"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[Van Cruncheon]

my worry is that more free-floating independents and moderates could pull democrats more towards the right

[Brehvolution]

The GOP is doing sooo bad they are winning elections. 


Never Change you guys 

They unseated 2 hugely unpopular Dems. What an amazing accomplishment.

[The Fake Shemp]

The GOP is doing sooo bad they are winning elections. 


Never Change you guys 

I doubt you're this dumb.

[The Fake Shemp]

I just e-mailed my House rep and told him if he doesn't vote for health care reform that I will gladly vote for someone else next election.

[Fresh Prince]

smh

[Mandark]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/congressional_budget_office_th.html

Republicans release their own alternative healthcare "plan".

CBO scores their plan, finds it wouldn't reduce the amount of uninsured people, and wouldn't lower the deficit as much as the Democratic plan.

Keep in mind this is the best-case, idealized GOP plan on paper compared with the already compromised Democratic bill that's actually on its way to passing.  Sheesh.

[FlameOfCallandor]

I just e-mailed my House rep and told him if he doesn't vote for health care reform that I will gladly vote for someone else next election.

Awesome now they have one letter for every 100 letters against.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Willco can you send me a copy of that letter too, I'm running out of toilet paper.

[Mandark]

Willco can you send me a copy of that letter too, I'm running out of toilet paper.

I think we know how you deal with that problem.

[Brehvolution]

Mandark, that bill would cover 3 million people by 2019. I think the republicans are turning over a new leaf. A tear is coming to my eye.  :'(

[The Fake Shemp]

 

... And I seriously doubt Chris Van Hollen, whose district includes Prince George's County, is facing much resistance for health care reform from constituents. I just wanted to let him know where I stand!

[FlameOfCallandor]

I'm gonna write to my congressman and ask for a free car.

[Oblivion]

FoC, would you be on board with health care reform if it involved vouchers?

[The Fake Shemp]

Mass transit

[Phoenix Dark]

Republicans are learning an unpleasant lesson this morning: The only thing worse than having no health-care reform plan is releasing a bad one, getting thrashed by CBO and making the House Democrats look good in comparison.

Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that ...17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won't have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.

But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP's alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.

The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan. And amazingly, the Democratic bill has already been through three committees and a merger process. It's already been shown to interest groups and advocacy organizations and industry stakeholders. It's already made its compromises with reality. It's already been through the legislative sausage grinder. And yet it saves more money and covers more people than the blank-slate alternative proposed by John Boehner and the House Republicans. The Democrats, constrained by reality, produced a far better plan than Boehner, who was constrained solely by his political imagination and legislative skill.

This is a major embarrassment for the Republicans. It's one thing to keep your cards close to your chest. Republicans are in the minority, after all, and their plan stands no chance of passage. It's another to lay them out on the table and show everyone that you have no hand, and aren't even totally sure how to play the game. The Democratic plan isn't perfect, but in comparison, it's looking astonishingly good.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/congressional_budget_office_th.html
 

[Brehvolution]

At least the charade is over and the gop was behind the tea baggers all along. Grass roots uprising my ass.  I guess it helps having a TV channel devoted to pushing the gop agenda.
What still strikes me is that for all the lies the gop has perpetrated under Bush, people still believe them. Masochists.

[The Fake Shemp]

From an acquaintance of mine:

"mebbe obama planned the frt hood shootin to shift focus from angry americans"

 

[huckleberry]

Willco can you send me a copy of that letter too, I'm running out of toilet paper.

I think we know how you deal with that problem.

 
choggle pants omfg.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

my worry is that more free-floating independents and moderates could pull democrats more towards the right

Maybe for chickenshit handwringers like Ben Nelson.

[The Fake Shemp]

These sorts of contradictions were apparent everywhere. But one thing about the rally proved sparklingly clear: Michele Bachmann is a major star. When she stepped up to the podium on the Capitol steps, the crowd went wild. It wasn’t too hard to imagine the event as a warm up for the 2012 presidential election, where Bachmann might prove a far more viable candidate than Sarah Palin. The rally confirmed her primacy as a leading voice of the Republican Party—a party that, with this protest, has fully embraced the conservative movement's most extreme elements.

... Oh my God. Let Bachmann run for President, Obama would win so easily.

[Mandark]

George Will wrote a column defending Bachmann and David Brooks wrote one with a very generous interpretation of the Tea Bagging movement.

I'd much rather have a sane GOP that I disagree with than the current, nutbar version, but I don't see how we'd get back to that point.  IME with situations like this, the cranks are more passionate and more committed to getting their way than the reasonable people, who will either make concessions to get some peace and quiet, or just up and leave.

Especially if there's a persistent Democratic majority, you figure a lot of center-right economists, diplomats, and other wonks will leave the GOP in order to have a shot at actually influencing policy.

[The Fake Shemp]

Has George Will ever written an oped worth reading? Really.

[Dickie Dee]

Has George Will ever written an oped worth reading? Really.

Demon Denim

By George F. Will
Thursday, April 16, 2009

On any American street, or in any airport or mall, you see the same sad tableau: A 10-year-old boy is walking with his father, whose development was evidently arrested when he was that age, judging by his clothes. Father and son are dressed identically -- running shoes, T-shirts. And jeans, always jeans. If mother is there, she, too, is draped in denim.

Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.

It is, he says, a manifestation of "the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby." Denim reflects "our most nostalgic and destructive agrarian longings -- the ones that prompted all those exurban McMansions now sliding off their manicured lawns and into foreclosure." Jeans come prewashed and acid-treated to make them look like what they are not -- authentic work clothes for horny-handed sons of toil and the soil. Denim on the bourgeoisie is, Akst says, the wardrobe equivalent of driving a Hummer to a Whole Foods store -- discordant.

Long ago, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore it, denim was, Akst says, "a symbol of youthful defiance." Today, Silicon Valley billionaires are rebels without causes beyond poses, wearing jeans when introducing new products. Akst's summa contra denim is grand as far as it goes, but it only scratches the surface of this blight on Americans' surfaces. Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" -- people who play video games -- are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six -- so far -- "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy's catechism of leveling -- thou shalt not dress better than society's most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism -- of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.

Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances. But the appearances that people choose to present in public are cues from which we make inferences about their maturity and respect for those to whom they are presenting themselves.

Do not blame Levi Strauss for the misuse of Levi's. When the Gold Rush began, Strauss moved to San Francisco planning to sell strong fabric for the 49ers' tents and wagon covers. Eventually, however, he made tough pants, reinforced by copper rivets, for the tough men who knelt on the muddy, stony banks of Northern California creeks, panning for gold. Today it is silly for Americans whose closest approximation of physical labor consists of loading their bags of clubs into golf carts to go around in public dressed for driving steers up the Chisholm Trail to the railhead in Abilene.

This is not complicated. For men, sartorial good taste can be reduced to one rule: If Fred Astaire would not have worn it, don't wear it. For women, substitute Grace Kelly.

Edmund Burke -- what he would have thought of the denimization of America can be inferred from his lament that the French Revolution assaulted "the decent drapery of life"; it is a straight line from the fall of the Bastille to the rise of denim -- said: "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely." Ours would be much more so if supposed grown-ups would heed St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, and St. Barack's inaugural sermon to the Americans, by putting away childish things, starting with denim.

(A confession: The author owns one pair of jeans. Wore them once. Had to. Such was the dress code for former senator Jack Danforth's 70th birthday party, where Jerry Jeff Walker sang his classic "Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother." Music for a jeans-wearing crowd.)

Denim

[Human Snorenado]

Has George Will ever written an oped worth reading? Really.

Well, there was that one time he totally misrepresented a bunch of research on climate change, and no one called him on it because he's a "Very Serious Person" which was kind of worth knowing all about just so you can understand how completely full of shit the mainstream media is.

[FlameOfCallandor]

well, there was that one time he totally misrepresented a bunch of research on climate change,

George Will not Al Gore.

Zing!

[The Fake Shemp]

Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry oped on letting the states take care of health care reform, that is despite the fact that his state leads the nation in uninsured.

Texas, never change.

[Human Snorenado]

Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry oped on letting the states take care of health care reform, that is despite the fact that his state leads the nation in uninsured.

Texas, never change.

This is similar to the southern strategy on civil rights- "We was gettin' ready to give them uppity negras rights, honest!  These things just take time!  Don't rush us!"  *sips mint julep brought to him by handsome mandingo houseservant*

[Mandark]

It's weird how tort reform, despite being a pretty dry policy idea that would benefit a small portion of the population, has taken on an almost totemic significance in American conservatism.  It's a big applause line at campaign rallies and suchlike.

When it's brought up in op-eds like that one, there's usually very little context about how malpractice insurance premiums relate to actual defense costs, how those costs are affected by frivolous lawsuits, whether there's a better system for discouraging actual, you know medical malpractice.

Cause the system is there to deal with a real life problem, and it's a bit myopic to talk about it as if it served no other purpose than to siphon money away from doctors. 

[The Fake Shemp]

Also, I could be wrong, but I think I've read that malpractice costs represent a fraction of the health care costs. So even if tort reform, in all its glory, would be passed to appease conservatives, it would do very little in driving down skyrocketing health care costs.

[The Fake Shemp]

Interesting idea was also proposed today, that Bachmann is ratcheting up the crazy because she is going to make a bid for the White House, knowing full well that she could lose her seat with this crazy rhetoric next year.

[Human Snorenado]

Another thing about tort reform that Claire McCaskill (who is annoying but likable) has repeatedly pointed out- some states have enacted pretty tough tort reform (her home state of Missouri among them) and it's had fuck all of an effect on health care costs.

[FlameOfCallandor]

I'm a fan of some Tort reform but not as any meaningful way of reforming healthcare.

[TakingBackSunday]

http://twitter.com/msnbcheadlines

MSNBC's twitter hacked, lulz ensue

[FlameOfCallandor]

http://twitter.com/msnbcheadlines

MSNBC's twitter hacked, lulz ensue

Any screenshots? It's down.

[TakingBackSunday]

Bah, sorry about that.  I'm sure there will be in a bit.

[Oblivion]

Holy balls

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/jon-stewart-does-glenn-be_n_348129.html

[Oblivion]

Also, it's like I keep saying, everything can be solved with vouchers.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Why would tort reform not be popular amongst conservatives, who feel that welfare consists primarily of ghetto queens popping out baby after baby for that government check?  Much like the economic crash was caused by poor people getting generous home loans, tort reform aims to stop poor people from suing doctors or pharmaceutical companies.  Unsurprisingly, poor people agree with the reform.

As for the moderate GOP purge, things will normalize in a while.  I think a lot of Republicans are just waiting to see what happens with the teabaggers.  Those that hitch their wagons to the movement like Bachmann will get booted out once the movement turns unpopular, which might be happening here in the next few months.  Once the GOP moneyed elite or whatever sees that the teabagger movement is wrecking the party from within (maybe 2010?), with a potential to cause an even greater loss in 2012 than 2008, they'll probably reign it in.

Next year's races are all going to be about the economy (specifically whether or not the trillions pumped into the system worked, at least perception wise) and while teabaggers might prevent any victories in areas they want to put a dark horse / third party candidate in, several vulnerable swing seats might go back to the GOP.  Obama better pray for a Christmas miracle this year.

[The Fake Shemp]

Holy balls

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/06/jon-stewart-does-glenn-be_n_348129.html

Oh, Jon.

[CajoleJuice]

WHAT NOW OBAMA

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Dumb observation but I notice that starting in 1981, every recession since then has taken longer and longer before complete unemployment recovery.  There was barely a recovery period between the end of the 2001 recession and the start of the 2007, according to that chart.

[Phoenix Dark]

(Image removed from quote.)

WHAT NOW OBAMA

Huckabee 2012 confirmed

[Mandark]

Also, I could be wrong, but I think I've read that malpractice costs represent a fraction of the health care costs. So even if tort reform, in all its glory, would be passed to appease conservatives, it would do very little in driving down skyrocketing health care costs.

Yeah.  It's like when people bring up earmarks in the context of the federal budget.  Maybe the system is flawed, but even if we reduced it to zero we've still barely made a dent in the overall problem.


What I've read from sources I generally trust:

1) The costs of malpractice settlements, awards, and defense costs are kind of detached from the costs of malpractice insurance.  That has to do with the insurers acting as pseudo-banks and raising rates when their investments do badly.

2) A small percentage of doctors are responsible for a majority of malpractice suits.  Only a small fraction of cases of malpractice result in lawsuits, and only a small fraction of doctors who commit malpractice are disciplined (a significantly lower rate than lawyers, for example).  The studies about preventable deaths from bad practices in hospitals always seem to turn up terrifyingly high numbers.

3) There are a bunch of frivolous lawsuits, but a lot are filed for the purposes of getting information.  Hospitals often won't provide records of what happened unless they're forced to by the discovery process.

4) European countries generally have a lot lower malpractice rates, but that's largely because A) they've got big bureaucracies to regulate this stuff rather than leaving it to the courts, and B) if you get injured in a botched surgery, various welfare programs pick up the tab anyway.



This is one of those cases where I'm open to the idea that the current system is flawed and could be improved, but the people who are making the most noise about reform are mostly talking out of their rear.

Dumb observation but I notice that starting in 1981, every recession since then has taken longer and longer before complete unemployment recovery.  There was barely a recovery period between the end of the 2001 recession and the start of the 2007, according to that chart.

More specifically, it's taken longer for the jobs to recover.

We've already got GDP and productivity growth, but jobs are still falling.  Jobless recoveries happened during the last two recessions, while beforehand jobs basically moved along with overall growth.  I don't think they've figured out what changed 20ish years ago to make it that way.

[Kestastrophe]

There was barely a recovery period between the end of the 2001 recession and the start of the 2007, according to that chart.

dubbed a "jobless recovery". many economists are speculating as to whether there has been a structural shift in the labor market, with a higher natural rate of unemployment.

[Brehvolution]

  at the mantra of republicans being brought back in to fix the economy/jobs situation they created. How fucking stupid can people be? 

[Human Snorenado]

at the mantra of republicans being brought back in to fix the economy/jobs situation they created. How fucking stupid can people be? 

Pretty fucking stupid, but in a head to head comparison in 2012 I'm fairly confident no one on that side is going to beat Obama.

[Dickie Dee]

Ugggh, so apparently abortion is going to be stripped not only from any public plan, but also must be stripped from any private plan involved in whatever exchange they set up.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I think it is pretty stupid to put off voting on the thing until next year.  Considering the general support for a public option, why would you put it off for a few months, where that opinion could easily turn around?  Also the longer it drags on, the shittier the bill seems to get because of all the new amendments they want to add like this abortion thing and the olive branch to the pharmaceuticals.

Limpdick Democrats ftl.  They should have just taken a page from the Bush era GOP and accused everyone against the bill of sedition.  Shit would include a strong public option and would have been passed and signed into law three months ago.

[Dickie Dee]

Ugggh, so apparently abortion is going to be stripped not only from any public plan, but also must be stripped from any private plan involved in whatever exchange they set up.

Uhh.

It was never supposed to be allowable under the "public option," if this set of legislators and the president are to be believed. 

Granted, there's an exploitable loophole there the size of a mack truck, which I'm guessing some people wanted to use as a run around the Hyde Amendment... thankfully, that shit really won't fly in this country, nor should it be expected to.

Unfortunately you don't know what you're talking about. The public option involves no gov't appropriations and the Hyde Amendment is completely moot.

[Human Snorenado]

Ugggh, so apparently abortion is going to be stripped not only from any public plan, but also must be stripped from any private plan involved in whatever exchange they set up.

Uhh.

It was never supposed to be allowable under the "public option," if this set of legislators and the president are to be believed. 

Granted, there's an exploitable loophole there the size of a mack truck, which I'm guessing some people wanted to use as a run around the Hyde Amendment... thankfully, that shit really won't fly in this country, nor should it be expected to.

I don't think that you're looking at the cost/benefit analysis of this properly... think of the relative cost in your tax dollars of aborting one welfare baby fetus as opposed to paying for the child's health care, education and eventual incarceration!  Some objectivist you are.

[The Fake Shemp]

People should be forced to get abortions in back alleys and run down warehouses - like the good 'ole days!

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'm 100% in favor of government paid abortions.  That and euthanasia too while we're at it.  In a world of dwindling natural resources, if people want to stop bringing life (or continuing their life) to the planet, that should not be shunned.

We'd be a lot worse off as a country if those 40+ million abortions were not performed.  I guarantee you this.

[Van Cruncheon]

People should be forced to get abortions in back alleys and run down warehouses - like the good 'ole days!

no no no no no they just shouldn't DO IT, IT IS MURDER, MURDER, MUURRRRRDEEEERRRRRRR <huffs in paper bag>

[The Fake Shemp]

Poor JayDubya.

Apparently, abortion is not one of those things people can agree to disagree on. It's either you're right or you're evil!

[The Fake Shemp]

Please don't fail me, House.

[Oblivion]

It's a pretty rare thing to see a religious libertarian.

[TakingBackSunday]

I'm pretty sure he's not religious.

[Phoenix Dark]

I OBJECT I OBJECT I OBJECT

[Van Cruncheon]

Poor JayDubya.

Apparently, abortion is not one of those things people can agree to disagree on. It's either you're right or you're evil!

Does he agree that fetuses are delicious?

i been meaning to axe you, what red goes best with fetus

or are fetuses more chickeny, and is a white appropriate

or are they like cheesecake, and a dessert blush will suffice

OH GOD I MUST KNOW, BOOKING TRIP TO RURAL CHINA NOW

[Van Cruncheon]

I'm pretty sure he's not religious.

he's religious; he just hasn't found a specific anthropomorphic god that satisfies his rigorous criteria yet per se