H&LA “True False/Fake Real”
Health care reform’s defenders
Here’s something to make you optimistic: The left is learning how to unite to have power in the House. The Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are uniting and saying they won’t vote for a plan that doesn’t have a strong public option:
“We cannot move forward without a strong public option,” stated Congressman Raul M. Grijalva (AZ-07), Co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Health care costs are skyrocketing for everyone, and our health is worsening. It is time that we attain health care reform that prioritizes and alleviates the financial burden on families.”
“The benefits of a public health plan are clear. A public health plan will guarantee coverage regardless of pre-existing condition. A public health plan will give patients a choice of doctors and hospitals. And a public health plan will build in incentives for private insurers to lower costs to compete,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-09), Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “When it comes to the public plan, know that the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus speak with one voice.”
Tough love
If there’s one thing America likes, it’s being tough on criminals. We send more people to prison and hold them there longer for the same crimes as compared with any other country in the world. Even China’s got nothing on us when it comes to imprisoning people.
And when they’re there we’re more worried that they’ll think that it’s a country club than actually reforming criminals or helping them have other options when they get out of prison. Take this story, for example, which highlights America’s lack of give a fuck when it comes to prisoners:
The announced purpose of the PLRA was to curb the filing of frivolous prisoner litigation. In reality, the PLRA makes it almost impossible for most prisoners to file any civil rights claims regardless of the merits: Prisoners are forever barred from seeking redress of their most fundamental constitutional and human rights in federal court unless, within a very few days of the violation, they can successfully navigate a maze of arcane, arbitrary and intricate internal grievance rules set by prison officials — rules which civil rights lawyers themselves often find baffling.
The PLRA has an especially harsh impact on victims of prison rape, as the ACLU has discovered time and again in interviews of scores of rape victims in prisons and jails around the country. It was the stuff of nightmares to discover (especially in Texas, which at least until recently deserved the name of Prison Rape Capital of the nation) how many young men are forced into prostitution by violent prison gangs (PDF). It is even more chilling to find out that the common response of prison officials to the victims’ desperate pleas for protection is to tell them their only two options were to “fight or fuck.”
It is equally horrific to discover how commonplace it is for women and men — especially those who are young, gay, mentally ill or otherwise especially vulnerable — to be sexually abused, and sometimes brutally raped, by custodial staff who then warn them that if they report the assault they will be disbelieved, punished and set up on bogus charges that would lengthen their prison terms by years. It is nothing short of heartbreaking to have to tell these men, women and youth that they have no right to go to federal court because, while they were still reeling, trembling and bleeding from sexual assault, they did not manage to fill out the proper forms in the proper order.
It’s apparently too much to ask that prisoners not be treated this way in America. And I can’t imagine any problem with having a sector of the population who’s made some bad decisions physically and mentally traumatized….
Iconic photo
I wanted to pass along this image, which, for me, is representative of the entire “redirect populist anger” purpose of the protest:
What it captures for me, in this woman’s “crest fallen” version of an anti-tax/anti-Obama/anti-Government/anti-bailout/anti-(fill in the blank) Lady Liberty, is that Americans truly are hurting, angry and depressed … and thus ripe for such cheap exploitation.
The woman looks sad and ridiculous in the plastic cap, but there’s no doubt that she sincerely believes in what she’s protesting for.
But does she know about all the corporate money being poured into these protests to get anyone at all to show up? Where were these folks, with all their signs about the Constitution, when our rights were being picked apart by the Bush administration these last 8 years? Where were these folks, who are upset about spending, before the war or while Wall Street was destroying the global financial system?
The thing is, I can see how someone would end up at a protest like that. Liberals and other people who make sense don’t make enough of an effort to explain their politics to people who don’t agree with them, and there is a very noisy conservative machine that makes no sense if you think about it for longer than two seconds, but that many people don’t think too critically about.
Instead, a person who may actually be suffering from materially tough times, puts on a silly hat and drapes herself with American flags to attack the enemy du jour, this time increased taxes on the rich.
Her kind is in the minority now, but it wasn’t too long ago when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House.
DP’s expanded in Washington state
Washington state domestic partnerships are now completely equal, in rights, to marriage:
The Democratic-controlled House approved the Senate-passed measure on a mostly party-line 62-35 vote after nearly two hours of debate. It next goes to Gov. Chris Gregoire, who said she will sign it into law.
“Our state is one that thrives on diversity,” Gregoire, a Democrat, said in a statement. “We have to respect and protect all of the families that make up our communities.”
The bill expands on previous domestic partnership laws by adding reference to partnerships alongside all remaining areas of state law where currently only married couples are mentioned. The statutes range from labor and employment rights to pensions and other public employee benefits.
Same-sex attraction in the military
There’s a particularly stupid column in today’s Washington Post from generals advocating against lifting DADT. Jonathan Capehart responds (online only).
One thing that stands out from the column is this argument from the generals’ column as particularly inane:
“Zero tolerance” of dissent would become official intolerance of anyone who disagrees with this policy, forcing additional thousands to leave the service by denying them promotions or punishing them in other ways. Many more will be dissuaded from ever enlisting.
Yes, because if there’s one thing the military is known for, it’s its tolerance of dissent from enlisted folk.
George Will’s anti-denim nanny state
If you’re reading this blog, then you probably already know that I just plain don’t like George Will. Today he hit a new low, devoting an entire vapid column to making fun of jeans.
He calls them adolescent. You know what’s also adolescent? Libertarianism. As a few people more intelligent than I am described, it’s the political philosophy of people who haven’t gotten over the stage in life where they’re rebelling against parental authority and trying to do whatever pleases them.
Bad Faith
Here’s George Will from his column yesterday:
The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain’s party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism.
How in the world is this bailout at all like the New Deal?
The New Deal was a massive government effort to get America out of the Great Depression. It created jobs by spending government money, and those jobs went to build America’s infrastructure. It also started social spending programs to create a safety net. It was a response to massive poverty by giving money to the poor.
The current bailout is a way for America’s richest to get out of the consequences of the risks they took. They are shying away from taking any responsibility for their actions. It’s a reaction to the prospect of losing massive wealth by giving more money to the wealthy.
The unifying factor is that both actions cost a lot of money from the government. For George Will, that makes them indistinguishable, because he seems to only analyze problems from the perspective of whether or not they’ll cost money, whether or not government will be doing something. Not, you know, whether the money will be well-spent or whether what the government is doing is useful.
This, to me, is the heart of why I’m pissed off by this crisis: here are people who for decades have been preaching the value of personal responsibility and keeping the government out of private enterprise, and here they are asking for a huge amount of money. They wouldn’t even be willing to give one-thousandth of that money to a government program that would actually improve people’s lives, but they’re willing to ask for it themselves.
After years of having to hear people on the teevee and read people in print like George Will talk about personal responsibility, and having to respond to it with arguments about how the playing field isn’t level, some people can live on “personal responsibility” and others can’t because of structural barriers to success, etc, we find out that 99% of people making that argument were doing so in bad faith. It was poppycock, and they knew it. They never really believed it.
For George Will, whether something is worthwhile or not depends on whether it expands government power and spending or not. For normal human beings, it depends on whether enough good will come out of the program to justify the money it would cost to create it. And while the American elite have borrowed libertarian language like Will’s for decades, what they really think is that a government action’s value depends on whether it gives them more money or not.
Will people learn from this one?
Hero worship
Matthews: I’ve been so impressed by Lincoln’s words this week — government of, by and for the people. It isn’t government of, by and for the people. This is being decided, the biggest issue of our time, this economic crisis, the worst, according to the wall Street Journal,since the 1930s, by people so much bigger headed than most voters, than most members of congress, certainly than me. This is being decided by people like Hank Paulson.
THANK GOD this president has this secretary of treasury and not the one other ones he had before, perhaps. But Richard, the people can’t vote on things like this.
Wolf: (nods sagely)
Matthews: We can’t understand it. I’m one of them. I don’t get it. What are all these derivatives and all this short selling and all this complicated financial … skigamadoo or whatever you call it. What is it?
Wolf: Even the candidates have problem getting through this alphabet soup. I mean, they’ve both mangled the players and the key terms of those involved here. Are they talking about firing the right person when he talks about Chris Cox? Is it Fannie Mac or Freddie Mae?
Matthews: I’m just wondering if it’s above our pay grade? I think Carly Fiorina may have been right. These guys can run for president but they can’t be Secretary of the Treasury.
Matthews: Even elected presidents can’t master this financial game. It’s too complicated. Shouldn’t they come out and tell us who their economic team’s gonna be? … The reason I ask is because we saw the president this week and Bush has all the native intelligence you can have. He doesn’t want to touch it because for a layman to start talking about the economy right now is very dangerous. Right Lynn?
Lynn Sweet: It’s tough. It’s interesting because who would have thought that his treasury secretary would emerge from this crisis…
Matthews:the third secretary, two are gone…
Sweet: Right. That he would emerge from this looking as the strong person in the administration, who’s pulling it together. And we’ll see if the congress gives him the power to run the economy.
Matthews: Is congress willing to make him King Henry as they put on the one of the magazine covers?
Wolf: the cover of Newsweek…
Matthews: Will they let him be King Henry?
Here’s the Wall Street Journal yesterday:
If our luck holds, Hank Paulson will get the extraordinary authority he seeks. If we are really lucky, Paulson may actually fix the mess we have made. So why not give him whatever he needs?
Of course, it is easy to be outraged by the Treasury’s bail-out proposal. Lots of money. Lots of power. Naked, ugly dictatorial power.
“Decisions by the Treasury pursuant to the Authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Such language could have been drafted by any Third World caudillo.
But it wasn’t. It was drafted by U.S. Treasury lawyers at the behest of the Secretary of the Treasury.
And Paulson isn’t any Secretary of the Treasury. He doesn’t need power. And he certainly doesn’t need money.
Of course, he isn’t a saint or Superman. He is awkward and an awful public speaker. But he is the one man that can serve as an honest broker between the banks and the taxpayers–between Wall Street and Washington.
He can do the right thing for the country. How many other people on Wall Street or Washington can we say that about? […]
There is a lot of money at stake, so it will be almost impossible to produce a plan that makes everyone happy. But the plan has to produce winners on both sides. Push the banks too far–and the Treasury may get more bankruptcies than the system can handle. Don’t push the banks hard enough–and they will get rich at the expense of the taxpayer. It is a balancing act, but who better to find that balance than an honest broker like Paulson?
Is Washington afraid he will be too soft on his Wall Street buddies to the detriment of the taxpayer? This is the guy, after all, who “never once” considered bailing out Lehman.
My guess is that Paulson has moved well beyond Wall Street. His sole concern is to save the U.S. financial system–and as a taxpayer, I will take him over anybody else on Wall Street or Congress to do just that.
How many people on Wall Street or Washington can we say that about? Well, just about any of them. We can say it over and over and over again if we want.
It’s obvious what’s going to happen now: Henry Paulson is the hero that will save us from this crisis (unless, of course, he doesn’t, and then everyone will wonder why we trusted him in the first place). He’s perfect for the role: no one really knew he existed before this week and he’s asking for unilateral power to dispense $700 billion dollars to the richest people in America.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of our traditional media has a direct financial stake in that $700 billion being dispensed. So they need to make sure that Americans trust the man who’s not only asking for it, but asking to be protected from any sort of regulation or oversight.
The media’s never led us wrong when it comes to hero worship before either, right? I mean, I just can’t think of a single example…
MATTHEWS: What do you make of this broadside against the USS Abraham Lincoln and its chief visitor last week?
LIDDY: Well, I — in the first place, I think it’s envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he’s in his flight suit, he’s striding across the deck, and he’s wearing his parachute harness, you know — and I’ve worn those because I parachute — and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those — run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman’s vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count — they’re all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.
Oh.
Don’t panic, the financial crisis doesn’t call for a $700 billion bailout
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has put forward a proposition to bail out the finance industry with a price tag at $700 billion.
The plan comes with near-dictatorial power granted to the executive branch, with a huge raid on the treasury with no means of paying for it, with a petulant demand of “Now, now, now!” coming from the Bush Administration, and with no plans for oversight (this time, actually, there’s a specific ban on oversight written into the bill).
No plan for an end game, an endless blank check for private companies who have well-placed friends, and more power for the executive branch, all sold by typical Republican hysterics that the sky will fall if their bill isn’t passed immediately… what does that remind us of? To me, it sounds a whole lot like the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the bill that authorized the Iraq War.
And if Democrats prove to be as ineffective in defending basic economic fairness, in articulating the need for any bail-out to come with serious regulation, and in exercising their power in Congress to make sure that the plan the government goes forward with is sound as they were when it came to supporting the basic principles that told any thinking American that the war with Iraq was a bad idea right from the start, they’re going to cave once again right before all our eyes.
Personally, I never got over the AUMF and the absolute lack of foresight it represented in favor of sheer destruction, so that someone’s head, anyone’s head, could be brought before the American people as a sign that George W. Bush was doing what he could to prevent another terrorist attack. It was an utter failure of democracy, calling into question the very concept itself as it attempted to promote it, daring us to ask If this is what happens when democracy’s at work, then is it really such a good idea after all?
As much as Hillary Clinton supporters wanted everyone to just get over that vote, I can’t even begin to understand how someone could look past it. And as pundits who made careers cowardly cheer-leading the war on still get TV time and newspaper print space to stroke their egos and prove that they have the gall to tell us how foreign policy works, I’m coming to the conclusion that Americans just didn’t learn their lesson the first time around.
So here we are, presented with another crisis that demands another decisive solution that will once again work to the benefit of a small sector of the American population and to the detriment of just about everyone else.
This one doesn’t promise the murder of hundreds of thousands of people in a small country on the other side of the world that doesn’t pose a threat. We should at least count ourselves as blessed that the financial elite found a way to make bank off the government that doesn’t involve genocidal policies.
Fortunately, a few factors have changed since 2002 that’ll work in our favor here.
First, we have a Democratic majority in the House and a split Senate. Here’s Pelosi’s statement:
Congress will respond to the financial markets crisis by taking action this week in a bipartisan manner that will protect the taxpayers’ interests. The Administration’s $700 billion proposal does not include the necessary safeguards. Democrats believe a responsible solution should include independent oversight, protections for homeowners and constraints on excessive executive compensation.
We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome. Democrats will act responsibly to insulate Main Street from Wall Street.
As we proceed to deal with this crisis, this is clear recognition that the party is over for the Bush Administration’s anything goes, failed economic policies that have damaged our economy, undermined the middle class and further pointed out the need for a New Direction.
Tough words. We’ll see how the Democrats hold up.
Second, while we’re in “everyone scream” mode, at least there’s not a significant number of Americans who think that they will die as a result of this crisis (even though this has the potential to kill more Americans through hunger, lack of medical care, and exposure than Iraq ever did). That decreases pressure and the likelihood that Congress will do something stupid to prove that they’re willing to do something.
Third, Bush hasn’t been harping on this one as long as he had Iraq. Up until just this month, he was still arguing that the fundamentals of the economy were sound. Phil Gramm was telling Americans that they were just a bunch of whiners. And any Republican with a platform saw it as his or her responsibility to let the American people know that if they had a problem, it was theirs and theirs alone. A small rough patch, but the economy would keep on moving.
Well, we know now that we’re most likely facing an economic disaster of Great Depression proportions, they’ve decided to turn course, acknowledge that there is a problem, and ask for money and power, supposedly to fix it.
For the most Machiavellian administration this country has seen, they should know that that’s just not how it’s done. These sorts of schemes take time, and they haven’t put in enough to make it happen.
This is a huge disaster, and there shouldn’t be a deal on the table, at all, that doesn’t include
- regulation to prevent banks from taking on risky loans,
- regulation to create transparency on the stock market,
- regulation to reduce the size of finance firms,
- a plan for exactly what the money’s going to be spent on (as much as I’m a French-lovin’ liberal, no bailouts for foreign firms. Sorry),
- a source for the cash, and
- a clear system for both Congressional and judicial oversight of executive actions.
We’ll see how the Democrats hold up. If there’s anything we learned back in 2002, it’s that they have to have a clearly identified counter-plan, a unified philosophical response to conservative arguments, and the necessary tools to get their message out.
Otherwise, they’re doomed to repeat the same mistake and keep on passing devastating legislation at Bush’s whim.
Until we find out what’s going to happen, here’s an angry rant from a Democratic Senator on the financial crisis:
Paulsen and congressional Republicans, or the few that will actually vote for this (most will be unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences of their policies), have said that there can’t be any “add ons,” or addition provisions. Fuck that. I don’t really want to trigger a world wide depression (that’s not hyperbole, that’s a distinct possibility), but I’m not voting for a blank check for $700 billion for those mother fuckers.
Nancy said she wanted to include the second “stimulus” package that the Bush Administration and congressional Republicans have blocked. I don’t want to trade a $700 billion dollar giveaway to the most unsympathetic human beings on the planet for a few fucking bridges. I want reforms of the industry, and I want it to be as punitive as possible.
Henry Waxman has suggested corporate government reforms, including CEO compensation, as the price for this. Some members have publicly suggested allowing modification of mortgages in bankruptcy, and the House Judiciary Committee staff is also very interested in that. That’s a real possibility.
We may strip out all the gives to industry in the predatory mortgage lending bill that the House passed last November, which hasn’t budged in the Senate, and include that in the bill. There are other ideas on the table but they are going to be tough to work out before next week.
I also find myself drawn to provisions that would serve no useful purpose except to insult the industry, like requiring the CEOs, CFOs and the chair of the board of any entity that sells mortgage related securities to the Treasury Department to certify that they have completed an approved course in credit counseling. That is now required of consumers filing bankruptcy to make sure they feel properly humiliated for being head over heels in debt, although most lost control of their finances because of a serious illness in the family. That would just be petty and childish, and completely in character for me.
I’m open to other ideas, and I am looking for volunteers who want to hold the sons of bitches so I can beat the crap out of them.
And if angry rants aren’t your thing, here’s an in-depth explanation of how this whole thing came about, that starts with the Reagan Administration, and works its way through the S&L crisis, the Keating 5, the Enron collapse, why California has Arnold as its governor, Phil Gramm’s history as a lobbyist, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and pretty much anything else that led to this mess. It’s not as satisfying as swearing, but you’ll be glad you read it.
Spoiler: it’s the same people doing the same shit, over and over again.
McCain didn’t have pretty photography for five and a half years
Republicans know how to manipulate imagery well. It’s a bit heavy-handed for my tastes, but then I’m never going to vote Republican anyway. Here are some of the backdrops they put up behind their big convention speakers since they couldn’t fill up stadiums.
Here’s the image that was behind Fred Thompson at his convention speech, which was mostly about the Passion of John McCain (via BAGNewsNotes):
It’s cynical, but it underlines the message, mentioned in some form by every big speech at their convention: John McCain suffered for your sins.
No, it’s not a concrete history of Vietnam, but it’s supposed to signal that, no matter how bad of a position you’re in, John McCain has suffered worse. He understands pain, and it’s really no surprise that Republicans are waiving this narrative high and wide: it’s the undercurrent and the justification for the Religious Right and movement conservatism in the US. How many times do we have to hear about how conservatives suffer and are marginalized (activist judges, liberal media bias, college professors who want to kick them off campus, the destruction of their culture, Culture Wars, existential war, demographic winter, etc.)?
Well, enough times to maintain a permanent conservative majority in the US.
Here’s Rudy G’s (also via BAGNewsNotes):
‘Nuf said. Noun, verb, 9/11.
Here’s Sarah Palin:
The quality of the pic is worse, but you can see that she was speaking in front of beloved national monument Mt. Rushmore. I bet you didn’t all know that she had more executive experience than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt… combined.
And here’s John McCain, up close:
What? They’re doing the green screen again? Let’s zoom out:
My first thought was that it was just one of his mansions, and that this was some sort of irony or caricature of the McCain Housing Crisis.
Turns out it’s Walter Reed Middle School in California. No particular reason for it to be so honored, except someone working for McCain apparently mixed it up with Walter Reed Medical Center:
Yep, that’s not what he was standing in front of, at all.
And that’s probably the most appropriate image of all the speakers at the Republicans’ convention: utter incompetence at even the most basic of tasks.
The material effects of which, conveniently enough, are demonstrated by Walter Reed Medical Center. Why didn’t he just stand in front of a “More of the same” sign?
Rise Above 
