this stage of the game.
I do agree that single payer should have been the leftward position going into this, because it would have given us much more room to maneuver. But then, we all should have backed Dennis Kucinich in the presidential race because he's the only one who ran with single payer in his platform. That ship sailed two years ago as far as legislative strategy is concerned -- and actually probably 60 years ago when Harry Truman lost the first health care battle. I haven't exactly seen liberals organizing around single payer all these years so we could be prepared for this moment so I'm disinclined to blame the politicians alone for that.
There's nothing wrong with advocating for the system you want and I'm not saying people shouldn't do that. I'm not the issue czar telling people what the proper progressive position on things has to be. I'm only pointing out that it is possible to have huge improvement in our system, including universal health care, through other means than single payer (however you define it.) While we debated "socialized medicine" for 60 years, the Europeans have done a lot of experimenting and have figured out various ways to get this done. We don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Update: Corrente asks a very smart question about the proposed HELP plan and whether or not it will preclude a state or region enacting its own single payer plan. The groups who are whipping the congress on specifics of the public plan should read this. It's a good idea and will tell us a little bit about the legislative intent here.
Milbank Would Write About This, But He's Busy Scheduling A Listening Session With The NRA
by dday
I don't care about any of this, Nico Pitney is still such a dick:
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."
With the newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said in a staffwide e-mail that the newsroom would not participate in the first of the planned events — a dinner scheduled July 21 at the home of Publisher and Chief Executive Officer Katharine Weymouth.
The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — was a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.
For all the stories about blogger ethics, I don't have access to anyone at the highest levels of government that I can sell to corporate lobbyists.
These "salons" have already been cancelled, and look what the Publisher says was the real problem:
"Absolutely, I'm disappointed," Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. "This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren't vetted. They didn't represent at all what we were attempting to do. We're not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom."
Translation: "And I would have got away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."
Well, I'm glad that whole mess is over. Now the Post can go back to being influenced by lobbyists and setting conventional wisdom in Washington without all that dirty money changing hands.
Update: from digby --- just curious about one other little matter: who in the allegedly anti-lobbyist White House agreed to this? And did whoever it was think it might be important to include some non-industry representatives, who can't afford to pay 25k to eat some stale canapes with wealthy villagers at this intellectual salon where all the "people who will get it done" were gathering? But then perhaps that would be inappropriate. After all, if you have the media, the titans of industry and the White House all under one roof it would be unseemly to allow any dirty hippies in the door. They could light up a fattie right there in the drawing room and start singing "I want to fuck you like an animal" to Ceci Connolly.
And anyway, they are clearly irrelevant to the process. As are the citizens.
Reader JW brought this story about California's woes from last week-end's NY Times Magazine to my attention. I think it says it all:
“Our wallet is empty,” Schwarzenegger said in a speech a few days before my visit. “Our bank is closed. Our credit is dried up.” He called for cuts that would, among other things, eliminate health insurance for close to a million poor kids, stop welfare checks for more than half a million families and close 80 percent of the state’s parks. Then he pivoted into empathy mode. “I see the faces behind those dollars,” Schwarzenegger said. “I see the children whose teachers will be laid off. I see the Alzheimer’s patients losing some of their in-home support services.”
As I waited for Schwarzenegger in the lobby of the governor’s office, I studied the official portraits of former governors, including those of Ronald Reagan, Earl Warren and Jerry Brown (boldly colored and cartoonish and considered so bizarre at the time it was painted that the Legislature initially refused to hang it). Suddenly I heard Schwarzenegger’s unmistakable voice booming joyously as he led an entourage from his office.
“We are going to da beh, we are going to da beh,” Schwarzenegger kept saying.
Schwarzenegger and I then repaired to a tent that he had put up in a courtyard next to his office, which allows him to smoke cigars legally at work (no smoking is allowed inside the Capitol). The tent is about 15 square feet, carpeted with artificial turf and outfitted with stylish furniture, an iPod, a video-conferencing terminal, trays of almonds, a chess table, a refrigerator and a large photo of the governor. Schwarzenegger reclined deeply in his chair, lighted an eight-inch cigar and declared himself “perfectly fine,” despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. “Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,” Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, “I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,” he said. “I’m going to lay back with a stogie.
Maybe Arnold and Maria could invite all of those elderly Alzheimer's patients who have lost their home health aides to come over and share his jacuzzi and his optimism. Maybe they can feel "perfectly fine" too.
JW points out that the article is a typical snotty hit piece on the California fruits and nuts, but that it does state one particularly egregious false equivalence:
Complicating matters further, the major parties in California are both effectively controlled by their most partisan elements, a byproduct of gerrymandered voting districts that force lawmakers to appeal to their ideological bases. After many earlier failed efforts, a ballot initiative championed by Schwarzenegger finally passed last year that will redraw the districts. But that won’t take effect until after the 2010 census, so for now the two parties are largely controlled by what Bruce Cain at Berkeley calls “the Taliban.” The result? Gridlock in Sacramento, a standoff between the parties of “no more taxes” (Republicans) and “no more cuts” (Democrats).
There is no doubt that Democrats are dysfunctional. But they are not equivalent to the California Republicans who are completely insane. The "cuts" which don't intrude on Arnold's beautiful mind when he's in the jacuzzi puffing on his Cuban, are going to affect real humans in ways that are devastating. Refusing to raise taxes on millionaires because they might get mad and move their companies to Samoa is not even in the same category.
You learn something new every day. According to certain theologians, evangelical teaching says that love isn't a feeling:
The Christian counselors Sanford sought out while trying to decide whether to stay with his wife or jump on a plane to South America advised him what else love is and isn't.
"Their point is that love is not a feeling," Sanford told The Associated Press in a tearful two-day confessional. "It's a choice. It's an action."
That sentiment might seem cold to many Americans, but it is perfectly consistent with the born-again, evangelical Christian world that Sanford inhabits, says sociologist John Bartowski.
"What evangelicals are doing is sort of carving out a subcultural view of love which is not so highly romanticized as we see in movies, that is at odds with the dominant view of love," says Bartowski, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and author of the book, "Remaking the Godly Marriage: Gender Negotiation in Evangelical Families."
That world view, he says, "divorces" love from emotion, because "feelings are fleeting and not to be trusted."
"Love is something that is cultivated in the trenches of living a day-to-day relationship," says Bartowski. "That is not a Hallmark moment."
I guess the only euphoria allowed is the ecstasy you feel for Jesus.
Not that I feel sorry for Mark Sanford. He's clearly in the throes of a whopper of a mid-life crisis and it's very difficult to watch someone you know go through one, much less on the national stage. But I do think I can understand how someone like him gets to this point. Repression will do that to you.
I have no idea what's gone on in that marriage and even if I did, I'm sure I couldn't fully understand it. Human relationships are always mysterious to some degree, even to the people involved in them. But some marriages aren't worth saving and from a distance this one sure looks like one of them to me. And it looks as though Sanford is doing everything his rebellious, guilt ridden subconscious is telling him to do to make it impossible to repair. After reading that article ( which I'm sure is simplistic and theologically shallow and yadda, yadda,yadda) I have to say that a little part of me would be gratified if Sanford ends up leaving the whole thing behind and becomes a bartender in Belize or something.
The pleasure nazis are always telling people that nothing but religion and war are allowed to make you feel good. And I just don't think that human beings are wired to love Jesus and get off on violence alone. I know if it were me, something very fundamental inside me would strike out against all these people telling me that the idea of love and emotional fulfillment in marriage is irrelevant.
The funny thing is that I suppose my position puts me sort of in league with Ross Douthat, the Conservative Catholic Boy Wonder of the NY Times who was just the other day extolling the virtues of the grand passion. But he was saying, naturally, that it's liberal elites who are a bunch of dried up prigs who have no notion of romance and conservative Real Americans who know how to feel. And perhaps that's right if what you define as great romance is an 8 1/2 year ilicit affair for which you feel so much giddy excitement and guilt that you end up staging a highly public crash and burn and then submitting yourself to the flaggelation of your tribe. That's not romance in my book, that's gothic soap opera. But I guess if you're Mark Sanford, you take what you can get.
On the other hand, any man over 40 who publicly says stuff like this probably doesn't deserve any sympathy, because of the turgid dialog alone:
"A whole lot more than a simple affair," he said. "It's a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."
As you all know, Blue America has been collecting money to run some ads in Arkansas to ask Blanche Lincoln to support a Public Plan. We shot three spots but couldn't decide which one to go with, so we've decided to ask you to make the decision for us, by coughing up yet another buck or two for the ad of your choice.
I haven't the time right now to weigh in in detail on the Todd Purdham article about Sarah Palin in Vanity Fair, although it is a fascinating, if frustrating, piece. But I will say that I think Ed Kilgore gets to the real question that wasn't asked and he answers it correctly:
Purdham never gets around to examining in any detail why the Conservative Base loves her so. That's a strange omission, particularly since the whole piece begins with Palin's speech earlier this year at an Indiana Right-to-Life event--significantly, her first public appearance outside Alaska in 2009.
In all the hype and buzz about Palin when she first joined the ticket, and all the silly talk about her potential appeal to Hillary Clinton supporters, the ecstatic reaction to her choice on the Cultural Right didn't get much attention. She wasn't an "unknown" or a "fresh face" to those folks. They knew her not only as a truly hard-line anti-abortionist, but as a politician who had uniquely "walked the walk" by carrying a pregnancy to term despite knowing the child would have a severe disability. And all the personality traits she later exhibited--the folksiness, the abrasive partisanship, the hostility towards the "media" and "elites," the resentment of the establishment Republicans who tried to "manage" her, and the constant complaints of persecution--almost perfectly embodied the world-view, and the hopes and fears, of the grassroots Cultural Right. (This was particularly and understandably true of women, who have always played an outsized role in grassroots conservative activism.) Sarah Palin was the projection of these activists onto the national political scene, and exhibited the defiant pride and ill-disguised vulnerability that they would have felt in the same place.
This base of support for Palin--maybe not that large, but very passionate, and very powerful in places like the Iowa Republican Caucuses--isn't going to abandon her just because the Serious People in the GOP laugh her off in favor of blow-dried flip-flopping pols like Mitt Romney or blandly "electable" figures like Tim Pawlenty. To her supporters, mockery is like nectar. And that's why Sarah Palin isn't going to go away as a national political figure unless it is by her own choice, or that of the people of her own state.
She's got that Nixon Orthogonian thing going on. And it's more potent than ever in this environment of epic elite failure. I wouldn't assume that she, of all the Republican freakshow, won't be the one who survives. It's highly unlikely that she can transcend that passionate base and actually become president, thank goodness, but she could certainly be the one the party chooses. She is one of them through and through.
Unlike in 1994, when The New Republic allowed an abominable article by Betsy McCaughey to codify the Villager mindset on health care, this year they have one of the brightest wonks in the business, Jon Cohn, driving their coverage. And this article about the pitfalls of a "just pass any bill" strategy is required reading.
Notwithstanding the predictable fits-and-starts of the legislative process, it seems likely that Obama will have a bill to sign by year's end, thereby accomplishing what the Clintons famously could not. But then what? Having crafted a bill that can pass Congress, will Obama be signing a bill that people actually like? It's a question best answered by examining another episode of the past--one that, although a mere footnote in political history, is fraught with warnings for today's reformers.
The episode is the fight over the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, which President Reagan signed in 1988. Its purpose was to plug some of the emerging gaps in the Medicare program: If you stayed in the hospital too long, Medicare just stopped paying the bills. The Act extended hospital coverage indefinitely, capped out-of-pocket spending for beneficiaries, and offered partial coverage of prescription drugs, among other things.
Or at least that's what the law was supposed to do. After the bill passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support, a backlash developed, memorably culminating in a "riot" of angry seniors who chased a beleaguered Dan Rostenkowski--then chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee--into his car after a Chicago meeting. Less than two years after passage, before the bill's implementation, Congress voted to repeal the act, again with sweeping margins.
Basically, the program only provided a catastrophic care benefit to a small amount of seniors who faced extended hospital stays, and because of a desire to keep the bill revenue-neutral, all seniors paid for the program in premiums and surcharges. Those charges were modest, but people got the perception that they were paying more for nothing. As Cohn explains, the parallels are eerie.
Fast forward two decades, take a closer look at what's happening on Capitol Hill, and you may notice some familiar storylines. In order to make sure reform can pay for itself, lawmakers are talking about slowing down implementation, so that the program is not fully on line until 2014. They're also talking about offering fewer subsidies to help people obtain insurance. In a nod to centrists who don't like the idea of too much government, there's a strong push to gut or even eliminate proposals for the public insurance plan, which was supposed to provide security for individuals and competition for private insurers [...]
Put aside, for a moment, the policy merits of these moves. The politics are lousy. Obama would be in danger of producing legislation that seems to offer little up-front benefit, particularly for the electorally vital middle class. And if some of these people end up paying even modestly higher taxes to help finance reform they're not likely to be happy about it. It's hard to imagine such legislation provoking a backlash that could produce total repeal. It's not so hard to imagine such legislation creating bad political feelings, the kind that linger around until the next Election Day and pave the way for legislative retrenchment later on.
Let's bring back the policy merits: they too are lousy. Smaller subsidies along with an individual mandate will strain individual budgets, and a lack of a check on the insurance companies with no public option and a weak national insurance exchange will allow that strain to worsen with ever-expanding premiums. Slowing implementation just keeps in place a broken system causing 18,000 Americans to die every year.
Whatever mash of policies that come out of Washington, in health care - unlike some other legislation - practically the entire population will be intimately familiar with the consequences. It would be nearly impossible to distort the benefits or demonize the negative effects. It will be what it will be. And so designing a policy based on bipartisanship rather than effectiveness is a complete folly. Democrats and the White House have basically put forward this health care reform as a signature accomplishment. If they design something where the benefits aren't readily apparent, and people's premiums remain high, the public will get the message.
If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi muscle health reform through Congress, if President Barack Obama signs a bill in the Rose Garden and hands the pen to an ailing Sen. Ted Kennedy, if health reform, in other words, passes with fanfare and attention, Democrats own it. This will not be a quiet accomplishment. They will have told the American people that on this historic day, under this historic administration, they have begun to bend the curve and and tame the insurers and guarantee coverage and generally fix this huge problem that so many before have promised action on but so few have succeeded in tackling.
And if, 10 years down the road, the plight of the middle class has worsened and cost growth hasn't slowed and the only real difference is that more tax dollars go towards low-income subsidies, Democrats will be blamed for that. Their arguments will have less credibility. Republicans will run ads about "the last time a Democrat told you he could reform American health care." [...] If Democrats pass a bill that gets the policy wrong, they run a real risk of losing trust on what's arguably their core issue. This is high-stakes stuff.
It's not that I disagree with Digby at all - now is a rare chance to enact universal health care, and we should not shy away from it because it doesn't meet every single proper contour. But there are undeniable consequences to a bad policy. And, I would add, needless consequences. For once, the most popular policies line up with what will likely be the most cost-effective ones that provide the greatest tangible benefits. I suspect that the CBO will score a public option that uses Medicare rates, like the one in the House, in such a way that proves it would save both the federal budget and ordinary Americans hundreds of billions of dollars. Heck, the studies have already been done. The same with adding subsidies, which would attract more people into compliance with the system and lower the hidden cost of treating the uninsured.
Considering the fact that Democrats need only 50 votes to enact this reform, a fact that even the White House acknowledges, and considering the statistical fact of 60 Democratic Senators, there is absolutely no reason to build the policy around bipartisan support in Washington, but bipartisan support in the COUNTRY. Not only will there be massive goodwill for enacting decent health care reform, but a massive political backlash if that reform is wanting or if conservative Democrats, who are the only ones that can stop the policy at this point, shut it down. Bernie Sanders has this absolutely right.
Look, the Democrats said give us 60 votes so we can come up with something. They gave it to us! I'm not a Democrat, I'm an Independent, but I caucus with the Democrats. They gave us 60 votes. So how many do we need? Seventy? Eighty? I understand that there are some Democrats, without ascribing motives, who are not comfortable voting for a strong public plan period. But I think it is not asking too much that they vote against the Republican filibuster [...]
Look, I like Chuck Grassley. But people in the country are not sitting around saying, "We need a good bipartisan bill! That's what we need!'" They're saying we need good, universal coverage for every American, man, woman, and child. And it needs to be affordable. If Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe and these other nice people I know decide to vote against it, that's fine. People in America aren't sitting up nights worrying how they'll vote. The goal should not be bipartisanship. It's passing something that is strong and good.
There is good reason for short-term political optics to pass whatever can be passed. But limiting the possible, and sacrificing the long-term benefits of the policy, makes no sense. The Democratic leadership seems to have forgotten how to pressure its caucus, or at least the moderate members. They can withhold re-election funding. They can change committee assignments. They can deny legislation written by particular Senators to come to the floor. They can impose all sorts of hardships, and the threats can be wildly larger than the exchange - just vote against a Republican filibuster. Then you can vote against the bill if you like.
Capitulating to that moderate axis will mean a poor bill that will lose the support of the public. When life and death is at stake, we cannot afford an outcome, nor do we need to.
Update:
from digby...
I hope that nobody thinks I disagree with this on the basis of the post dday links above or this one about the Jon Cohn article he references. Of course we should pass the best possible bill we can pass and we should pressure the Democrats in whatever way we can to do so. I just draw the line at saying that if can't have single payer there's no point in passing a bill at all. It's not just optics. It's getting universal health care on the books after 65 years of trying. If they can get that with a public option and a legitimate financing framework, we would, in my view, be foolish to say it isn't good enough and wait for another 20 years for the next bite of the apple.
And for those who say the public option is bullshit and nobody really knows what it is, read this by Jacob Hacker, one of the people who conceived of the idea in the first place. He isn't an insurance company hack, he's a progressive professor at Berkeley.
Remember how the Justice Department was supposed to declassify the 2004 CIA inspector general’s report on the “enhanced interrogation program” today? Not going to happen. There’s continued legal wrangling over how much to declassify. The latest I’ve heard is that the declassification could happen tomorrow — happy Fourth of July! — or perhaps next week.
1945 Harry Truman sends a message to Congress asking for legislation establishing a national health insurance plan.
Two decades of debate ensue, with opponents warning of the dangers of "socialized medicine."
By the end of Truman's administration, he had backed off from a plan for universal coverage, but administrators in the Social Security system and others had begun to focus on the idea of a program aimed at insuring Social Security beneficiaries.
July 30, 1965 Medicare and its companion program Medicaid, (which insures indigent recipients), are signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson as part of his "Great Society."
Ex-president Truman is the first to enroll in Medicare.
Medicare Part B premium is $3 per month.
1972 Disabled persons under age 65 and those with end-stage renal disease become eligible for coverage.
Services expand to include some chiropractic services, speech therapy and physical therapy.
Payments to HMOs are authorized.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is established for the elderly and disabled poor. SSI recipients are automatically eligible for Medicaid.
1982 Hospice benefits are added on a temporary basis.
1983 Change from "reasonable cost" to prospective payment system based on diagnosis-related groups for hospital inpatient services begins.
Most federal civilian employees become covered.
1984 Remaining federal employees, including President, members of Congress and federal judiciary become covered.
1986 Hospice benefits become permanent.
1988 Major overhaul of Medicare benefits is enacted aimed at providing coverage for catastrophic illness and prescription drugs.
Coverage is added for routine mammography.
1989 Catastrophic coverage and prescription drug coverage are repealed.
Coverage is added for pap smears.
1992 Physician services payments are based on fee schedule.
1997 Medicare+Choice is enacted under the Balanced Budget Act. Some provisions prove to be so financially restrictive when regulations are unveiled that Congress is forced to revisit the issue in 1999.
1999 Congress "refines" Medicare+Choice and relaxes some Medicare funding restrictions under the Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999.
2000 Medicare+Choice Final Rule takes effect.
Prospective payment systems for outpatient services and home health agencies take effect.
Medicare Part B premium is $45.40 per month.
This primer leaves out something very important, however: what happened between Truman's defeat of universal health care and the enactment of Medicare. There were several interim bills introduced to cover the elderly indigent, one of which was signed into law by Eisenhower. (Here's a fascinating debate on the subject captured at Newstalgia.)
At the prospect of taking the next step of covering all the elderly and putting a "foot in the door" of socialized medicine, the AMA and the conservatives went into overdrive to stop it, helped by none other than Ronnie Reagan himself:
Operation Coffeecup was kept deliberately low-key and internal to the AMA, its Woman’s Auxiliary, and the trusted friends and neighbors of the Auxiliary women. Reagan’s efforts against Medicare were revealed, however, in a scoop by Drew Pearson in his Washington Merry-Go-Round column of June 17th. Pearson titled his item on Reagan, “Star vs. JFK,” and he told his readers:
Ronald Reagan of Hollywood has pitted his mellifluous voice against President Kennedy in the battle for medical aid for the elderly. As a result it looks as if the old folks would lose out. He has caused such a deluge of mail to swamp Congress that Congressmen want to postpone action on the medical bill until 1962. What they don’t know, of course, is that Ron Reagan is behind the mail; also that the American Medical Association is paying for it.
Reagan is the handsome TV star for General Electric . . . Just how this background qualifies him as an expert on medical care for the elderly remains a mystery. Nevertheless, thanks to a deal with the AMA, and the acquiescence of General Electric, Ronald may be able to outinfluence the President of the United States with Congress.
Reagan’s recorded remarks are quite extensive, and reveal a determined and in-depth attack on the principles of Medicare (and Social Security), going well beyond opposition to King-Anderson or any other particular piece of legislation.
Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people would adopt every fragment of the socialist program. . . .
But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this threat is with us and at the moment is more imminent. One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. . . . Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We have an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.25
And what was this frightful threat that Reagan perceived as “imminent”?
. . . Congressman Forand introduced the Forand Bill. This was the idea that all people of Social Security age should be brought under a program of compulsory health insurance. Now, this would not only be our senior citizens, this would be the dependents and those who are disabled, this would be young people if they are dependents of someone eligible for Social Security. . . .
First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can't live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it's only a short step to dictating where he will go. . . . All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man's working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it's a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won't decide, when he's in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.
Four years later, Lyndon Johnson had a strong mandate and a huge majority and he enacted more progressive legislation than anyone but Roosevelt. But he settled for enacting Medicare, the program Reagan excoriated in that Operation Coffee Cup recording, rather than pushing for universal coverage as Harry Truman had done and potentially losing. Did he do the right thing?
It's a good question in the abstract. And as a matter of strategy, it might well have been better to wait until they got enough support for universal health care. But for the elderly, poor and disabled people who needed health care at that time, it was undoubtedly the right thing to do. Had they simply allowed the earlier, inadequate indigent legislation to stand, which after five years still wasn't enacted in all the states, many fewer people would have been covered. And considering where we now know the country was politically headed, we might not have gotten Medicare at all.
Reagan concluded his album with a pitch to the listeners to call their congressmen and said this:
And if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free.
Ah yes, America is so "exceptional" and free that it takes us decades to do common sense things that other countries do all at once. And even then it's two steps forward one step back a good part of the time.
Our political system is terrible, and we should change it. And we should work for candidates who are committed to the specific policies we care about and give them an explicit mandate to enact them. The celebrity politics to which we are so addicted is partly responsible for the fact that it takes decades to enact any change -- we treat politics like "American Idol" or the Super Bowl and don't bother to pressure our leaders to take firm stands on issues we care about when we have the opportunity. Changing that is fundamental to creating better policies.
But right now there is a real chance for the first time in 65 years to enact universal health care, however imperfect the specifics of it may be. I'm sure whatever they pass will be inadequate, just as medicare and social security were inadequate when they were originally passed. It seems to be the American way. But if our political and business elites have finally come to the consensus that America should join the first world and create a system that guarantees coverage to everyone, then I think we have to take the leap while we can. History shows that these chances don't come along every day. In fact, they come along about every couple of decades and we very rarely can even take an incremental step. We need to get universal health care on the books.
Lost in the shuffle of the caterwauling about Sonia Sotomayor and the Ricci decision, aside from the fact that it reflects conservative judicial activism and the making of completely new law, is that it's not even clear law. That must be what you get when you adjudicate by empathy toward white firefighters.
In ruling for a group of white firefighters in New Haven on Monday, the Supreme Court tried to address a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t quandary for many cities and other employers: what they should do when an employment test yields results that overwhelmingly favor whites.
But many legal experts said that instead of setting forth clear new rules, the court’s decision left things as muddled as ever for the nation’s employers — and seemed to ensure much more litigation over the explosive issue of employment discrimination.
“We don’t see clear, bright-line guidance here,” said Lars Etzkorn, a program director with the National League of Cities. “This is going to be good for employment lawyers.”
The Court invented a new standard in applying these tests which will make it more difficult for anyone using such tests for promotions or to address workplace discrimination, from businesses to government employers. The talk the language of "strict originalism" and just being umpires calling balls and strikes, but in reality, they use the means at their disposal to make the decisions that fit a right-wing ideology. John Roberts, with help from Anthony Kennedy, has radically shifted the Court.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. emerged as a canny strategist at the Supreme Court this term, laying the groundwork for bold changes that could take the court to the right even as the recent elections moved the nation to the left.
The court took mainly incremental steps in major cases concerning voting rights, employment discrimination, criminal procedure and campaign finance. But the chief justice’s fingerprints were on all of them, and he left clues that the court is only one decision away from fundamental change in many areas of the law.
Whether he will succeed depends on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court’s swing vote. And there is reason to think that the chief justice has found a reliable ally when it counts.
“In the important cases, Kennedy ends up on the right,” said Thomas C. Goldstein, a student of the court and the founder of Scotusblog, which has compiled comprehensive statistics on the current term. The two justices agreed 86 percent of the time.
If the Roberts gang has their way, by September of this year the Court will, in all likelihood, overturn a good bit of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, especially as it relates to corporate spending, opening up a loophole that could "allow unlimited spending from corporate treasuries for television advertisements and other communications to support or oppose candidates." And Justice Sotomayor, replacing Souter, will have little impact on that.
George W. Bush's legacy will live on for many, many years.
I've written a few posts about this aspect of the health care crisis and it's a serious problem for a lot of people in the individual insurance market. This story in the NY Times lays out the problem in all its ugliness: people are basically buying worthless insurance and paying high premiums for it:
Health insurance is supposed to offer protection — both medically and financially. But as it turns out, an estimated three-quarters of people who are pushed into personal bankruptcy by medical problems actually had insurance when they got sick or were injured.
And so, even as Washington tries to cover the tens of millions of Americans without medical insurance, many health policy experts say simply giving everyone an insurance card will not be enough to fix what is wrong with the system.
Too many other people already have coverage so meager that a medical crisis means financial calamity.
[...]
“Underinsurance is the great hidden risk of the American health care system,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who has analyzed medical bankruptcies. “People do not realize they are one diagnosis away from financial collapse.”
Last week, a former Cigna executive warned at a Senate hearing on health insurance that lawmakers should be careful about the role they gave private insurers in any new system, saying the companies were too prone to “confuse their customers and dump the sick.”
“The number of uninsured people has increased as more have fallen victim to deceptive marketing practices and bought what essentially is fake insurance,” Wendell Potter, the former Cigna executive, testified.
Mr. Yurdin learned the hard way.
At St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, where he went for two separate heart procedures last year, the hospital’s admitting office looked at Mr. Yurdin’s coverage and talked to Aetna. St. David’s estimated that his share of the payments would be only a few thousand dollars per procedure.
He and the hospital say they were surprised to eventually learn that the $150,000 hospital coverage in the Aetna policy was mainly for room and board. Coverage was capped at $10,000 for “other hospital services,” which turned out to include nearly all routine hospital care — the expenses incurred in the operating room, for example, and the cost of any medication he received.
In other words, Aetna would have paid for Mr. Yurdin to stay in the hospital for more than five months — as long as he did not need an operation or any lab tests or drugs while he was there.
They market these policies as catastrophic care policies: at least you'll be taken care of if you have a heart attack or get run over by a bus. You give up things like Doctor's office visits visits and prescription drug coverage and you pay huge deductibles just so you'll be covered if the very worst happens. And this is what they end up with.
There is no reason why the congress can't fix this one. They should mandate a decent level of coverage for catastrophic care -- you know, the very thing this fellow thought he was buying. Just making a disclaimer on the pretty brochure isn't enough. The insurance companies can't be allowed to sell policies that don't cover necessary medical expenses. That's just theft.
And this fellow should have been able to buy into a better plan than the crap he was offered. A plan like Medicare maybe. He's 64. Is there really any reason why someone like him shouldn't be able to buy directly into Medicare for a fee? I recall that the idea of allowing those over 55 to buy in was on the table at one point and it sounded like a good idea to me. Americans all tell the pollsters they want a lot of health care options. What's wrong with that one?
Today the ACLU and many bloggers who are concerned with the fact that the United States tortured prisoners and apparently has no intention of holding anyone responsible for it are blogging about a little known fact about the issue: the US Government didn't just torture a bunch a prisoners, as bad as that was, and as horrible as it remains for those who survived it. The United States tortured many prisoners to death. This does not seem to be common knowledge, but the evidence is quite clear that this happened. Torture and death by torture was not isolated.
I know that in the fog of war and all that that killing becomes normal and people become uncivilized. But torturing prisoners to death is not considered legal warfare. It's a crime, even in war and even on the battlefield, and we have prosecuted people for it as a capital crime.
So often, the premise of media discussions of torture is that "torture" is something that was confined to a single tactic (waterboarding) and used only on three "high-value" detainees accused of being high-level Al Qaeda operatives. The reality is completely different.
The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder.
Once the White House capitulated on the remaining Iraq abuse photos, I pretty much knew that they would never release any kind of damning information and more or less assumed that the vaunted CIA Inspector Generals Report from 2004, which supposedly blows the lid off the torture regime, would never see the light of day in any detail. The same goes for the DOJ IG report. They'll release something, I assume, but it will not be the straight story. I expect I will be dead before the whole story is officially revealed and confirmed.
Tomorrow they are expected to release the CIA report, heavily redacted and almost certainly useless. (Marcy Wheeler will, of course, be poring over it with a fine tooth comb and you never know what she might find. But I don't think they're going to be quite a sloppy as they were the last time.) They surely hope that is the end of it. But it isn't. There are too many people involved and too much evidence to keep it covered up. By refusing to lance this boil they are allowing the poison to continue to infect everything until the whole body politic is putrid with it. It's a big mistake.
Here's hoping I'm wrong about that and they let the people see what has been done in their names. We deserve to know and the tortured dead deserve some justice. And if we want to just deal in pragmatic concerns, if anyone thinks that refusing to hold people accountable for what happened and showing the world that we can be trusted to civilized at least after the fact doesn't make us less safe, they are out of their minds. This is how countries become pariah states.
The United States went crazy after 9/11 and tortured many, many people, at least a hundred of them to death. It happened. How do we live with that?
Christy has the run down on what people are saying on the decision and I can hardly believe that this has become a meme:
Stuart Taylor attempts to advance the canard that the Court was unanimous in its decision -- no idea how 5-4 with a concurrence from Alito is "unanimous," but then, I'm not Stuart Taylor trying to do whatever it is that he does when he gets a burr in his shorts (or helping Wendy Long advance her whinery, whatever comes first). It's clearly the "new new" in right wing talking points, because Sen. Cornyn's been mouthing it, too.
I guess it depends on what the meaning of unanimous is...
Word to the wise when having a train wreck of a mid-life crisis, fellas. If you want to preserve your career, marriage, relationship with your kids or any combination thereof, don't go to the press and talk about the great connection you have with your "soul mate" lover and make it very obvious that you are in the thrall of a grand passion. Indeed, try to resist the temptation to use the media to send messages to your lover that you really do want to keep the relationship going. It's undignified. And it's likely extremely hurtful and humiliating to your family, especially your wife, in an already hurtful and humiliating situation.
These details are embarrassing and unnecessary. He needs to STFU and tell the press that he has no more comment on any of the details. This is becoming sickening to watch.
It's taken almost a decade for this recount to resolve itself, but the Minnesota Supreme Court rendered their verdict in the Franken-Coleman Senate case, and it's a sweep for Franken, as expected.
In the Matter of the Contest of the General Election held on November 4, 2008, for the purpose of electing a United States Senator from the State of Minnesota, Cullen Sheehan and Norm Coleman, contestants, Appellants vs. Al Franken, contestee, Respondent.
1. Appellants did not establish that, by requiring proof that statutory absentee voting standards were satisfied before counting a rejected absentee ballot, the trial court's decision constituted a post-election change in standards that violates substantive due process.
2. Appellants did not prove that either the trial court or local election officials violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.
3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it excluded additional evidence.
4. Inspection of ballots under Minn. Stat. § 209.06 (2008) is available only on a showing that the requesting party cannot properly be prepared for trial without an inspection. Because appellants made no such showing here, the trial court did not err in denying inspection.
5. The trial court did not err when it included in the final election tally the election day returns of a precinct in which some ballots were lost before the manual recount.
And here's the money quote:
For all of the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. Stat. § 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota.
Tim Pawlenty has said all along that he would certify the winner of the election if the Minnesota Supreme Court told him to do so. They have now told him. But all along he gave himself an out, that he would certify it as long as another court didn't tell him to stop pending another appeal. Coleman could proceed to the federal courts at this point, and national Republicans have been happy to bankroll him on that fruitless quest and keep Al Franken out of the Senate as long as possible. It's a good investment for them. Also, Senate Republicans could actually filibuster Franken's entry into the Senate, even with a signed certificate.
I'm skeptical that this will conclude so smoothly from here.
...Here's the head of a pin on which Pawlenty could dance:
The bottom line is that the Court says that Franken is entitled to an election certificate, but there is no direct order to the state's governor to sign one. We'll see what the governor does, if Coleman does not concede, as he well may at this point. If not, the opinion is not final until the period for rehearing ends (see the final footnote of the opinion). That's a ten day period, enough time to file an emergency stay application in the U.S. Supreme Court. It would go to Justice Alito, now circuit justice for the Eighth Circuit.
UPDATE: Wow, I didn't see that coming. Norm Coleman just said he would abide by the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling and congratulated Al Franken as the newest Senator from Minnesota. I guess seven months of obstruction was long enough. What a stand-up guy!
During the run up to the Iraq war, people used to ask me why Tony Blair would lend his more liberal cred to the misbegotten adventure and join himself at the hip with Bush on such an obvious blunder. I would simply say" "BP."
Other companies, including firms from resource-hungry China and India that are eager to get a share of the world's third largest oil reserves, balked at the fees and Iraq failed to strike deals on most of the eight oil and gas fields on offer.
The controversial auction of Iraq's prized assets took place on the same day that the U.S. troops who toppled Saddam Hussein quit Iraq's cities and left security chiefly to the country's own forces. The sale aims to raise funds for reconstruction as Iraq also takes greater charge of its economy.
"Today we have seen that the Iraqi Oil Ministry and international oil companies are living on different planets," oil analyst Ruba Husari said.
The results of the auction were not a disappointment, said Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad.
"The participation of these well-known, major companies is a good sign and it reflects the desire of these firms to invest in the Iraqi oil sector," Jihad said.
A BP-led consortium including the Chinese National Petroleum Corp NPC, was the only foreign firm to strike a deal -- for the 17-billion barrel Rumaila oilfield, Iraq's biggest, in the Shi'ite south.
Does any of this strike you as remotely plausible? I didn't think so.
This was why the war was fought and the people who run the world didn't leave any of this to chance or to some functionaries in the Iraqi government. What is happening is what was always planned to happen.
Iraq has disappeared from the headlines lately, but yesterday, the United States fulfilled its first obligation in the status of forces agreement by pulling its troops out of major cities, and one day ahead of schedule, to boot.
U.S. troops pulled out of Baghdad on Monday, triggering jubilation among Iraqis hopeful that foreign military occupation is ending six years after the invasion to depose Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi soldiers paraded through the streets in their American-made vehicles draped with Iraqi flags and flowers, chanting, dancing and calling the pullout a "victory".
One drove a motorcycle with party streamers on it; another, a Humvee with a garland of plastic roses on the grill [...]
"The American forces' withdrawal is something awaited by every Iraqi: male, female, young and old. I consider June 30 to be like a wedding," said Ahmed Hameed, 38, near an ice cream bar in Baghdad's upmarket Karrada district.
"This is proof Iraqis are capable of controlling security inside Iraq," added the recent returnee from exile in Egypt.
The government has declared June 30 a national holiday, "National Sovereignty Day".
Iraq still faces extreme challenges, exemplified by the spate of bombings and attacks last week leading up to this pullout, which killed at least 200. And the opening of oil fields to international corporations could signal a decline for the Iraqi people and an increase in, basically, kleptocracy. But the presence or absence of US forces means little to these challenges. The Iraqis clearly yearn to return to self-determination, and an American pullback from the military can force the disparate factions to come to a political accommodation. Marc Lynch has a smart take:
It's true that there has been an increase in the number of high-profile, high-casualty attacks over the last few weeks. The thing about spoilers is that they try to spoil. The key questions are whether the attacks trigger sectarian mobilization and security dilemma dynamics, seriously undermine confidence in the state and its ability to provide security, or drive momentum towards wider conflict. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence of mounting popular anxiety, but very little evidence of those kinds of conflict dynamics kicking in. For what it's worth, both Iraqi and American officials seem confident -- and remember when the judgment of the commanders on the ground was supposed to be considered sacred writ?
I'm not particularly an optimist on these matters, any more than I was in the past -- but I also see a rapidly declining ability or need for the U.S. to manage these issues. I think that there are still very serious issues surrounding the integration of Sunnis into the emerging Iraqi state and political system -- not just the endlessly dragging integration of the Sons of Iraq into the security forces and civil administration, but the selective targeting of key Awakenings leaders and other ongoing complaints. I also think that some amount of the recent uptick in violence is driven by the disenchantment of some of these Awakenings men, either actively or passively. But it seems clear that Maliki has decided that he can get away with selective repression and co-optation of the various Sunni forces, and will only change his approach if he determines that the price is too high. Maybe he's wrong, maybe he's right -- but that's for Iraqis to determine, not Americans.
Iraqi politics are going to continue to face all kinds of problems, as every analyst under the moon has pointed out. The Arab-Kurd issue, the continuing problems with government capacity, budget problems, and a host of unresolved issues remain. I think that the refugee/IDP issue remains the largest unresolved and virtually untouched issue facing Iraq -- those millions of people uprooted from their homes by force or fear who have few prospects of returning to their original homes, are largely disenfranchised in the emerging Iraqi political system, and who are almost completely unserved by Iraqi state institutions. But slowing down the American drawdown would not materially improve any of these issues. The best thing the U.S. can do is to continue to demonstrate its clear, credible commitment to withdraw on the agreed-upon timeline, and do what it can to help Iraqis adjust to the new realities.
Clearly, just this symbolic gesture of pulling out from the cities has produced near-universal glee among Iraqis, and hopefully that can foster a national sense of identity which can lead to all sides working together on the future of their nation. It would certainly not happen while they remained under the thumb of occupation. Just by adhering to the agreement, Obama and the US military probably garnered some goodwill in the region. But they have to keep going. If there's one thing America cannot seem to do, it's getting out of war zones (See: Germany). Leaving Iraq must mean leaving Iraq, on schedule and without exception.
...Clever move by Fourthbranch Cheney, complaining about Obama following through on the pullout of Iraqi cities that was negotiated and signed by Bush-Cheney. This is simple blame-shifting, so Cheney can point his finger at someone else if anything goes wrong. Pathetic.
Bob Herbert wrote about a boy the US has imprisoned for years and is now insisting must be held indefinitely because he confessed. Under torture naturally:
On Dec. 25, 2003, Jawad tried to kill himself by repeatedly banging his head against a wall of his cell.
There is no credible evidence against Jawad, and his torture-induced confession has rightly been ruled inadmissible by a military judge. But the Obama administration does not feel that he has suffered enough. Not only have administration lawyers opposed defense efforts to secure Jawad’s freedom, but they are using, as the primary basis for their opposition, the fruits of the confession that was obtained through torture and has already been deemed inadmissible — without merit, of no value.
Even the hardbitten prosecutor assigned to his case couldn't take it and he's now working to free this kid.
It's not like there is consensus on these cases. There are many, many people besides the ACLU and the horrible hippie bloggers who are appalled at what's going on --- many of them are in the military and have been directly exposed to this torture regime. The administration choosing to perpetuate these horrors under these circumstances is all the more profoundly disturbing.
And by the way, the trial balloon over the week-end about Obama issuing an executive order on preventive detention looks more and more to me like some kind of crude head fake. I guess we silly civil libertarians are supposed to be all impressed and relieved when the administration actually does this:
[T]he Brookings Institution released a paper by Ben Wittes and Colleen A. Peppard giving the possible outlines of a preventive detention statute. Although I didn't post about it, I initially assumed that the administration's move would be along the lines of what Wittes is proposing.
That isn't the case. I interviewed Wittes at length this weekend for a feature I'm doing for the print edition, and I had a chance to look over the whole proposal. Wittes told me personally that he thought Obama re-asserting--as Bush did--the inherent authority to detain terrorists suspects indefinitely would be "a disaster."
The Wittes proposal is not likely to make any civil libertarians happy. But unlike the administration's move--if the Post story is accurate--it does propose some meaningful constraints on the indefinite detention power, which up till now we've seen being used arbitrarily except where the courts intervene. The Wittes proposal would set up a FISA-like system, where terrorist suspects could be detained for 14 days without court oversight, but their cases would be subject to judicial review every six months afterward to determine if the suspect should remain detained, according to a "three pronged test." The individual would have to be: "(1) an agent of a foreign power, if (2) that power is one against which Congress has authorized the use of force, and if (3) the actions of the covered individual in his capacity as an agent of the foreign power pose a danger both to any person and to the interests of the United States." The president would also have to submit a list of groups to Congress every few months that it wants covered by the AUMF, and whose members can be subject to preventive detention. The evidence threshold for detaining someone would be lower than that used in criminal trials. There's more to the proposal, but I won't try to explain it all in one blog post.
I think we are all supposed to think this is a pragmatic compromise, especially after the "close call" where Obama was just going to reassert the Bush policy. See, it's not that bad. Relax.
And the sad thing is that in a few years people like us will be fighting like hell to preserve this latest national security state impingement on the constitution when another president says it isn't enough to keep the babies safe, just as we did with that legislative abortion called FISA.
Health wonk Jonathan Cohn warns that the focus on the public plan, while useful, is not the only issue:
I happen to be a strong public plan supporter myself, for reasons this magazine laid out in a staff editorial several weeks ago: It will guarantee the possibility of affordable, reliable coverage to everybody; it will promote cost control, by leading the way on reforms of how we pay for medical care; and it will promote a healthy competition with private insurers, keeping them in line and--hopefully--prodding them to perform better. (For a more detailed explanation, please read the actual editorial.)
I also think the public plan’s centrality has produced some obvious political benefits. The antipathy towards--and distrust of--the insurance industry has led many activists to shun past reform efforts that relied heavily on private coverage. And that’s been a major reason why those past efforts failed, since those same activists tend to be reform’s most passionate supporters--the ones who will make phone calls, go door-to-door, and show up at rallies like the one that made headlines last week. The public plan option has given these people reason not only to support this year’s reform push, but to support it enthusiastically.
And yet I confess to a certain ambivalence when I hear, as I frequently do, statements like the one Dean made at the rally. Yes, the public plan is a key element of reform. But it is not the only one.
Just consider what was going on inside Capitol Hill meeting rooms as Dean was speaking. Over the past week, leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have been busy hacking away at their proposed legislation, in order to bring the total price tag in at under $1 trillion over ten years. To accomplish this, the committee leaders have proposed cutting the subsidies that reform will make available to people who have trouble paying for insurance on their own.
If those cuts end up in the final legislation, fewer people would get assistance and, quite possibly, those that still got assistance wouldn’t get as much. The result would be more uninsured and more underinsured.
And that's not the only major issue in play.
Read on for others. They are significant.
Here's the thing. When it comes to legislative sausage making, there's little we as grassroots activists can do about the actual ingredients. We can call out congresspeople and we can sign petitions and we can run some ads and write letters to the editor. All of that is useful. But when it comes to the minutia of the bill, it's highly unlikely that we can have a direct effect.
What we can do is rally around a specific concept like the public plan (or in a political world with better organization and foresight, single payer) and push with all of our might to get that one thing done. The beauty of doing that around the public plan is the rhetorical simplicity of it. And it actually uses the word public as if that's something good.
Clinton's health care plan was derailed largely because it was perceived as being cumbersome and complicated. They had to explain things like "managed competition" and "global budgets" and "premium caps." Those things don't exactly read well on a bumper sticker and the right was able to persuade people that the whole thing was a big mess that wasn't going to work.
Times have changed. People have learned a lot about health insurance in the past 16 years -- more than they ever wanted to know --- and they have come to realize that the system is already complicated and that it's not working for them a good part of the time. But using the public plan as a rallying cry keeps the pressure on the congress to at least see this through.
I recognize that there are people of good faith out there who believe that the public plan is a sham and that progressives are selling out their beliefs by backing it instead of insisting on single payer or nothing. I would just say that if there were any other path to getting reform in the next eight years, I'd agree. But I don't see that there is. The politicians are already making the sausage. We don't know yet what they are going to put together and for the sake of all those millions of people who have no insurance or are about to lose theirs, it seems to me that we at least try to get something passed. I wish it could be more perfect, but I have absolutely no idea how to make it better at this point. Standing in the way without a serious strategic alternative that could actually result in real reform seems short sighted to me.
The sausage may end up tasting like shit or it might not be too bad, but people need some relief and I'm not willing to say on the basis of what I know now that what they are going to get will make them sicker than they already are. And you never know, it might just make them a little bit better.
And remember, it was only a few years ago that George W. Bush was going around saying "they [liberals] think social security's some kind of government program!" So, if nothing else, getting the idea of "public" back into the political lexicon as a positive concept is worth something.
I know I'm sounding very anti-intellectual today, but maybe that's because I keep hearing things that from smart people that make no sense. Evidently, there is actually some question among certain people as to whether or not the ousting of the president of Honduras by the Honduran military can be considered a coup. You see, they did it on behalf of the legislature, supposedly, so that makes it completely different.
I don't know about you but if it walks like a junta and talks like a junta...
Anyway, in their quest to turn this into a blow for freedom and democracy, some people on the right have found some interesting new ways to describe it.
Whose description is the most tortured, Orwellian, or otherwise insane?
Candidate 1: Interim dictator Roberto Micheletti describes how he found himself in this new role: "I did not reach this position because of a coup. I am here because of an absolutely legal transition process."
Candidate 2: The WSJ's Mary Anastacia O'Grady describes the military overthrow as all part of a country's democratic system of "checks and balances."
Candidate 3: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air invents an awesome new concept. This was "less of a coup and more of a military impeachment."
Candidate 4: At the Corner, Ray Walser praised the way "Congress, the courts, and the military joined forces" in a "deliberate, bipartisan manner."
Candidate 5: Rick Moran at the American Thinker doesn't care if it's a coup, only who it serves: "Does the fact that the coup is in the interests of the United States even matter to our president?"
Your turn starts...now!
Go here to vote for your favorite Orwellian Euphemism.
My favorite, by far, is Cap'n Ed's "Military Impeachment." It's so deliciously, wingnutty that I can seriously imagine it catching on in certain circles. It wouldn't be the first time.
Dispirited Republicans looking for national leaders amid a wash of scandals that have dominated national news over the last fortnight got a bit of good news on Sunday with an inspired performance on "Meet the Press" by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R).
Graham, who spent the 2008 election cycle as Sen. John McCain's loyal sidekick, appeared alongside former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the GOP frontrunner in advance of 2012, and managed to stand out.
Why? Because unlike other Republicans who seem to be so fixated on scoring political points on President Obama, Graham was willing to point out where his own party had strayed while also making a reasonable argument for GOP ideals.
Asked about Gov. Mark Sanford's extramarital affair, Graham, who is close to the governor, said that he was "disappointed" in his friend's behavior and praised Obama as "one of the better role models in the entire country for the idea of being a good parent, a good father."
Of the two major legislative victories for Democrats so far this Congress -- the economic stimulus bill and the climate change measure -- Graham offered a criticism that acknowledged the mistakes his own party had made while subtly hanging the politics as usual label on Obama and Democrats.
"The stimulus package was Karl Rove politics; pick a few Republicans off, call it bipartisan," said Graham. "The climate change bill was Tom DeLay banging heads and twisting arms to get one vote more than you needed. So there's really been no change in Washington."
Even on the most divisive of issues -- the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton -- Graham managed to deflect the partisan bows and arrows slung at him, pointing out that he was the only Republican to vote against the article involving Clinton lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and adding "part of life, is failing."
This is pretty unbelievable. Somehow, calling Obama a dissembler and a thug is tempered by saying that he appears to not be sleeping around. And it's notable for Graham to point out that he voted against one article of impeachment, despite being a HOUSE MANAGER for the impeachment trial and perhaps as visible as any politician in that entire episode. Graham has been questioning the patriotism and the judgment of any Democrat in his path for well over a decade. And using the words "Karl Rove politics" or "Tom DeLay politics" hardly changes the fact that Graham's record was more conservative than DeLay when he was in the House. Graham's words about "bipartisanship" are nonsense and never match his actions.
Here's the laughable wrap-up:
Does one solid performance on a Sunday show mean that Graham is the new "it" guy for the GOP? No. But the notoriously private Graham seemed to signal on Sunday that he is ready to take more of a leadership role.
I think Graham shows up on teevee more on Sunday morning than the CBS Eye and the NBC peacock combined. "Notoriously private?" The man showed up in the background of so many John McCain rallies last year you'd think he was either McCain's running mate or his personal nurse. He's not exactly some sparkling, new figure on the political scene. But sometimes, he makes soft cooing sounds before voting in a hard-right fashion, and so the traditional media swoons.
Oh, and by the way, there's a pretty good reason that Graham has never sought higher office.
Chris Hayes reports on a new progressive organization to lobby for financial system reform. It is something that is badly needed, obviously, although the picture he paints doesn't leave me feeling as optimistic as he is about it.
It's very hard to see how this can happen as long as the Masters of the Universe and the politicians are all members of the same club. But it's certainly worth trying.
Update: On the other hand, the combination of that with this effort could be significant --- if the right people are chosen for the commission:
Word is circulating in Washington that members for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission will be named this week.
The Supreme Court handed down their decision in the Ricci case, reversing with a 5-4 count the lower court opinion that the city of New Haven can refuse to apply a promotions test for firefighters because no African-Americans passed it. The city feared a discrimination lawsuit over the test, but the Court basically waved that away.
The case was previously decided by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by a three-judge panel that included Sonia Sotomayor. And so now we'll hear all about that honky-hating judge reversed again (how does this affect her "reversal rate"?) and the manly men of the Supreme Court helping out those poor white firefighters who worked so hard to pass that test. As Eric Boehlert chronicles:
Not only was the reversal a foregone conclusion, but so too, was the narrative now being played out in the press. The press and Republicans (notice how they work in tandem) have been touting this reversal for weeks, hyping it as a potentially "embarrassing" reversal, which would (supposedly) raise all kind of doubts about Sotomayor's smarts and her ability as a judge.
And trust us, this meme is already being hammered and will likely continue throughout the week: Sotomayor was reversed--she got smacked down--by the Supreme Court! It's a huge deal.
Except, of course, it is not. Judges get reversed everyday. In fact, the system of American jurisprudence is built upon the idea of judges getting reversed. It happens all the time. And yes, the Supreme Court reverses judges all the time. But only now, in the case of Sotomayor, is the press pretending that that reversal is a singular rebuke; that it's a mark of shame for Sotomayor because she got the case wrong.
In addition, Courts of Appeals, in a general sense, follow prior precedent rather than make the sweeping changes that can be made at the SCOTUS level. Far from being a slave to "empathy," Sotomayor followed the law available to her in concurring with the majority decision on her Appeals Court. In fact, as Sam Alito wrote in his concurrence today, "But 'sympathy' is not what petitioners have a right to demand. What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law . . . And that is what, until today's decision, has been denied them." The Second Court had no precedent on which to rely to offer that enforcement, and if Sotomayor reversed the District Court ruling in Ricci, she would have been relying on sympathy. Which is what her critics say she always relies on.
Nevertheless, the leader of the Republican Party says that " "The court found that she was indeed a racist", by a 9-0 margin, somehow (that's the new meme). Judge Sotomayor's position on this mirrored the Justice she is prepared to replace on the Court, but never mind.
Those on the right wing will certainly spin this as proof positive of Sotomayor's incompetence, or her hatred of white people, etc. They've been preparing the ground for this ruling as a "seminal moment" that could derail the nomination, and they will come up with whatever distortions necessary to try to ensure that. But the charge rings pretty hollow and is based on a misunderstanding of the law, which is characteristic of many conservative arguments, actually.
Both George Will and Greg Mankiw basically argue that we don’t need a government role because we can trust the market to work — hey, we do it for groceries, right?
Um, economists have known for 45 years — ever since Kenneth Arrow’s seminal paper — that the standard competitive market model just doesn’t work for health care: adverse selection and moral hazard are so central to the enterprise that nobody, nobody expects free-market principles to be enough. To act all wide-eyed and innocent about these problems at this late date is either remarkably ignorant or simply disingenuous.
I haven't read Kenneth Arrow's seminal paper, but my common sense and intuition tell me that free market principles aren't enough. Even if individual economic decisions were entirely rational, which they're obviously not, when it comes to life and death, the only rational decision is to do whatever it takes to live. That's an unusual economic decision.
I realize that Krugman's talking about the insurance market not individual incentives, but I do think that when you drill down to the essence of what the free market conservatives are saying, it's that people who don't have the money to pay for good insurance deserve to die. It's really just an outgrowth of their belief in social Darwinism and Randian exceptionalism --- good people have money, bad people are parasites -- and those who can't afford to keep up are lacking in moral fiber and work ethic. It's how they see the world --- until they too are caught in the web, at which point they blame women and minorities.
Update: Here's a good comment from Adam in the comment section. There are others as well:
My suggestion is that you read that paper, or better yet, just read Akerlof's paper. It's pretty weak tea to just announce without support that your intuition and common sense lead you to believe that the market doesn't provide optimal healthcare. Why not? What common sense principals lead you to believe that the market fails here? What intuition guides you to this conclusion?
Because I think your ignorance (please know that I mean no harm in using that word, I love this blog) does damage to your case. You argue that conservatives feel that anyone without money (to simplify too much) deserves to be without care. I think it is much worse than that.
The two principals Krugman is referring to are adverse selection (what liberals are usually concerned about) and moral hazard (what conservatives are usually concerned about). Adverse selection is, very simply, the condition where because of asymmetric information, even perfectly functioning markets will fail to provide goods efficiently--Akerlof's paper shows an example with used cars. The example with healthcare is easy to visualize. You and I know much more about our health than any insurance company can possibly know (even if we filled out questionnaires truthfully and to the best of our ability). This means that we are more willing to get health insurance (which is basically synonymous with health care in this country) when we know we are sick than when we are healthy. And we are even willing to pay high premiums when we KNOW we will require care, because the cost of care is so large. So the pool of money from premiums doesn't cover the cost of care (those folks who spend years paying into health care while just getting primary care choose to opt out for the same reason), and insurance companies raise the premiums.
But, health insurance companies don't know if a customer willing to pay high premiums is just showing their risk preferences or that they are secretly very sick. So a customer willing to pay higher premiums may just be signaling that they will require more care.
In some sense, this is why we ALREADY have massive government intervention in health care. The benefit tax exemption (originally negotiated in WWII as an agreement between companies, the gov't and unions in exchange for wage freezes and what-not) is a massive subsidy to the health care industry and incents companies to package health care with employment (so the total compensation isn't taxed). This limits consumers' abilities to opt out of health care (say, if they are male, aged 18-25 and think that they are bullet-proof), but plenty still do (deliberately, while many who want health care are forced out due to employment restrictions and the inflated cost of offering health care outside of the workforce).
Once we understand the adverse selection point, this begins to look a LOT like the market for student loans. Same information problems, similar solution (government provides some loans and subsidizes others). SAME conservative response--when Obama pushed to replace subsidies w/ public loans (A good thing), conservatives fought back with the old "gov't is bad" refrain, despite the fact that the entire private student loan industry survives on government loan guarantees.
It isn't so much that they are social darwanists. It is that they have become fixated on a stream of income but are intellectually incapable of seeing it as subsidy. Deficit spending is fiscal expansion without the immediate pain (c.f. Reagen, Bush II). Military spending is closet Keynsianism (Barney Frank had a good comment about this). Hell, agitating for war overseas w/ someone elses' sons is war without the war.
When I think about the 1980s, I am reminded of Pac-Man, The Cosby Show and Central American military coups orchestrated by School of the Americas graduates.
President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras was ousted by the army on Sunday, capping months of tensions over his efforts to lift presidential term limits.
In the first military coup in Central America since the end of the cold war, soldiers stormed the presidential palace in the capital, Tegucigalpa, early in the morning, disarming the presidential guard, waking Mr. Zelaya and putting him on a plane to Costa Rica.
Mr. Zelaya, a leftist aligned with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, angrily denounced the coup as illegal. “I am the president of Honduras,” he insisted at the airport in San José, Costa Rica, still wearing his pajamas. (nice touch -ed)
Later Sunday the Honduran Congress voted him out of office, replacing him with the president of Congress, Roberto Micheletti.
Romeo Vazquez, the head of the Honduran military, matriculated at the School of the Americas. I'm not completely up to speed on the ins and outs of Honduran politics, but you can figure out the players with that kind of scorecard. And here's another tell: the Wall Street Journal editorial page supports this overt military coup. Not just at cocktail parties, but in their own pages.
... an interesting assessment of the situation from Charles Lemos.
I don't want to get into another generational spat today, but there seems to be a building meme that the people to blame for the economic problems are the undisciplined baby boomers, which is simplistic at best and truly devastating if it catches on. This is because it plays into the hands of the fiscal scolds who want desperately to drive a wedge between the generations so they can use this crisis to finally destroy social security.
ROMANS: Let's talk a bit about how the boomers could slow down a recovery. Could that be a factor?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: I think it's going to be a very real factor. We know that households in general have lost an enormous amount of wealth in this recession. Their housing value, their stock market portfolios got hit hard and they started with a lot of debt. We would expect everyone to save more to rebuild that wealth going forward but the boomers are closer to retirement and they're a big chunk of the population so we'd expect them to save more and have a bigger influence. They say that is less spending and I expect consumer spending will be sluggish going forward.
ROMANS: The two sort of factors here, we talk about blaming the boomers for this whole thing and there is the fact they rejected the frugality of their parents and really perfected the art of spending someone else's money then there is also just the big size of the cohorts that they say demographics, just this huge size and they start to slow down to retire, when they start to take their money out to live on. That has a huge impact for the rest of the country.
HOLTZ-EAKIN: It's a huge impact for the country. It's a huge impact for the world quite frankly. The United States has been the last retail market for a decade now. China, India, Europe, Japan you name it, they counted on selling goods into the United States. As we come out of this recession the whole world has to find a different way to do business. We are going to need export more to other countries and we are going to need to have spending by businesses instead of just households.
ROMANS: Let's talk about the baby boomers' health care and Social Security needs. This is big, too. The youngest boomers start turning I think they start turning 45 this year so you're talking about 15 or 20-year period where there will be more pressure on health care and Social Security?
HOLTZ-EAKIN: We've seen this coming for a long time. It is really vivid in the federal budget, past 2011 you see the Medicare lines ramp up, you see the Social Security spending ramp up. And to be quite frankly we are not in a position to pay those bills. There needs to be serious work on Medicare and that's part of the health care reform debate this year. It's obvious that we need to fix Social Security and we probably should do it quickly.
So, what we have is the idea that the boomers were a bunch of spendthrifts who gambled all their money thus causing the recession, but now they are going into retirement and are not going to be spending as much money so they are prolonging the recession. You can't win. And the youngest boomers who are turning 45 will be spending into the fund for the next 23 years or so are chopped liver whose contributions into the system count for nothing --- as do those who paid all that extra money in over the past 25 years so the government could put it in a "lockbox" for our retirement, which they promptly spent on wars and tax cuts for rich people.
Look, it's not that some of this isn't true. They have been a hugely affluent generation and lived it up, often to excess. (A lot of us are going to pay for that in our old age in more ways than one.) Their contribution so far to the political leadership in middle age has been fraught with stale battles that long ago lost their salience, no doubt about that.
But it should be remembered that the affluence in which they grew up was heavily subsidized by the government which used to tax those who benefited but somewhere along the line decided that it would be better to borrow the money instead. The Greatest Generation wasn't frugal like their parents, who were traumatized by the depression and kept their money under the mattress. The Greatest Generation had the best public subsidies and private pensions in American history and they raised their standard of living accordingly. Their progeny assumed they would have that too, but America being the "exceptional" place we all know it is, they also apparently believed Ronnie and Newtie when they said they could have it without paying taxes.
This is a big topic and probably beyond my ken. But I do know that the young are actually beneficiaries of this recession, at least so far. Dean Baker wrote a great piece about this a couple of months ago:
Finally, the recent collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting stock market plunge have reduced the wealth of older workers and retirees by close to $15 trillion. This is a transfer to the young, since they will be able to buy the housing stock and the corporate capital stock for a far lower price than they would have expected to pay just two years ago.
Remarkably, the granny basher crew has somehow failed to notice this enormous transfer of wealth from the old to the young. They just continue their crusade to cut Social Security and Medicare as though nothing has happened.
It should be evident that the granny bashers don't care at all about generational equity. They care about dismantling Social Security and Medicare, the country's most important social programs. It is important that the public recognize the granny bashers' real agenda so that they can give them the respect they deserve.
WILLIS: I want to talk to you about a study out from Harvard University, the Joint Center for Housing studies, there, they say the silver lining here, the people that are going to save the market are Gen-Y. these are the folks that are going to come in and buy these homes boomers want to unload. And yet, I mean, you just said it, they've got college debt, they've got credit card debt, this is a tough time for them because of the recession. What would you advise people who are in that age category really want to buy?
MCBRIDE: Well, here's the thing. Three or four years ago a lot of those same people thought they'd never buy a house. Right? Because prices were so high. But, prices have come down, 30 percent, 40 percent, 50 percent in some markets, mortgage rates are low. So, they have a lot of tail winds.
You know, buying a house is like getting married, don't do it if you're not ready, you got to be in for the long haul and you have to be prepared for the financial commitment. So, if you have those two things, low mortgage rates are another boost to you...
Of course, you need a job and a down payment, and not all that many people do, but eventually people will buy houses and they will be buying them at lower prices. And the older folks who are selling them are often selling them at a loss, certainly of expectations if nothing else. Every transaction has two parties, right?
There is blame to go around on this and the boomers certainly bear their fair share. But I would hope that younger people don't fall for the Fiscal Scold propaganda that says we have to dismantle the safety net because the baby boomers ruined the economy. Keep in mind that if these cranks actually succeed in destroying the safety net, you youngsters are going to need that big house you thought you could never afford because your aging parents are going to be living in the basement. And you'll be changing their bedpans because medicare won't be worth a damn either. It's in every American's long and short term self-interest to make sure the safety net is strong.
Following up on dday's post below about the return of one of the original spite girls, Ceci Connolly, I thought it might be useful to remind everyone of the indefatigable Bob Somerby's coverage of her journalistic blitzkrieg against Al Gore during election 2000. It's all here and it's all ugly.
Here's just one tiny little example of Ceci Connolly's journalistic malpractice:
Yesterday, Gore told a middle school class about his Vietnam service:
CONNOLLY (paragraph 2): Even though he and his parents opposed the war, Gore said he volunteered for the Army because he "thought it was the right thing to do."
(3): Co-teaching Sandy Simpson's history class, Gore described his months as a military journalist but said he could not remember his lottery number. (It was 30, a number that would have guaranteed being drafted had Gore not volunteered.)
We'll let you decide why those last pointless facts are in this morning's paper.
What Connolly absent-mindedly forgot to mention: Gore signed up for the army on August 8, 1969. The lottery came in December. When he volunteered, Gore had no way of knowing what his number would be. It's not all that clear what it means to say that he even had a lottery number. Careful readers, though, can read the inferences in Connolly's latest creation.
(We can't prove it came from there, of course, but this is the kind of "fact" that would have come right out of the GOP oppo research department that all the kewl kidz were uncritically gobbling up with the same gusto they slurped down those Dove bars on Bush's campaign plane.)
Ceci Connolly is still writing snotty, fictional scripts about people she doesn't like. Dana Milbank is making junior high school drama class videos. Froomkin's out on the street.
The worst thing about the right wingers calling the Washington Post the "liberal media" isn't that it's factually inaccurate -- it's that they are making liberals look so bad by lumping us in with these people.
Update: Speaking of Milbank, Julia reminded me of this:
MILBANK: You know what it is, Howie, I think that Gore is sanctimonious and that’s sort of the worst thing you can be in the eyes of the press. And he has been disliked all along and it was because he gives a sense that he’s better than us—he’s better than everybody, for that matter, but the sense that he’s better than us as reporters. Whereas President Bush probably is sure that he's better than us—he’s probably right—but he does not convey that sense. He does not seem to be dripping with contempt when he looks at us, and I think that has something to do with the coverage.
Ceci Connolly decided to jump on the opportunity to forward a "Democrats in disarray" narrative, arguing that grassroots groups inviting Americans to participate in their government is just too messy and risks hurting the feelings of those "friends" in the Democratic Party who resist real health care reform.
When asking me about the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's TV ads (which begin airing Monday in DC) holding Senate Dems accountable for taking millions from insurance interests and being on the verge of opposing a public option supported by 76% of Americans, Connolly would ask me ridiculous questions like, "Why are you attacking your friends? Wouldn't you agree that these Democrats are better for you on most health care issues than Republicans?"
I had to patiently explain to her that the public option is the defining issue of the health care debate -- if Senators like Baucus and Nelson aren't with us on that, they are not our friends.
Connolly listened, and then chose to dismiss silly activists who are fighting for what 76% of Americans want:
Activists say they are simply pressing for quick delivery of "true health reform," but the intraparty rift runs the risk of alienating centrist Democrats who will be needed to pass a bill.
Even though this story obviously sympathizes with those who want the hippies to STFU and enjoy whatever scraps they can get, I'm OK with having it out there. Because if the Village has to recognize the efforts in the grassroots, they've become too big to ignore. Also illuminating is the fact that not one named source would go on the record saying that such grassroots pressure on wavering Dems is harmful.
Essentially, being told that this pressure isn't working by folks inside the Beltway is a sure sign that it IS. So watch out, Kay Hagan, who apparently is holding up the inclusion of a public option in the Senate HELP Committee's draft. And the same goes for Blanche Lincoln, who has been squishy on the issue in her public statements. Blue America will have a lot to announce on that front in the coming weeks. So support the Campaign for Health Care Choice as we "run the risk of alienating centrist Democrats" once again.
...what's funny about this is the lack of understanding of who controls the process in the health care bill. It's completely obvious that Republicans will not support any kind of reform. Therefore, anyone who wants to impact the legislation must work on the Democratic side. That's simply a rational calculation of where to place pressure.
As financial markets tumbled and the government worked to stave off panic by pumping billions of dollars into banks last fall, several members of Congress who oversee the banking industry were grabbing up or dumping bank stocks.
Anticipating bargains or profits or just trying to unload before the bottom fell out, these members of the House Financial Services Committee or brokers on their behalf were buying and selling stocks including Bank of America and Citigroup -- some of the very corporations their committee would later rap for greed, a Plain Dealer examination of congressional stock market transactions shows.
Financial disclosure records show that some of these Financial Services Committee members, including Ohio Rep. Charlie Wilson, made bank stock trades on the same day the banks were getting a government bailout from a program Congress approved. The transactions may not have been illegal or against congressional rules, but securities attorneys and congressional watchdog groups say they raise flags about the appearance of conflicts of interest.
"I don't think that any of these people should be owning these types of financial instruments," said Brian Biggins, a Cleveland securities lawyer and former stock brokerage manager. "I'm not saying they shouldn't be in the stock market. But if they're on the banking committee and trading in these kinds of stocks, I don't think that's right."
Wilson wasn't the only one. The article cites several other members of the committee, of both parties, who "coincidentally" traded around the time that they were privy to information that others didn't have and were being personally lobbied by people who were trying to get something from them. It stinks to high heaven.
Some of these stock sales enabled committee members or their families to cut losses before the market continued its slide. Other trades proved to be particularly ill-timed. Citigroup stock, for example, closed at $22.50 per share the day Brown-Waite bought it. Now it's hovering around $3.
Many details about the massive financial bailout last fall were widely known outside Capitol Hill. Yet members of the Financial Services Committee were privy to closed-door discussions, staff briefings and political horse-trading decisions between political parties, Congress and the White House. Banks lobbied Congress and the administration heavily.
Banks that received bailout money spent $77 million on lobbying and $37 million on federal campaign contributions last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The center found that the banks spending the heaviest got the biggest rescue packages.
There has been no direct evidence that this allowed members to engage in insider trading. But when lawmakers overseeing banks also buy and sell bank stocks, it can create "the appearance of a problem," said Anthony J. Hartman, a Cleveland securities attorney.
"I do a lot of different types of litigation, and I just don't think anybody ought to be putting themselves in a situation where as an elected official, I can be suspect of what they are doing," Hartman said.
I do not know why members of congress who oversee certain industries should ever be allowed to invest in those industries. It's ridiculous on its face. And it's even more ridiculous that they did it knowing full well that it would be disclosed.
I don't want to hear another word about how much these people hate fund raising and having to beg for money for their campaigns all the time. Apparently, they are very well compensated for their trouble.
Just to put this into perspective, think about this: Nico Pitney has spent the last two weeks tirelessly developing sources from inside Iran, aggregating every relevant story available on the internet through every available form of the new communication technology and synthesizing one of the most most difficult and important foreign policy stories of the decade. Dana Milbank has spent the same period bitching about the "low press" getting to ask questions at a press conference and filming snotty little gossip items for his little insider video embarrassment called "Mouthpiece Theatre."
do feature priceless performance footage, but the storylines are pretty dopey).
(I wrestled with adding that film to this list BTW, but decided that it is really closer to a “jazz ballet” than a “rock musical”). The amazingly versatile Treat Williams brings mucho verve and energy to the screen as the Zorba-like George Berger (when he jumps up on that banquet table and exults “I got my AAAAAsssss!”-you don’t doubt him for a second). The great cast includes John Savage, Beverly D’Angelo and Annie Golden (music geeks may recall her as being the lead singer of an early 80s new wave band called The Shirts). Also look for the great director Nicholas Ray in a cameo as “The General” (he died that same year).
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