August 2009
14 posts
The Guns of August, and Why the Republican Right...
What we learned in August is something we’ve long known but keep forgetting: The most important difference between America’s Democratic left and Republican right is that the left has ideas and the right has discipline. Obama and progressive supporters of health care were outmaneuvered in August — not because the right had any better idea for solving the health care mess but...
Beware Authoritative "Inside Washington" Sources...
Washington, D.C. is an echo chamber in which anyone who sounds authoritative repeats the conventional authoritative wisdom about the “consensus” of inside opinion, which they’ve heard from someone else who sounds equally authoritative, who of course has heard it from another authoritative source. Follow the trail to its start and you often find an obscure congressional or White...
Ted Kennedy
America has had a few precious individuals who are both passionate about social justice and also understand deep in their bones its practical meaning. And we have had a few who possess great political shrewdness and can make the clunky machinery of democratic governance actually work. But I have known but one person who combined all these traits and abilities. His passing is an inestimable loss....
Don't Succumb to Deficit Hysteria
Today, as expected, the White House announced that the deficit projections are worse than it had thought. And as expected, the same old group of deficit hystrics went ballistic. “A 10-year deficit of $9 trillion is $30,000 for each man, woman and child in the United States!” kabaam. “Public debt will total a whopping $17.5 trillion by 2019 — three-quarters of the nation’s...
Why the Senate Should Confirm Bernanke But Make...
The President did the right thing in renominating Ben Bernanke to be Fed Chair, but the Senate should couple its vote to confirm him with new legislation requiring the Fed to be far more open about its doings. If you’d have asked me three months ago whether Bernanke would be confirmed, I’d have said no. Congress (and much of the public) is still furious about the bank bailouts, as well...
Why the Gang of Six is Deciding Health Care for...
Last night, the so-called “gang of six” — three Republican and three Democratic senators on the Senate Finance Committee — met by conference call and, according to Senator Max Baucus, the committee’s chair, reaffirmed their commitment “toward a bipartisan health-care reform bill” (read: less coverage and no public insurance option). The Washington Post...
How Tough is Our President?
Latest word from the White House is that the President still supports a public option but is also standing by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s remark last weekend that a public insurance plan is “not the essential element” of health-care reform. So where, exactly, is the White House on the public option? Just about where it is on the question of whether it...
The Public Option's Last Stand, and the Public's
I would have preferred a single payer system like Medicare, but became convinced earlier this year that a public, Medicare-like optional plan was just about as much as was politically possible. Now the White House is stepping back even from the public option, with the President saying it’s “not the entirety of health care reform,” the White House spokesman saying the President...
Obama's Second Biggest Test: Reforming Wall...
Citigroup — the giant Wall Street bank still on life-support courtesy of $45 billion from American taxpayers — wants to pay its twenty-five top executives an average of $10 million each this year, and award its best trader $100 million. Whaaat? Second only to healthcare reform as a test of Obama’s toughness and resolve is reform of Wall Street. And like the healthcare industry,...
Sarah Palin's Death Panels
Three years ago, my mother died after a long and painful illness. During her last months she was only partially conscious, and in her brief intervals of awareness was often distraught. At several points my father, sister, and I met with doctors to figure out how to ease her obvious suffering with pain medications, and how we could get her into a hospice facility. We could afford the counseling,...
How To Fight Heathcare Fearmongers and Demagogues
My friend, Keith, from New Orleans, just emailed to say he attended a local “town meeting” on health care and tried to get a word in favor but was almost hounded out of the room. Why are these meetings brimming with so much anger? Because Republican Astroturfers have joined the same old right-wing broadcast demagogues that have been spewing hate and fear for years, to create a tempest....
How the White House's Deal With Big Pharma...
I’m a strong supporter of universal health insurance, and a fan of the Obama administration. But I’m appalled by the deal the White House has made with the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying arm to buy their support. Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the...
The New Employment Numbers: Things are Worsening...
The economy is getting worse more slowly. That’s just about the only clear reading that’s coming from the economic reports, including this morning’s important one on employment. The pace of job losses slowed — payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, and the official jobless rate dropped from 9.5 to 9.4 percent. Be careful with these figures, though. They...
Astroturf Along American Highways, and the...
On our drive across America, my son and I have spotted spiffy white vans emblazoned with phrases like “ObamaCare will raise your taxes” and “ObamaCare will put bureaucrats in charge of your health.” Just outside Omaha we drove close enough to take a peek at the driver, who looked as dutifully professional as the spanking new van he was driving. This isn’t grass roots....
