Are the batteries still good? I can’t tell.
Is this thing still plugged in?
How long did you say this battery is supposed to last?
Where is the switch on this gizmo?
Which button do I push first?
Check the phone jacks. Did the cats knock one loose?
My IE won’t come up. Is it my computer or ATT & T?
Should I get an iPhone? Should I continue to download Microsoft updates? Do I need another hole in the head?
If I have to talk to ONE MORE PERSON FROM INDIA I think I’m going to scream. (I keep hoping one of them will ask, “How’s the weather in Alabama?” but somehow I doubt this will ever happen)
Should I buy electric or gas?
Will the store take it back?
Did I REALLY need this?
Will it ever be fashionable to NOT update?
Do they make a cordless phone that lasts longer than 6 months?
My desk is a mess of contraptions---computer, modem, router, fax machine, two black boxes that I have no idea where they came from---and wires going everywhere and some loose wires that I don’t know where they are supposed to go---plugged into the contraptions and into forty/eleven outlets. I can’t tell heads or tails with this mess. I don’t worry about it until something doesn’t work.
What will I do when I have a problem and I don’t know where to turn?
Can you call 911 when your computer isn’t working right?
My Daddy didn’t have to deal with this stuff in the 60’s. That was a better time.
When the apocalyptic tomorrow arrives and it all goes away and we’re all back in the equivalent of the year 463 AD and darkness once again descends on the planet, what will our successors think when they dig up all of this stuff?
My plumber says that a gas hot water heater is better than electric. I have to take his word for it. In this electronic world I seem to have to take other people’s word for everything.
I wonder if President Obama had all of his electronic gizmos in Mass. last week. Maybe he couldn’t afford all of them after paying about $25,000 for that week of vacation. After all, he IS on a fixed income and his wife isn’t working.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The NRA
Normally when I receive a call from the National Rifle Association I immediately hang up. This time I listen to some guy from the NRA say please listen to this recorded message from our president. I listen and hear the NRA president claim that the UN is about to pass a "treaty" that the US will be forced to adopt that will ban all guns in the US and indeed the world. I'm supposed to stay on the line until the live NRA member comes back on the line probably to ask me to join the NRA for a membership fee. I hang up to avoid wasting any more of my time. These people are looney tunes. The sad thing is that you've got maybe 20% of the people, mostly in the Confederate South and the sparsely populated West who believe this nonsense. The same people who support Palin, who believe George W. Bush was a great President, and who can't get over the fact that we have a nonwhite President. As long as we have a nonwhite president, the lunatic Right will continue to proliferate.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
It's the Republican Party that's out to Kill Grandma
Jacob Weisberg
Death, Republican Style
It's the GOP that's out to get Granny.
Published Aug 29, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Sep 7, 2009
The republicans charge that Democratic health care reform would, in Sen. Charles Grassley's words, "pull the plug on Grandma." According to Sen. Jon Kyl, the bills before Congress would ration medical treatment by age. Rep. John Boehner says they promote euthanasia. Sarah Palin has raised the specter of "death panels." Such fears are understandable. It's not preposterous to imagine laws that would try to save money by encouraging the inconvenient elderly to make an early exit. After all, that's been the Republican policy for years.
It was Grassley himself who devised the "Throw Mama From the Train" provision of the GOP's 2001 tax cut. The estate-tax revision he championed will reduce the estate tax to zero next year. But when it expires at year's end, the tax will jump back up to its previous level of 55 percent. Grassley's exploding tax break has an entirely foreseeable, if unintended, consequence: it incentivizes ailing, elderly rich people to end their lives—paging Dr. Kevorkian—before midnight on Dec. 31, 2010. It also gives their children an incentive to sign DNR orders and switch off respirators in time for the deadline. This would be a great plot for a P. D. James novel if it weren't an actual piece of legislation.
This is not merely hypothetical. Serious economists take the possibility seriously. In a 2001 paper entitled "Dying to Save Taxes," economists from the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia examined 13 changes in U.S. tax law since 1917 and concluded that benefactors die in greater numbers just before tax hikes and just after tax cuts. A 2006 study done in Australia, which abolished its inheritance tax in July 1979, reached the same conclusion. Statistics showed that more than half the people who would ordinarily have died in the last week of June 1979—and whose heirs would have been subject to the tax—managed to avoid it by surviving into July. Republicans in Congress have created a similar inducement for Grandma not to die before January 2010, but to make sure she is gone by January 2011.
Other GOP policies promote death for senior citizens with more modest incomes. Take George W. Bush's failed plan to privatize Social Security—a program that has driven life expectancy up and death rates down since it was instituted. It has an especially pronounced impact on suicide rates for the elderly, which have declined 56 percent since 1930. Had Bush prevailed, those who gambled on the stock market and lost would be less able to afford medicine, food, and heating for their homes. In aggregate, they'd likely die younger and commit suicide more often.
Republicans continue working to short-en and sadden the lives of the elderly in more oblique ways, too. One of President Obama's first official acts was to reverse Bush's executive order limiting government funding for stem-cell research, which remains the most promising avenue for new treatments of diseases that afflict the aged, including Parkinson's and Alz-hei-mer's.
Clean-air legislation, which the Republicans defeated in 2002, has the potential to save 23,000 lives per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many of those victims are elderly people, who suffer disproportionately from cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses exacerbated by air pollution. Because emissions of carbon monoxide and such are merely a contributing factor, you can't name the individuals who have died because of this policy choice.
But it's reasonable to deduce that there are tens of thousands of people who would still be elderly today if Republicans didn't value the rights and campaign contributions of polluters more highly than their lives.
But why would Republicans be trying to kill old people? After all, senior citizens are more likely to vote for the GOP than for Democrats. They were the only substantial demographic segment John McCain won in 2008. You'd think conservatives would want them to hang on as long as possible. The problem is that because of the Democratic programs Social Security and Medicare, the aged are expensive for government to keep around. The writer Jodie T. Allen once explained the reason for the GOP's "pro-death" policies: faced with an unpalatable choice between cutting benefits and raising taxes to pay for the growing costs of entitlement programs, Republicans gravitated toward a third alternative—restraining growth in life expectancy. If you want lower taxes and aren't willing to risk cutting spending, you need fewer beneficiaries.
I do not wish to alarm older, wealthier readers, but you may find family gatherings becoming increasingly tense over the next year. Do not be surprised if your heirs try to sit you down for a "conversation." And do not be surprised if you experience something like the following nightmare: You're in a hospital bed, hovering in a state of partial consciousness. Beneath the mask, that surgeon has a familiar face … wait, isn't that … Dr. Grassley? And who's that with the syringe—Nurse Palin? At which point, if you are lucky, you will wake up in a cold sweat.
Weisberg is author of The Bush Tragedy.
Death, Republican Style
It's the GOP that's out to get Granny.
Published Aug 29, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Sep 7, 2009
The republicans charge that Democratic health care reform would, in Sen. Charles Grassley's words, "pull the plug on Grandma." According to Sen. Jon Kyl, the bills before Congress would ration medical treatment by age. Rep. John Boehner says they promote euthanasia. Sarah Palin has raised the specter of "death panels." Such fears are understandable. It's not preposterous to imagine laws that would try to save money by encouraging the inconvenient elderly to make an early exit. After all, that's been the Republican policy for years.
It was Grassley himself who devised the "Throw Mama From the Train" provision of the GOP's 2001 tax cut. The estate-tax revision he championed will reduce the estate tax to zero next year. But when it expires at year's end, the tax will jump back up to its previous level of 55 percent. Grassley's exploding tax break has an entirely foreseeable, if unintended, consequence: it incentivizes ailing, elderly rich people to end their lives—paging Dr. Kevorkian—before midnight on Dec. 31, 2010. It also gives their children an incentive to sign DNR orders and switch off respirators in time for the deadline. This would be a great plot for a P. D. James novel if it weren't an actual piece of legislation.
This is not merely hypothetical. Serious economists take the possibility seriously. In a 2001 paper entitled "Dying to Save Taxes," economists from the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia examined 13 changes in U.S. tax law since 1917 and concluded that benefactors die in greater numbers just before tax hikes and just after tax cuts. A 2006 study done in Australia, which abolished its inheritance tax in July 1979, reached the same conclusion. Statistics showed that more than half the people who would ordinarily have died in the last week of June 1979—and whose heirs would have been subject to the tax—managed to avoid it by surviving into July. Republicans in Congress have created a similar inducement for Grandma not to die before January 2010, but to make sure she is gone by January 2011.
Other GOP policies promote death for senior citizens with more modest incomes. Take George W. Bush's failed plan to privatize Social Security—a program that has driven life expectancy up and death rates down since it was instituted. It has an especially pronounced impact on suicide rates for the elderly, which have declined 56 percent since 1930. Had Bush prevailed, those who gambled on the stock market and lost would be less able to afford medicine, food, and heating for their homes. In aggregate, they'd likely die younger and commit suicide more often.
Republicans continue working to short-en and sadden the lives of the elderly in more oblique ways, too. One of President Obama's first official acts was to reverse Bush's executive order limiting government funding for stem-cell research, which remains the most promising avenue for new treatments of diseases that afflict the aged, including Parkinson's and Alz-hei-mer's.
Clean-air legislation, which the Republicans defeated in 2002, has the potential to save 23,000 lives per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Many of those victims are elderly people, who suffer disproportionately from cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses exacerbated by air pollution. Because emissions of carbon monoxide and such are merely a contributing factor, you can't name the individuals who have died because of this policy choice.
But it's reasonable to deduce that there are tens of thousands of people who would still be elderly today if Republicans didn't value the rights and campaign contributions of polluters more highly than their lives.
But why would Republicans be trying to kill old people? After all, senior citizens are more likely to vote for the GOP than for Democrats. They were the only substantial demographic segment John McCain won in 2008. You'd think conservatives would want them to hang on as long as possible. The problem is that because of the Democratic programs Social Security and Medicare, the aged are expensive for government to keep around. The writer Jodie T. Allen once explained the reason for the GOP's "pro-death" policies: faced with an unpalatable choice between cutting benefits and raising taxes to pay for the growing costs of entitlement programs, Republicans gravitated toward a third alternative—restraining growth in life expectancy. If you want lower taxes and aren't willing to risk cutting spending, you need fewer beneficiaries.
I do not wish to alarm older, wealthier readers, but you may find family gatherings becoming increasingly tense over the next year. Do not be surprised if your heirs try to sit you down for a "conversation." And do not be surprised if you experience something like the following nightmare: You're in a hospital bed, hovering in a state of partial consciousness. Beneath the mask, that surgeon has a familiar face … wait, isn't that … Dr. Grassley? And who's that with the syringe—Nurse Palin? At which point, if you are lucky, you will wake up in a cold sweat.
Weisberg is author of The Bush Tragedy.
Larry McMurtry - Rhino Ranch (3)
I finish the book this morning, and thereby finish with the character of Duane Moore. Larry McMurtry first introduced Duane in his 1966 novel THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. Though I saw the movie in 1969, I did not read the book until 2007. Then I proceeded to read the rest of the series---TEXASVILLE & DUANE'S DEPRESSED---before concluding with last year's WHEN THE LIGHT GOES and now RHINO RANCH.
Has there ever been another writer who sustained a character over 43 years? I do not know of one.
I grew fond of Duane, a good old boy from a small town in Texas. He blunders along through life though he does do well financially with oil, and he's able to retire comfortably. He is very provincial, and I laughed when his shrink, Honor Carmichael, gets him to read Proust to broaden his horizons. The family is crazy, and I laugh when one of his grandsons, Willy, becomes a Rhodes Scholar. Willy seems to be the only Moore who escapes Texas.
Everything in the series seems to happen by accident----for these people, life is accidental for no one ever seems to plan anything to fruition. Sometimes I think I'm reading Thomas Hardy.
The novel builds on the previous 4 in the series. If you haven't read the preceeding volumes, don't bother with this one.
You can say this book is shallow and superficial, and it is, but it's enjoyable if you've read and like the previous books in the series and if you wish to know what happens to Duane Moore, and I qualifiy on both counts.
McMurtry races through the final years. I laugh when Duane goes to Europe. Aren't we all supposed to cross the Atlantic before we die? Someone told me about flying to England. From Atlanta you fly up the East Coast then up over Nova Scotia and across the pond. It seems funny but it makes sense when you look at the globe.
Goodbye, Duane. I will miss you.
Has there ever been another writer who sustained a character over 43 years? I do not know of one.
I grew fond of Duane, a good old boy from a small town in Texas. He blunders along through life though he does do well financially with oil, and he's able to retire comfortably. He is very provincial, and I laughed when his shrink, Honor Carmichael, gets him to read Proust to broaden his horizons. The family is crazy, and I laugh when one of his grandsons, Willy, becomes a Rhodes Scholar. Willy seems to be the only Moore who escapes Texas.
Everything in the series seems to happen by accident----for these people, life is accidental for no one ever seems to plan anything to fruition. Sometimes I think I'm reading Thomas Hardy.
The novel builds on the previous 4 in the series. If you haven't read the preceeding volumes, don't bother with this one.
You can say this book is shallow and superficial, and it is, but it's enjoyable if you've read and like the previous books in the series and if you wish to know what happens to Duane Moore, and I qualifiy on both counts.
McMurtry races through the final years. I laugh when Duane goes to Europe. Aren't we all supposed to cross the Atlantic before we die? Someone told me about flying to England. From Atlanta you fly up the East Coast then up over Nova Scotia and across the pond. It seems funny but it makes sense when you look at the globe.
Goodbye, Duane. I will miss you.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Health Care Fit for Animals
BY Nicholas D. Kristof
26 August 2009
New York Times
Opponents suggest that a “government takeover” of health care will be a milestone on the road to “socialized medicine,” and when he hears those terms, Wendell Potter cringes. He’s embarrassed that opponents are using a playbook that he helped devise.
“Over the years I helped craft this messaging and deliver it,” he noted.
Mr. Potter was an executive in the health insurance industry for nearly 20 years before his conscience got the better of him. He served as head of corporate communications for Humana and then for Cigna.
He flew in corporate jets to industry meetings to plan how to block health reform, he says. He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.
Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast — but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.
A month later, Mr. Potter was back home in Tennessee, visiting his parents, and dropped in on a three-day charity program at a county fairgrounds to provide medical care for patients who could not afford doctors. Long lines of people were waiting in the rain, and patients were being examined and treated in public in stalls intended for livestock.
“It was a life-changing event to witness that,” he remembered. Increasingly, he found himself despising himself for helping block health reforms. “It sounds hokey, but I would look in the mirror and think, how did I get into this?”
Mr. Potter loved his office, his executive salary, his bonus, his stock options. “How can I walk away from a job that pays me so well?” he wondered. But at the age of 56, he announced his retirement and left Cigna last year.
This year, he went public with his concerns, testifying before a Senate committee investigating the insurance industry.
“I knew that once I did that my life would be different,” he said. “I wouldn’t be getting any more calls from recruiters for the health industry. It was the scariest thing I have done in my life. But it was the right thing to do.”
Mr. Potter says he liked his colleagues and bosses in the insurance industry, and respected them. They are not evil. But he adds that they are removed from the consequences of their decisions, as he was, and are obsessed with sustaining the company’s stock price — which means paying fewer medical bills.
One way to do that is to deny requests for expensive procedures. A second is “rescission” — seizing upon a technicality to cancel the policy of someone who has been paying premiums and finally gets cancer or some other expensive disease. A Congressional investigation into rescission found that three insurers, including Blue Cross of California, used this technique to cancel more than 20,000 policies over five years, saving the companies $300 million in claims.
As The Los Angeles Times has reported, insurers encourage this approach through performance evaluations. One Blue Cross employee earned a perfect evaluation score after dropping thousands of policyholders who faced nearly $10 million in medical expenses.
Mr. Potter notes that a third tactic is for insurers to raise premiums for a small business astronomically after an employee is found to have an illness that will be very expensive to treat. That forces the business to drop coverage for all its employees or go elsewhere.
All this is monstrous, and it negates the entire point of insurance, which is to spread risk.
The insurers are open to one kind of reform — universal coverage through mandates and subsidies, so as to give them more customers and more profits. But they don’t want the reforms that will most help patients, such as a public insurance option, enforced competition and tighter regulation.
Mr. Potter argues that much tougher regulation is essential. He also believes that a robust public option is an essential part of any health reform, to compete with for-profit insurers and keep them honest.
As a nation, we’re at a turning point. Universal health coverage has been proposed for nearly a century in the United States. It was in an early draft of Social Security.
Yet each time, it has been defeated in part by fear-mongering industry lobbyists. That may happen this time as well — unless the Obama administration and Congress defeat these manipulative special interests. What’s un-American isn’t a greater government role in health care but an existing system in which Americans without insurance get health care, if at all, in livestock pens.
26 August 2009
New York Times
Opponents suggest that a “government takeover” of health care will be a milestone on the road to “socialized medicine,” and when he hears those terms, Wendell Potter cringes. He’s embarrassed that opponents are using a playbook that he helped devise.
“Over the years I helped craft this messaging and deliver it,” he noted.
Mr. Potter was an executive in the health insurance industry for nearly 20 years before his conscience got the better of him. He served as head of corporate communications for Humana and then for Cigna.
He flew in corporate jets to industry meetings to plan how to block health reform, he says. He rode in limousines to confabs to concoct messaging to scare the public about reform. But in his heart, he began to have doubts as the business model for insurance evolved in recent years from spreading risk to dumping the risky.
Then in 2007 Mr. Potter attended a premiere of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s excoriating film about the American health care system. Mr. Potter was taking notes so that he could prepare a propaganda counterblast — but he found himself agreeing with a great deal of the film.
A month later, Mr. Potter was back home in Tennessee, visiting his parents, and dropped in on a three-day charity program at a county fairgrounds to provide medical care for patients who could not afford doctors. Long lines of people were waiting in the rain, and patients were being examined and treated in public in stalls intended for livestock.
“It was a life-changing event to witness that,” he remembered. Increasingly, he found himself despising himself for helping block health reforms. “It sounds hokey, but I would look in the mirror and think, how did I get into this?”
Mr. Potter loved his office, his executive salary, his bonus, his stock options. “How can I walk away from a job that pays me so well?” he wondered. But at the age of 56, he announced his retirement and left Cigna last year.
This year, he went public with his concerns, testifying before a Senate committee investigating the insurance industry.
“I knew that once I did that my life would be different,” he said. “I wouldn’t be getting any more calls from recruiters for the health industry. It was the scariest thing I have done in my life. But it was the right thing to do.”
Mr. Potter says he liked his colleagues and bosses in the insurance industry, and respected them. They are not evil. But he adds that they are removed from the consequences of their decisions, as he was, and are obsessed with sustaining the company’s stock price — which means paying fewer medical bills.
One way to do that is to deny requests for expensive procedures. A second is “rescission” — seizing upon a technicality to cancel the policy of someone who has been paying premiums and finally gets cancer or some other expensive disease. A Congressional investigation into rescission found that three insurers, including Blue Cross of California, used this technique to cancel more than 20,000 policies over five years, saving the companies $300 million in claims.
As The Los Angeles Times has reported, insurers encourage this approach through performance evaluations. One Blue Cross employee earned a perfect evaluation score after dropping thousands of policyholders who faced nearly $10 million in medical expenses.
Mr. Potter notes that a third tactic is for insurers to raise premiums for a small business astronomically after an employee is found to have an illness that will be very expensive to treat. That forces the business to drop coverage for all its employees or go elsewhere.
All this is monstrous, and it negates the entire point of insurance, which is to spread risk.
The insurers are open to one kind of reform — universal coverage through mandates and subsidies, so as to give them more customers and more profits. But they don’t want the reforms that will most help patients, such as a public insurance option, enforced competition and tighter regulation.
Mr. Potter argues that much tougher regulation is essential. He also believes that a robust public option is an essential part of any health reform, to compete with for-profit insurers and keep them honest.
As a nation, we’re at a turning point. Universal health coverage has been proposed for nearly a century in the United States. It was in an early draft of Social Security.
Yet each time, it has been defeated in part by fear-mongering industry lobbyists. That may happen this time as well — unless the Obama administration and Congress defeat these manipulative special interests. What’s un-American isn’t a greater government role in health care but an existing system in which Americans without insurance get health care, if at all, in livestock pens.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Crazy is a Preexisting Condition
I love it! Crazy is a preexisting condition. And yes, these people have no shame.
From Paul Krugman
New York Times Blog
August 26, 2009, 4:26 pm — Updated: 4:26 pm -->
All out of shrill
Steven Pearlstein has an outraged column about
the lies, distortions and political scare tactics that Steele and other Republicans have used to poison the national debate over health reform.
And he concludes,
Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
It’s all true. But I’m having a hard time writing columns like that. Why? Because while the raw dishonesty of the modern GOP appears to be a revelation to Pearlstein, Joe Klein, and others, I thought it was obvious at least as far back as the 2000 election campaign. (If I’d really been paying attention, it would have been obvious much earlier.)
Don’t get me wrong: I welcome Pearlstein and Klein to the reality-based community — better 9 years late than never. And in a way they have an advantage: having fought this thing for so long, I just can’t muster the same sense of shock. But I think it is important to realize that the current behavior over health care is nothing new — in fact, it’s been this way for a very long time.
As Rick Perlstein, our premier historian of the rise of modern movement conservatism, puts it, crazy is a pre-existing condition.
From Paul Krugman
New York Times Blog
August 26, 2009, 4:26 pm — Updated: 4:26 pm -->
All out of shrill
Steven Pearlstein has an outraged column about
the lies, distortions and political scare tactics that Steele and other Republicans have used to poison the national debate over health reform.
And he concludes,
Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
It’s all true. But I’m having a hard time writing columns like that. Why? Because while the raw dishonesty of the modern GOP appears to be a revelation to Pearlstein, Joe Klein, and others, I thought it was obvious at least as far back as the 2000 election campaign. (If I’d really been paying attention, it would have been obvious much earlier.)
Don’t get me wrong: I welcome Pearlstein and Klein to the reality-based community — better 9 years late than never. And in a way they have an advantage: having fought this thing for so long, I just can’t muster the same sense of shock. But I think it is important to realize that the current behavior over health care is nothing new — in fact, it’s been this way for a very long time.
As Rick Perlstein, our premier historian of the rise of modern movement conservatism, puts it, crazy is a pre-existing condition.
Republicans Never Change
26 Aug 2009 06:46 pm
Ronald Reagan and Health Care Reform by Hanna RosinMatt Yglesias once pointed out that we already have socialized, single-payer style healthcare. It's called Medicare, and it's one of our most popular social programs. This morning I heard a clip of Ronald Reagan, then candidate for governor, speaking about the prospect of Medicare, and sounding very much like today's town hall critics.
If this program passes, one of these years we will tell our children and our children's children what it was like in American when men were free. And:
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. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it. Just so you get it, that was almost fifty years ago.
Ronald Reagan and Health Care Reform by Hanna RosinMatt Yglesias once pointed out that we already have socialized, single-payer style healthcare. It's called Medicare, and it's one of our most popular social programs. This morning I heard a clip of Ronald Reagan, then candidate for governor, speaking about the prospect of Medicare, and sounding very much like today's town hall critics.
If this program passes, one of these years we will tell our children and our children's children what it was like in American when men were free. And:
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. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it. Just so you get it, that was almost fifty years ago.
Krugman on Ted Kennedy
August 26, 2009, 9:54 am — Updated: 9:54 am -->
Ted Kennedy
I don’t have much to say, except a personal thought. I remember the days, several decades ago, when Ted Kennedy was treated — mainly, but not only, on the right — as a figure of derision. He was mocked for his appearance, his personal life, his unabashed liberalism.
And now he’s remembered as a great man. The thing is, he didn’t change — he always was.
Ted Kennedy
I don’t have much to say, except a personal thought. I remember the days, several decades ago, when Ted Kennedy was treated — mainly, but not only, on the right — as a figure of derision. He was mocked for his appearance, his personal life, his unabashed liberalism.
And now he’s remembered as a great man. The thing is, he didn’t change — he always was.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
An Important Article
This is an important article and when I have more time to think about it I will comment. It deals with why people believe things that are obviously false.
Sharon Begley
Lies of Mass Destruction
The same skewed thinking that supports a Saddam-9/11 link explains the power of health-care myths.
Aug 25, 2009
I was not exactly surprised at the e-mails I got in response to my story analyzing why the myths about health-care reform—even the totally loony ones, like death panels—have gained such traction. One retired military officer called me "nothing more than an 'Obama Zombie' that has lost touch with reality," while a housewife sweetly suggested that I sign up for "socialistic medicine" and die, the sooner the better. (My kids get upset when people wish me dead, but hey, they'll survive.) But now I think I understand people who believe the health-care lies—and the Obama-was-born-in-Kenya lie—even better than when I wrote that piece.
Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama's citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo. "Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief," he says, "people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe." And God knows, in the Internet age there is no dearth of sources to confirm even the most ludicrous claims (my favorite being that the moon landings were faked). "For the most part," says Hoffman, "people completely ignore contrary information" and are able to "develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information."
His conclusions arise from a study he and six colleagues conducted. They were looking at the well-known phenomenon of Americans believing that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Some people, mostly liberals, have blamed that on false information and innuendo spread by the Bush administration and its GOP allies (by former members of the Bush White House, too, as recently as this past March). (As Dick Cheney said in June, suspicion of a link "turned out not to be true.") But the researchers think another force is at work. In a paper to be published in the September issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry(you have to subscribe to the journal to read the full paper, but the authors kindly posted it on their Web site here), they argue that some Americans believe the Saddam-9/11 link because it "made sense of the administration's decision to go to war against Iraq . . . [T]he fact of the war led to a search for a justification for it, which led them to infer the existence of ties between Iraq and 9/11," they write.
For their study, the scientists whittled down surveys filled out by 246 voters, of whom 73 percent believed in a Saddam-9/11 link, to 49 believers who were willing to be interviewed at length in October 2004. Even after the 49 were shown newspaper articles reporting that the 9/11 Commission had not found any evidence linking Saddam and 9/11, and quoting President Bush himself denying it, 48 stuck to their guns: yup, Saddam Hussein, directly or indirectly, brought down the Twin Towers.
When the scientists asked the participants why they believed in the link, they offered many justifications. Five argued that Saddam supported terrorism generally, or that evidence of a link to 9/11 might yet emerge. These counterarguments are not entirely illogical. But almost everyone else offered some version of "I don't know; I don't know anything"—that is, outright confusion over the conflict between what they believed and what the facts showed—or switched subjects to the invasion of Iraq. As one put it, when asked about his Saddam-9/11 belief, "There is no doubt in my mind that if we did not deal with Saddam Hussein when we did, it was just a matter of time when we would have to deal with him." In other words, holding fast to the Saddam-9/11 belief helped people make sense of the decision to go to war against Iraq.
"We refer to this as 'inferred justification,'" says Hoffman. Inferred justification is a sort of backward chain of reasoning. You start with something you believe strongly (the invasion of Iraq was the right move) and work backward to find support for it (Saddam was behind 9/11). "For these voters," says Hoffman, "the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war."
For an explanation of this behavior, look no further than the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance. This theory holds that when people are presented with information that contradicts preexisting beliefs, they try to relieve the cognitive tension one way or another. They process and respond to information defensively, for instance: their belief challenged by fact, they ignore the latter. They also accept and seek out confirming information but ignore, discredit the source of, or argue against contrary information, studies have shown.
Which brings us back to health-care reform—in particular, the apoplexy at town-hall meetings and the effectiveness of the lies being spread about health-care reform proposals. First of all, let's remember that 59,934,814 voters cast their ballot for John McCain, so we can assume that tens of millions of Americans believe the wrong guy is in the White House. To justify that belief, they need to find evidence that he's leading the country astray. What better evidence of that than to seize on the misinformation about Obama's health-care reform ideas and believe that he wants to insure illegal aliens, for example, and give the Feds electronic access to doctors' bank accounts?
Obama's opponents also need to find evidence that their reading of him back in November was correct. They therefore seize on "confirmation" that he wants to, for instance, redistribute the wealth, as in his “spread the wealth around” remark to Joe the Plumber—finding such confirmation in the claims that health-care reform will do just that, redistributing health care from those who have it now to the 46 million currently uninsured. Similarly, they seize on anything that confirms the “socialist” label that got pinned on Obama during the campaign, or the pro-abortion label—anything to comfort themselves that they made the right choice last November.
There are legitimate, fact-based reasons to oppose health-care reform. But some of the loudest opposition is the result of confirmatory bias, cognitive dissonance, and other examples of mental processes that have gone off the rails.
Sharon Begley
Lies of Mass Destruction
The same skewed thinking that supports a Saddam-9/11 link explains the power of health-care myths.
Aug 25, 2009
I was not exactly surprised at the e-mails I got in response to my story analyzing why the myths about health-care reform—even the totally loony ones, like death panels—have gained such traction. One retired military officer called me "nothing more than an 'Obama Zombie' that has lost touch with reality," while a housewife sweetly suggested that I sign up for "socialistic medicine" and die, the sooner the better. (My kids get upset when people wish me dead, but hey, they'll survive.) But now I think I understand people who believe the health-care lies—and the Obama-was-born-in-Kenya lie—even better than when I wrote that piece.
Some people form and cling to false beliefs about health-care reform (or Obama's citizenship) despite overwhelming evidence thanks to a mental phenomenon called motivated reasoning, says sociologist Steven Hoffman, visiting assistant professor at the University at Buffalo. "Rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief," he says, "people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe." And God knows, in the Internet age there is no dearth of sources to confirm even the most ludicrous claims (my favorite being that the moon landings were faked). "For the most part," says Hoffman, "people completely ignore contrary information" and are able to "develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information."
His conclusions arise from a study he and six colleagues conducted. They were looking at the well-known phenomenon of Americans believing that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Some people, mostly liberals, have blamed that on false information and innuendo spread by the Bush administration and its GOP allies (by former members of the Bush White House, too, as recently as this past March). (As Dick Cheney said in June, suspicion of a link "turned out not to be true.") But the researchers think another force is at work. In a paper to be published in the September issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry(you have to subscribe to the journal to read the full paper, but the authors kindly posted it on their Web site here), they argue that some Americans believe the Saddam-9/11 link because it "made sense of the administration's decision to go to war against Iraq . . . [T]he fact of the war led to a search for a justification for it, which led them to infer the existence of ties between Iraq and 9/11," they write.
For their study, the scientists whittled down surveys filled out by 246 voters, of whom 73 percent believed in a Saddam-9/11 link, to 49 believers who were willing to be interviewed at length in October 2004. Even after the 49 were shown newspaper articles reporting that the 9/11 Commission had not found any evidence linking Saddam and 9/11, and quoting President Bush himself denying it, 48 stuck to their guns: yup, Saddam Hussein, directly or indirectly, brought down the Twin Towers.
When the scientists asked the participants why they believed in the link, they offered many justifications. Five argued that Saddam supported terrorism generally, or that evidence of a link to 9/11 might yet emerge. These counterarguments are not entirely illogical. But almost everyone else offered some version of "I don't know; I don't know anything"—that is, outright confusion over the conflict between what they believed and what the facts showed—or switched subjects to the invasion of Iraq. As one put it, when asked about his Saddam-9/11 belief, "There is no doubt in my mind that if we did not deal with Saddam Hussein when we did, it was just a matter of time when we would have to deal with him." In other words, holding fast to the Saddam-9/11 belief helped people make sense of the decision to go to war against Iraq.
"We refer to this as 'inferred justification,'" says Hoffman. Inferred justification is a sort of backward chain of reasoning. You start with something you believe strongly (the invasion of Iraq was the right move) and work backward to find support for it (Saddam was behind 9/11). "For these voters," says Hoffman, "the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war."
For an explanation of this behavior, look no further than the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance. This theory holds that when people are presented with information that contradicts preexisting beliefs, they try to relieve the cognitive tension one way or another. They process and respond to information defensively, for instance: their belief challenged by fact, they ignore the latter. They also accept and seek out confirming information but ignore, discredit the source of, or argue against contrary information, studies have shown.
Which brings us back to health-care reform—in particular, the apoplexy at town-hall meetings and the effectiveness of the lies being spread about health-care reform proposals. First of all, let's remember that 59,934,814 voters cast their ballot for John McCain, so we can assume that tens of millions of Americans believe the wrong guy is in the White House. To justify that belief, they need to find evidence that he's leading the country astray. What better evidence of that than to seize on the misinformation about Obama's health-care reform ideas and believe that he wants to insure illegal aliens, for example, and give the Feds electronic access to doctors' bank accounts?
Obama's opponents also need to find evidence that their reading of him back in November was correct. They therefore seize on "confirmation" that he wants to, for instance, redistribute the wealth, as in his “spread the wealth around” remark to Joe the Plumber—finding such confirmation in the claims that health-care reform will do just that, redistributing health care from those who have it now to the 46 million currently uninsured. Similarly, they seize on anything that confirms the “socialist” label that got pinned on Obama during the campaign, or the pro-abortion label—anything to comfort themselves that they made the right choice last November.
There are legitimate, fact-based reasons to oppose health-care reform. But some of the loudest opposition is the result of confirmatory bias, cognitive dissonance, and other examples of mental processes that have gone off the rails.
N.Y. Times mines its data to identify words that readers find abstruse
BY Zachary M. Seward
from the Nieman Journalism Lab (http://www.niemanlab.org/)
If The New York Times ever strikes you as an abstruse glut of antediluvian perorations, if the newspaper’s profligacy of neologisms and shibboleths ever set off apoplectic paroxysms in you, if it all seems a bit recondite, here’s a reason to be sanguine: The Times has great data on the words that send readers in search of a dictionary.
As you may know, highlighting a word or passage on the Times website calls up a question mark that users can click for a definition and other reference material. (Though the feature was recently improved, it remains a mild annoyance for myself and many others who nervously click and highlight text on webpages.) Anyway, it turns out the Times tracks usage of that feature, and yesterday, deputy news editor Philip Corbett, who oversees the Times style manual, offered reporters a fascinating glimpse into the 50 most frequently looked-up words on nytimes.com in 2009. We obtained the memo and accompanying chart, which offer a nice lesson in how news sites can improve their journalism by studying user behavior.
All of the 25-cent words I used in the lede of this post are on the list. The most confusing to readers, with 7,645 look-ups through May 26, is sui generis, the Latin term roughly meaning “unique” that’s frequently used in legal contexts. The most ironic word is laconic (#4), which means “concise.” The most curious is louche (#3), which means “dubious” or “shady” and, as Corbett observes in his memo, inexplicably found its way into the paper 27 times over 5 months. (A Nexis search reveals that the word is all over the arts pages, and Maureen Dowd is a repeat offender.)
Corbett also notes that some words, like pandemic (#24), appear on the list merely because they are used so often. Along those lines, feckless (#17) and fecklessness (#50) appear to be the favorite confounding words of Times opinion writers. The most looked-up word per instance of usage is saturnine (#5), which Dowd wielded to describe Dick Cheney’s policy on torture.
This is mostly just interesting — quiz: how many of these words can you define? — but it’s also a reminder that news sites are sitting on a wealth of data, from popular search terms to click rates, that can help them adjust to reader preferences. So are Times scribes being asked to rein in their vocabularies? That might be a Sisyphean (#37) task, but no, Corbett merely advised reporters to “avoid the temptation to display our erudition at the reader’s expense.”
After the jump, I’ve taken the original chart of 50 words, which was compiled by director of web analytics James Robinson, and run my own spreadsheet that also calculates look-ups per use.
Most frequently looked-up words on NYTimes.com, 2009
Jan. 1 - May 26, 2009
from the Nieman Journalism Lab (http://www.niemanlab.org/)
If The New York Times ever strikes you as an abstruse glut of antediluvian perorations, if the newspaper’s profligacy of neologisms and shibboleths ever set off apoplectic paroxysms in you, if it all seems a bit recondite, here’s a reason to be sanguine: The Times has great data on the words that send readers in search of a dictionary.
As you may know, highlighting a word or passage on the Times website calls up a question mark that users can click for a definition and other reference material. (Though the feature was recently improved, it remains a mild annoyance for myself and many others who nervously click and highlight text on webpages.) Anyway, it turns out the Times tracks usage of that feature, and yesterday, deputy news editor Philip Corbett, who oversees the Times style manual, offered reporters a fascinating glimpse into the 50 most frequently looked-up words on nytimes.com in 2009. We obtained the memo and accompanying chart, which offer a nice lesson in how news sites can improve their journalism by studying user behavior.
All of the 25-cent words I used in the lede of this post are on the list. The most confusing to readers, with 7,645 look-ups through May 26, is sui generis, the Latin term roughly meaning “unique” that’s frequently used in legal contexts. The most ironic word is laconic (#4), which means “concise.” The most curious is louche (#3), which means “dubious” or “shady” and, as Corbett observes in his memo, inexplicably found its way into the paper 27 times over 5 months. (A Nexis search reveals that the word is all over the arts pages, and Maureen Dowd is a repeat offender.)
Corbett also notes that some words, like pandemic (#24), appear on the list merely because they are used so often. Along those lines, feckless (#17) and fecklessness (#50) appear to be the favorite confounding words of Times opinion writers. The most looked-up word per instance of usage is saturnine (#5), which Dowd wielded to describe Dick Cheney’s policy on torture.
This is mostly just interesting — quiz: how many of these words can you define? — but it’s also a reminder that news sites are sitting on a wealth of data, from popular search terms to click rates, that can help them adjust to reader preferences. So are Times scribes being asked to rein in their vocabularies? That might be a Sisyphean (#37) task, but no, Corbett merely advised reporters to “avoid the temptation to display our erudition at the reader’s expense.”
After the jump, I’ve taken the original chart of 50 words, which was compiled by director of web analytics James Robinson, and run my own spreadsheet that also calculates look-ups per use.
Most frequently looked-up words on NYTimes.com, 2009
Jan. 1 - May 26, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
How the Republicans Do It
They promulgate falsehoods deliberately and then later say weakly, "Oh, I didn't mean it. It isn't true what I said." This after further poisioning the body politic and inciting Town Hall Meeting yahoos. This from Senator Grassley, a 59-yr. man (my age), a wheezing smoker who looks like he's 79. If he didn't have his goverment health insurance, I wonder how many insurance companies would be looking to insure him.
FROM NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) acknowledged on Sunday that the claims he made two weeks ago -- that Democratic health care legislation would allow the government to "pull the plug on grandma" -- did not reflect the language of the bills.
In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," the Iowa Republican admitted that the current legislation being considered by Congress didn't include the infamous death panel provision that would allow the government to determine who should live or die.
"I know the Pelosi bill doesn't intend to do that," said Grassley. "It won't do that," he added later.
Grassley's admission concludes several weeks of speculation as to why the senator, one of three key Republicans negotiating a bipartisan health care bill, would latch on to the infamous myth. The White House insisted that it still wanted to work with Grassley even after he made his remarks. But on Capitol Hill and outside of government, Democrats were furious that the key GOP point person for a bipartisan bill was deploying such toxic rhetoric.
But if Grassley's initial statement seemed bizarre, his explanation for making the remark was equally curious. The Iowa Republican said he was merely trying to quell concerns of constituents who had read about death panels on the internet and grew scared when they heard talk of increased government involvement in the health care system.
"I was responding to a question at my town hall meetings," he told host Bob Schieffer. "I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the internet. It scared my constituents. And the specific language I used was language that the president had used at Portsmouth. And I thought that if he used the language, then if I responded exactly the same way, that I had an opposite concern about not using end-of-life counseling for saving money, then I was answering and relieving the fears that my constituents had."
"And from that standpoint, remember, you're talking about this issue being connected with a government-run program which a public option would take you with, you would get into the issue of saving money, and put these three things together and you are scaring a lot of people," he added. "I know the Pelosi bill doesn't intend to do that. But that's where it leads people to."
Touching of the bizarreness of the whole segment, earlier in the program it was Grassley who was accusing the White House of damaging health care negotiations by sending mixed messages on its beliefs and preferences.
"It would help if we did not get conflicting views from the White House," he said.
FROM NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) acknowledged on Sunday that the claims he made two weeks ago -- that Democratic health care legislation would allow the government to "pull the plug on grandma" -- did not reflect the language of the bills.
In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," the Iowa Republican admitted that the current legislation being considered by Congress didn't include the infamous death panel provision that would allow the government to determine who should live or die.
"I know the Pelosi bill doesn't intend to do that," said Grassley. "It won't do that," he added later.
Grassley's admission concludes several weeks of speculation as to why the senator, one of three key Republicans negotiating a bipartisan health care bill, would latch on to the infamous myth. The White House insisted that it still wanted to work with Grassley even after he made his remarks. But on Capitol Hill and outside of government, Democrats were furious that the key GOP point person for a bipartisan bill was deploying such toxic rhetoric.
But if Grassley's initial statement seemed bizarre, his explanation for making the remark was equally curious. The Iowa Republican said he was merely trying to quell concerns of constituents who had read about death panels on the internet and grew scared when they heard talk of increased government involvement in the health care system.
"I was responding to a question at my town hall meetings," he told host Bob Schieffer. "I let my constituents set the agenda. A person that asked me that question was reading from language that they got off of the internet. It scared my constituents. And the specific language I used was language that the president had used at Portsmouth. And I thought that if he used the language, then if I responded exactly the same way, that I had an opposite concern about not using end-of-life counseling for saving money, then I was answering and relieving the fears that my constituents had."
"And from that standpoint, remember, you're talking about this issue being connected with a government-run program which a public option would take you with, you would get into the issue of saving money, and put these three things together and you are scaring a lot of people," he added. "I know the Pelosi bill doesn't intend to do that. But that's where it leads people to."
Touching of the bizarreness of the whole segment, earlier in the program it was Grassley who was accusing the White House of damaging health care negotiations by sending mixed messages on its beliefs and preferences.
"It would help if we did not get conflicting views from the White House," he said.
Exposing Health Care Hypocrisy
By Daniel Gross Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 20, 2009 Updated: 11:11 a.m. ET Aug 20, 2009
You have to give Whole FoodsCEO John Mackey credit for having the courage of his convictions. Last week, the libertarian penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that national health care was a step toward socialism and advocating a series of alternative steps—including healthier eating and high-deductible insurance policies of the type that Whole Foods employees are offered. A Whole Foods spokeswoman told me that Mackey "participates in the same plan that is offered to all of our Whole Foods Market team members," which includes a "combination of high-deductible health insurance and a Personal Wellness Account." (Whole Foods pays the premium for full-timers' health insurance and puts up to $1,800 into the savings accounts.) In Mackey's case, what's good for the free-range goose is good for the free-range gander.
The same can't be said for the legions of people you hear on television, or read in the op-ed pages, or chat with at weekend barbecues, raging about taxpayer-funded health care as an unworkable, inefficient, Orwellian evil.
This is a something of a Churchillian moment. Never before have so many known so little about so much. The meme that my Slate colleague Timothy Noah has been tracking about Medicare not being a government program has two sources: ignorance and mendacity. Some people may really not know that Medicare is taxpayer-funded health care. That's ignorance. Many more people know it—and know the degree to which taxpayers are already funding lots of health care for them and their loved ones—and argue otherwise. That's mendacity.
As we've noted before, if you add the failure of employer-linked health care with Medicare, Medicaid, government employment, and the military, a huge chunk of Americans already have taxpayer-funded health care. It's a diverse lot. Rich old people and poor kids, university professors, congressmen, teachers, DMV clerks and their families. Pretty much everybody you see on CNBC yelling about socialism? Their parents and grandparents (if they're still living) get taxpayer-funded health insurance. Mine do. Charles Grassley, the septuagenarian Iowan who is doing his darnedest to torpedo meaningful health care form, has it. Arthur Laffer, the 69-year-old economist who went on television and suggested that Medicare isn't a government health care program, is eligible for Medicare. Dick Armey, who spent many years teaching at a state university and served several terms in Congress, has had taxpayer-funded health insurance for much of his adult life. Same for Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. Democratic senators like Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, and Ben Nelson? Yes, yes, and yes. Law professors at the University of Tennessee have it. The employees of George Mason University, which houses the free-market Mercatus Center, do, too. Policy analyst Betsy McCaughey, currently reprising her 1990s role of health care bamboozler, will be eligible for it in a few years' time.
Obvious? Yes. But it's still worth pointing out. All these people rely on—or have relied on—the government to pick up the tab for their health care and for their health insurance. And that hasn't caused euthanasia or the abolition of private property. Funny how you don't hear any complaints from worthies about taxpayer-funded health insurance when it's covering them, their staffs, and their loved ones. For many of these people, especially the older ones, there literally is no affordable alternative. Insurance companies prefer to insure healthy people, not sick people—that's how they make money. And older people are more likely to run into health trouble requiring expensive care. Dick Armey, who is suing to get out from under the tyranny of Medicare, is apparently under the illusion that insurance companies are really eager to cover 69-year-old men at a low cost. House Minority Leader John Boehner is a 59-year-old smoker whose skin has an orange hue. What do you think Aetna would charge him per month for a good policy?
After the stock-research scandals of the 1990s, analysts were required to disclose whether they or their families owned stock in the companies they were talking about. That has since emerged as a key gauge of credibility. I'd like to see something similar for the health care debate. Before they weigh in on the prospects for health care reform, interview subjects—pundits, talking heads, policy wonks, editors, members of Congress—would have to disclose whether they or their family members rely on taxpayer-funded health insurance.
Such a disclosure might eat into valuable airtime. But it would clarify the debate. We're witnessing a conversation between various people who are dependent on taxpayer-funded health insurance telling the public why tens of millions of people shouldn't have access to it. Most of the opponents of universal health care don't really think the public provision of health insurance services is immoral, evil, or socialistic—after all, they'd be at risk of bankruptcy without it. And most aren't opposed to deficit spending as a matter of principle. (How do they think we're paying for the Medicare prescription drug entitlement the Republicans rammed through a few years ago?) In effect, they believe that taxpayer-funded health insurance is appropriate and crucial for some people—themselves, their staffs, their parents—but not for others; that some are entitled to it, and that others simply aren't. In Washington, unlike at Whole Foods, they want us to believe that what's good for the goose will poison the gander.
© 2009
Aug 20, 2009 Updated: 11:11 a.m. ET Aug 20, 2009
You have to give Whole FoodsCEO John Mackey credit for having the courage of his convictions. Last week, the libertarian penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that national health care was a step toward socialism and advocating a series of alternative steps—including healthier eating and high-deductible insurance policies of the type that Whole Foods employees are offered. A Whole Foods spokeswoman told me that Mackey "participates in the same plan that is offered to all of our Whole Foods Market team members," which includes a "combination of high-deductible health insurance and a Personal Wellness Account." (Whole Foods pays the premium for full-timers' health insurance and puts up to $1,800 into the savings accounts.) In Mackey's case, what's good for the free-range goose is good for the free-range gander.
The same can't be said for the legions of people you hear on television, or read in the op-ed pages, or chat with at weekend barbecues, raging about taxpayer-funded health care as an unworkable, inefficient, Orwellian evil.
This is a something of a Churchillian moment. Never before have so many known so little about so much. The meme that my Slate colleague Timothy Noah has been tracking about Medicare not being a government program has two sources: ignorance and mendacity. Some people may really not know that Medicare is taxpayer-funded health care. That's ignorance. Many more people know it—and know the degree to which taxpayers are already funding lots of health care for them and their loved ones—and argue otherwise. That's mendacity.
As we've noted before, if you add the failure of employer-linked health care with Medicare, Medicaid, government employment, and the military, a huge chunk of Americans already have taxpayer-funded health care. It's a diverse lot. Rich old people and poor kids, university professors, congressmen, teachers, DMV clerks and their families. Pretty much everybody you see on CNBC yelling about socialism? Their parents and grandparents (if they're still living) get taxpayer-funded health insurance. Mine do. Charles Grassley, the septuagenarian Iowan who is doing his darnedest to torpedo meaningful health care form, has it. Arthur Laffer, the 69-year-old economist who went on television and suggested that Medicare isn't a government health care program, is eligible for Medicare. Dick Armey, who spent many years teaching at a state university and served several terms in Congress, has had taxpayer-funded health insurance for much of his adult life. Same for Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. Democratic senators like Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, and Ben Nelson? Yes, yes, and yes. Law professors at the University of Tennessee have it. The employees of George Mason University, which houses the free-market Mercatus Center, do, too. Policy analyst Betsy McCaughey, currently reprising her 1990s role of health care bamboozler, will be eligible for it in a few years' time.
Obvious? Yes. But it's still worth pointing out. All these people rely on—or have relied on—the government to pick up the tab for their health care and for their health insurance. And that hasn't caused euthanasia or the abolition of private property. Funny how you don't hear any complaints from worthies about taxpayer-funded health insurance when it's covering them, their staffs, and their loved ones. For many of these people, especially the older ones, there literally is no affordable alternative. Insurance companies prefer to insure healthy people, not sick people—that's how they make money. And older people are more likely to run into health trouble requiring expensive care. Dick Armey, who is suing to get out from under the tyranny of Medicare, is apparently under the illusion that insurance companies are really eager to cover 69-year-old men at a low cost. House Minority Leader John Boehner is a 59-year-old smoker whose skin has an orange hue. What do you think Aetna would charge him per month for a good policy?
After the stock-research scandals of the 1990s, analysts were required to disclose whether they or their families owned stock in the companies they were talking about. That has since emerged as a key gauge of credibility. I'd like to see something similar for the health care debate. Before they weigh in on the prospects for health care reform, interview subjects—pundits, talking heads, policy wonks, editors, members of Congress—would have to disclose whether they or their family members rely on taxpayer-funded health insurance.
Such a disclosure might eat into valuable airtime. But it would clarify the debate. We're witnessing a conversation between various people who are dependent on taxpayer-funded health insurance telling the public why tens of millions of people shouldn't have access to it. Most of the opponents of universal health care don't really think the public provision of health insurance services is immoral, evil, or socialistic—after all, they'd be at risk of bankruptcy without it. And most aren't opposed to deficit spending as a matter of principle. (How do they think we're paying for the Medicare prescription drug entitlement the Republicans rammed through a few years ago?) In effect, they believe that taxpayer-funded health insurance is appropriate and crucial for some people—themselves, their staffs, their parents—but not for others; that some are entitled to it, and that others simply aren't. In Washington, unlike at Whole Foods, they want us to believe that what's good for the goose will poison the gander.
© 2009
From Frank Rich
For all the talk of Obama’s declining poll numbers this summer, he towers over his opponents. In last week’s Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, only 21 percent approve of how Republicans in Congress are handling health care reform (as opposed to the president’s 41 percent). Should Obama fail to deliver serious reform because his administration treats the pharmaceutical and insurance industries as deferentially as it has the banks, that would be shameful. Should he fail because he in any way catered to a decimated opposition party that has sunk and shrunk to its craziest common denominator, that would be ludicrous.
The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.
In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.
The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.
In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Larry McMurtry - Rhino Ranch (2)
As I suspected, this is not compelling reading, but I just had to conclude the Duane Moore character.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Larry McMurtry - Rhino Ranch
Just when I assumed we were done with McMurtry's character Duane Moore, here he comes in the final episode. I've just started the book---don't anticipate a great reading experience, but I wish to find out what ultimately happens to Duane, one of my favorite literary characters.
Monday, August 17, 2009
The Swiss Menace
BY Paul Krugman
16 August 2009
It was the blooper heard round the world. In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor’s Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”
Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.
Besides being vile and stupid, however, the editorial was beside the point. Investor’s Business Daily would like you to believe that Obamacare would turn America into Britain — or, rather, a dystopian fantasy version of Britain. The screamers on talk radio and Fox News would have you believe that the plan is to turn America into the Soviet Union. But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.
Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world.
Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. There are, however, wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches taken
In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person as we do. By the way, our own Veterans Health Administration, which is run somewhat like the British health service, also manages to combine quality care with low costs.
The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills. That’s how Canada and, in a more complex fashion, France do it. It’s also a system familiar to most Americans, since even those of us not yet on Medicare have parents and relatives who are.
Again, you hear a lot of horror stories about such systems, most of them false. French health care is excellent. Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular, as evidenced by the tendency of town-hall protesters to demand that the government keep its hands off the program.
Finally, the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies.
In this country, the Massachusetts health reform more or less follows the Swiss model; costs are running higher than expected, but the reform has greatly reduced the number of uninsured. And the most common form of health insurance in America, employment-based coverage, actually has some “Swiss” aspects: to avoid making benefits taxable, employers have to follow rules that effectively rule out discrimination based on medical history and subsidize care for lower-wage workers.
So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.
If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route. True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That’s why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.
But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.
So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.
16 August 2009
It was the blooper heard round the world. In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor’s Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”
Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.
Besides being vile and stupid, however, the editorial was beside the point. Investor’s Business Daily would like you to believe that Obamacare would turn America into Britain — or, rather, a dystopian fantasy version of Britain. The screamers on talk radio and Fox News would have you believe that the plan is to turn America into the Soviet Union. But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.
Let’s talk about health care around the advanced world.
Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. There are, however, wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches taken
In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person as we do. By the way, our own Veterans Health Administration, which is run somewhat like the British health service, also manages to combine quality care with low costs.
The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills. That’s how Canada and, in a more complex fashion, France do it. It’s also a system familiar to most Americans, since even those of us not yet on Medicare have parents and relatives who are.
Again, you hear a lot of horror stories about such systems, most of them false. French health care is excellent. Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular, as evidenced by the tendency of town-hall protesters to demand that the government keep its hands off the program.
Finally, the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies.
In this country, the Massachusetts health reform more or less follows the Swiss model; costs are running higher than expected, but the reform has greatly reduced the number of uninsured. And the most common form of health insurance in America, employment-based coverage, actually has some “Swiss” aspects: to avoid making benefits taxable, employers have to follow rules that effectively rule out discrimination based on medical history and subsidize care for lower-wage workers.
So where does Obamacare fit into all this? Basically, it’s a plan to Swissify America, using regulation and subsidies to ensure universal coverage.
If we were starting from scratch we probably wouldn’t have chosen this route. True “socialized medicine” would undoubtedly cost less, and a straightforward extension of Medicare-type coverage to all Americans would probably be cheaper than a Swiss-style system. That’s why I and others believe that a true public option competing with private insurers is extremely important: otherwise, rising costs could all too easily undermine the whole effort.
But a Swiss-style system of universal coverage would be a vast improvement on what we have now. And we already know that such systems work.
So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Jackson Lears - Rebirth of a Nation
The subtitle is "The Shaping of Modern America, 1877 to 1920." What a magnificent popular history! This book covers most of the period of American history of my greatest interest. I would add only 1865 to 1877.
The book presents a stunning progressive interpretive analysis of the social, intellectual, and political history of the country during this time period. According the author, ideas of regeneration or reform dominated the era. The imperialism of the US took central stage. We think of Cuba and the Philippines.
Snappily written, the prose is a sheer delight. Scholarship is combined with uplifting prose.
The book is a history of "The Gilded Age," a defining age in American history. It was a time of sharp class conflict (and I interpret American history from a conflict perspective), profound change, and soaring American imperialism.
Cornel West says:
"Jackson Lears is one of the preemeinent historians of our time. This book on the making of Modern America could not be more timely. Don't miss it!"
This is the best history book I have read in a long time.
The book presents a stunning progressive interpretive analysis of the social, intellectual, and political history of the country during this time period. According the author, ideas of regeneration or reform dominated the era. The imperialism of the US took central stage. We think of Cuba and the Philippines.
Snappily written, the prose is a sheer delight. Scholarship is combined with uplifting prose.
The book is a history of "The Gilded Age," a defining age in American history. It was a time of sharp class conflict (and I interpret American history from a conflict perspective), profound change, and soaring American imperialism.
Cornel West says:
"Jackson Lears is one of the preemeinent historians of our time. This book on the making of Modern America could not be more timely. Don't miss it!"
This is the best history book I have read in a long time.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Dylan Stopped by Police
(Associated Press) Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.
Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.
A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.
"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.
The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.
The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.
The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.
The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.
The officers thanked him for his cooperation.
"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.
How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.
Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium in nearby Lakewood.
A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.
"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.
The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.
The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:
"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.
A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.
The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.
The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.
The officers thanked him for his cooperation.
"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.
How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Newsweek Magazine - August 10-17
From Jon Meacham
And what do I mean by real people? Pretty much anybody who is not Glenn Bech or Sarah Palin.
Obama's remark (about the Cambridge police acting stupidly) led Glenn Beck ( to say ) that the President is a racist who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people," remarks that join the 2008 Republican attacks on Obama as a socialist and Rush Limbaugh's 2009 hope that the President fails as example of inflammatory and untimately unhelpful retorical turns.
An enduring truth: people generally want three things---protect my job, let me keep most of my money come tax time, and kill the terrorists before they come back.
And what do I mean by real people? Pretty much anybody who is not Glenn Bech or Sarah Palin.
Obama's remark (about the Cambridge police acting stupidly) led Glenn Beck ( to say ) that the President is a racist who has a "deep-seated hatred of white people," remarks that join the 2008 Republican attacks on Obama as a socialist and Rush Limbaugh's 2009 hope that the President fails as example of inflammatory and untimately unhelpful retorical turns.
An enduring truth: people generally want three things---protect my job, let me keep most of my money come tax time, and kill the terrorists before they come back.
Friday, August 7, 2009
What we Know in the Information Age
from the staff of The New Republic
(My focus is on the fact that the more we know thru the internet, the less we potentially know because of false information so easily passing for truth. Reason and evidence are my guide. I do disagree with the blurb below in that I think perusing the internet can lead to an enhancement of the imagination rather than a diminution of it. But this is just me)
06.08.2009
Imagination in the Internet Age
Ta-Nehisi Coates, reminiscing about the hours he spent as a kid looking for meaning in the liner notes and cover art of his hip-hop albums, writes:
When the culture of celebrity changed, and hip-hop morphed into that culture, my relationship with it changed--suddenly I knew too much. I miss the old "not knowing," and have gotten some of that feeling back in my time in the museum. There is so much to imagine. So much to wonder about.
I think that's one of the best descriptions I've read about the downside of having so much, too much, information at our fingertips. It just crushes imagination; it even crushes imaginative misinformation. Yes, it's wonderful to have websites like Snopes to debunk urban myths--which, of course, spread more easily thanks to the web--but what about misinformation that's harmless, and is maybe even an improvement on what is actually, technically correct? Sticking to the topic of music, there's a line from the old Palace song "Give Me Children" that stuck with me since the first time I heard it more than a decade ago: "Memory is knowledge dulled." Okay, the line isn't quite as profound as I thought it was when I first heard it in college, but still, it's pretty good. But then, a couple years ago, I came across the song's lyrics on the Internet and it turns out the line is actually, "Memory is knowledge, dove." Personally, I would have been quite happy living out the rest of my days totally unaware of my mistake. Alas, that's getting harder and harder to do.
I suppose the trick is carving out spaces in your life that are disconnected, or at least at a certain remove, from the information overload that's all around us. For Coates, he's found such a space in art museums. But I wonder how long until even that citadel is breached, with ubiquitous interactive touch screens and what not. Will anyone under the age of 20 have the attention span to sit in front of a painting and just look at it without being able to call up an options menu? Oh man, I sound old. . . .
(My focus is on the fact that the more we know thru the internet, the less we potentially know because of false information so easily passing for truth. Reason and evidence are my guide. I do disagree with the blurb below in that I think perusing the internet can lead to an enhancement of the imagination rather than a diminution of it. But this is just me)
06.08.2009
Imagination in the Internet Age
Ta-Nehisi Coates, reminiscing about the hours he spent as a kid looking for meaning in the liner notes and cover art of his hip-hop albums, writes:
When the culture of celebrity changed, and hip-hop morphed into that culture, my relationship with it changed--suddenly I knew too much. I miss the old "not knowing," and have gotten some of that feeling back in my time in the museum. There is so much to imagine. So much to wonder about.
I think that's one of the best descriptions I've read about the downside of having so much, too much, information at our fingertips. It just crushes imagination; it even crushes imaginative misinformation. Yes, it's wonderful to have websites like Snopes to debunk urban myths--which, of course, spread more easily thanks to the web--but what about misinformation that's harmless, and is maybe even an improvement on what is actually, technically correct? Sticking to the topic of music, there's a line from the old Palace song "Give Me Children" that stuck with me since the first time I heard it more than a decade ago: "Memory is knowledge dulled." Okay, the line isn't quite as profound as I thought it was when I first heard it in college, but still, it's pretty good. But then, a couple years ago, I came across the song's lyrics on the Internet and it turns out the line is actually, "Memory is knowledge, dove." Personally, I would have been quite happy living out the rest of my days totally unaware of my mistake. Alas, that's getting harder and harder to do.
I suppose the trick is carving out spaces in your life that are disconnected, or at least at a certain remove, from the information overload that's all around us. For Coates, he's found such a space in art museums. But I wonder how long until even that citadel is breached, with ubiquitous interactive touch screens and what not. Will anyone under the age of 20 have the attention span to sit in front of a painting and just look at it without being able to call up an options menu? Oh man, I sound old. . . .
Another Expose of Republican Tactics (Lies)
by Steve Pearlstein in The Washington Post
As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.
Under any plan likely to emerge from Congress, the vast majority of Americans who are not old or poor will continue to buy health insurance from private companies, continue to get their health care from doctors in private practice and continue to be treated at privately owned hospitals.
The centerpiece of all the plans is a new health insurance exchange set up by the government where individuals, small businesses and eventually larger businesses will be able to purchase insurance from private insurers at lower rates than are now generally available under rules that require insurers to offer coverage to anyone regardless of health condition. Low-income workers buying insurance through the exchange -- along with their employers -- would be eligible for government subsidies. While the government will take a more active role in regulating the insurance market and increase its spending for health care, that hardly amounts to the kind of government-run system that critics conjure up when they trot out that oh-so-clever line about the Department of Motor Vehicles being in charge of your colonoscopy.
There is still a vigorous debate as to whether one of the insurance options offered through those exchanges would be a government-run insurance company of some sort. There are now less-than-even odds that such a public option will survive in the Senate, while even House leaders have agreed that the public plan won't be able to piggy-back on Medicare. So the probability that a public-run insurance plan is about to drive every private insurer out of business -- the Republican nightmare scenario -- is approximately zero.
By now, you've probably also heard that health reform will cost taxpayers at least a trillion dollars. Another lie.
First of all, that's not a trillion every year, as most people assume -- it's a trillion over 10 years, which is the silly way that people in Washington talk about federal budgets. On an annual basis, that translates to about $140 billion, when things are up and running.
Even that, however, grossly overstates the net cost to the government of providing universal coverage. Other parts of the reform plan would result in offsetting savings for Medicare: reductions in unnecessary subsidies to private insurers, in annual increases in payments rates for doctors and in payments to hospitals for providing free care to the uninsured. The net increase in government spending for health care would likely be about $100 billion a year, a one-time increase equal to less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.
The Republican lies about the economics of health reform are also heavily laced with hypocrisy.
While holding themselves out as paragons of fiscal rectitude, Republicans grandstand against just about every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control.
When Democrats, for example, propose to fund research to give doctors, patients and health plans better information on what works and what doesn't, Republicans sense a sinister plot to have the government decide what treatments you will get. By the same wacko-logic, a proposal that Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care is transformed into a secret plan for mass euthanasia of the elderly.
Government negotiation on drug prices? The end of medical innovation as we know it, according to the GOP's Dr. No. Reduce Medicare payments to overpriced specialists and inefficient hospitals? The first step on the slippery slope toward rationing.
Can there be anyone more two-faced than the Republican leaders who in one breath rail against the evils of government-run health care and in another propose a government-subsidized high-risk pool for people with chronic illness, government-subsidized community health centers for the uninsured, and opening up Medicare to people at age 55?
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.
As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.
The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
There are lots of valid criticisms that can be made against the health reform plans moving through Congress -- I've made a few myself. But there is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop political conversation.
Under any plan likely to emerge from Congress, the vast majority of Americans who are not old or poor will continue to buy health insurance from private companies, continue to get their health care from doctors in private practice and continue to be treated at privately owned hospitals.
The centerpiece of all the plans is a new health insurance exchange set up by the government where individuals, small businesses and eventually larger businesses will be able to purchase insurance from private insurers at lower rates than are now generally available under rules that require insurers to offer coverage to anyone regardless of health condition. Low-income workers buying insurance through the exchange -- along with their employers -- would be eligible for government subsidies. While the government will take a more active role in regulating the insurance market and increase its spending for health care, that hardly amounts to the kind of government-run system that critics conjure up when they trot out that oh-so-clever line about the Department of Motor Vehicles being in charge of your colonoscopy.
There is still a vigorous debate as to whether one of the insurance options offered through those exchanges would be a government-run insurance company of some sort. There are now less-than-even odds that such a public option will survive in the Senate, while even House leaders have agreed that the public plan won't be able to piggy-back on Medicare. So the probability that a public-run insurance plan is about to drive every private insurer out of business -- the Republican nightmare scenario -- is approximately zero.
By now, you've probably also heard that health reform will cost taxpayers at least a trillion dollars. Another lie.
First of all, that's not a trillion every year, as most people assume -- it's a trillion over 10 years, which is the silly way that people in Washington talk about federal budgets. On an annual basis, that translates to about $140 billion, when things are up and running.
Even that, however, grossly overstates the net cost to the government of providing universal coverage. Other parts of the reform plan would result in offsetting savings for Medicare: reductions in unnecessary subsidies to private insurers, in annual increases in payments rates for doctors and in payments to hospitals for providing free care to the uninsured. The net increase in government spending for health care would likely be about $100 billion a year, a one-time increase equal to less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.
The Republican lies about the economics of health reform are also heavily laced with hypocrisy.
While holding themselves out as paragons of fiscal rectitude, Republicans grandstand against just about every idea to reduce the amount of health care people consume or the prices paid to health-care providers -- the only two ways I can think of to credibly bring health spending under control.
When Democrats, for example, propose to fund research to give doctors, patients and health plans better information on what works and what doesn't, Republicans sense a sinister plot to have the government decide what treatments you will get. By the same wacko-logic, a proposal that Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care is transformed into a secret plan for mass euthanasia of the elderly.
Government negotiation on drug prices? The end of medical innovation as we know it, according to the GOP's Dr. No. Reduce Medicare payments to overpriced specialists and inefficient hospitals? The first step on the slippery slope toward rationing.
Can there be anyone more two-faced than the Republican leaders who in one breath rail against the evils of government-run health care and in another propose a government-subsidized high-risk pool for people with chronic illness, government-subsidized community health centers for the uninsured, and opening up Medicare to people at age 55?
Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.
If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.
What it all Comes Down to
What it all comes down to with regard to the birthers and the opposition to health care reform (along with other opposition to a progressive agenda) is the Republican exploitation of the racial anxieties of working class whites. It started with Nixon (actually George Wallace from whom Nixon learned his racial lessons), was perfected by Ronald Reagan, and has been continued by the Republicans to this day. Republicans are masters of race-baiting. It amazes me at the people who say they are opposed to a "government run health plan" while either ignoring Medicare (the very thing they say they oppose) or else they are ignorant of the fact that Medicare IS a government run health program that our seniors wouldn't swap for anything in the world. This tells me racial anxiety is at the heart of working class whites and, I must say, Confederates that dominate the Old South where I live. The Confederacy still lives in the Deep South, doubt it not. One part of the racial bias of working class whites where I live anyway is the deep fear of these people that somebody (people of color? you think?) might get something that they do not deserve. Heaven forbid that we should EVER err on the side of kindness and generosity. Heaven forbid that we should live what we say is our faith. No, that won't do in the land of the racial anxieties of Republican Confederate White folk. Our faith seems to stop at the color line.
Paul Krugman on the Health Care Protests
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 6, 2009
There’s a famous Norman Rockwell painting titled “Freedom of Speech,” depicting an idealized American town meeting. The painting, part of a series illustrating F.D.R.’s “Four Freedoms,” shows an ordinary citizen expressing an unpopular opinion. His neighbors obviously don’t like what he’s saying, but they’re letting him speak his mind.
That’s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls, where angry protesters — some of them, with no apparent sense of irony, shouting “This is America!” — have been drowning out, and in some cases threatening, members of Congress trying to talk about health reform.
Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.
And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.
So this is something new and ugly. What’s behind it?
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, has compared the scenes at health care town halls to the “Brooks Brothers riot” in 2000 — the demonstration that disrupted the vote count in Miami and arguably helped send George W. Bush to the White House. Portrayed at the time as local protesters, many of the rioters were actually G.O.P. staffers flown in from Washington.
But Mr. Gibbs is probably only half right. Yes, well-heeled interest groups are helping to organize the town hall mobs. Key organizers include two Astroturf (fake grass-roots) organizations: FreedomWorks, run by the former House majority leader Dick Armey, and a new organization called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights.
The latter group, by the way, is run by Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA, a for-profit hospital chain. Mr. Scott was forced out of that job amid a fraud investigation; the company eventually pleaded guilty to charges of overbilling state and federal health plans, paying $1.7 billion — yes, that’s “billion” — in fines. You can’t make this stuff up.
But while the organizers are as crass as they come, I haven’t seen any evidence that the people disrupting those town halls are Florida-style rent-a-mobs. For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?
There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.
Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.
And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.
Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.
Many people hoped that last year’s election would mark the end of the “angry white voter” era in America. Indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.
But right now Mr. Obama’s backers seem to lack all conviction, perhaps because the prosaic reality of his administration isn’t living up to their dreams of transformation. Meanwhile, the angry right is filled with a passionate intensity.
And if Mr. Obama can’t recapture some of the passion of 2008, can’t inspire his supporters to stand up and be heard, health care reform may well fail.
Published: August 6, 2009
There’s a famous Norman Rockwell painting titled “Freedom of Speech,” depicting an idealized American town meeting. The painting, part of a series illustrating F.D.R.’s “Four Freedoms,” shows an ordinary citizen expressing an unpopular opinion. His neighbors obviously don’t like what he’s saying, but they’re letting him speak his mind.
That’s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls, where angry protesters — some of them, with no apparent sense of irony, shouting “This is America!” — have been drowning out, and in some cases threatening, members of Congress trying to talk about health reform.
Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.
And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.
So this is something new and ugly. What’s behind it?
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, has compared the scenes at health care town halls to the “Brooks Brothers riot” in 2000 — the demonstration that disrupted the vote count in Miami and arguably helped send George W. Bush to the White House. Portrayed at the time as local protesters, many of the rioters were actually G.O.P. staffers flown in from Washington.
But Mr. Gibbs is probably only half right. Yes, well-heeled interest groups are helping to organize the town hall mobs. Key organizers include two Astroturf (fake grass-roots) organizations: FreedomWorks, run by the former House majority leader Dick Armey, and a new organization called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights.
The latter group, by the way, is run by Rick Scott, the former head of Columbia/HCA, a for-profit hospital chain. Mr. Scott was forced out of that job amid a fraud investigation; the company eventually pleaded guilty to charges of overbilling state and federal health plans, paying $1.7 billion — yes, that’s “billion” — in fines. You can’t make this stuff up.
But while the organizers are as crass as they come, I haven’t seen any evidence that the people disrupting those town halls are Florida-style rent-a-mobs. For the most part, the protesters appear to be genuinely angry. The question is, what are they angry about?
There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.
Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing. They may believe some of the disinformation opponents of health care reform are spreading, like the claim that the Obama plan will lead to euthanasia for the elderly. (That particular claim is coming straight from House Republican leaders.) But they’re probably reacting less to what Mr. Obama is doing, or even to what they’ve heard about what he’s doing, than to who he is.
That is, the driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. Senator Dick Durbin has suggested that the birthers and the health care protesters are one and the same; we don’t know how many of the protesters are birthers, but it wouldn’t be surprising if it’s a substantial fraction.
And cynical political operators are exploiting that anxiety to further the economic interests of their backers.
Does this sound familiar? It should: it’s a strategy that has played a central role in American politics ever since Richard Nixon realized that he could advance Republican fortunes by appealing to the racial fears of working-class whites.
Many people hoped that last year’s election would mark the end of the “angry white voter” era in America. Indeed, voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate.
But right now Mr. Obama’s backers seem to lack all conviction, perhaps because the prosaic reality of his administration isn’t living up to their dreams of transformation. Meanwhile, the angry right is filled with a passionate intensity.
And if Mr. Obama can’t recapture some of the passion of 2008, can’t inspire his supporters to stand up and be heard, health care reform may well fail.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Republican Party-the party of White Supremacy
Thomas B. Edsall
Edsall@huffingtonpost.com HuffPost Reporting
With Republican party leaders so constrained by ideological blinders that none of their positions is likely to produce gains among non-white minorities, especially Hispanics, the GOP is finding it has no real alternative but to revert to a "white voter" strategy.
To some extent, it's working. The party's opposition to President Obama's agenda -- particularly his cap-and-trade energy proposal and health care reform plan -- is resonating strongly with disaffected white Democratic voters. Republican grievances about Obama, combined with race-baiting commentary from the far-right ideologues who have become some of the most dominant voices of the modern GOP, have led to a precipitous drop in the president's approval ratings among whites.
It's all very reminiscent of the party's notorious Southern Strategy, which carried the GOP for decades. But that strategy backfired spectacularly in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and there's no reason to think it will work any better in 2010 -- especially given the ever-growing importance of the minority electorate.
In this respect, even if the GOP picks up a few House and Senate seats in 2010, many of the party's top analysts believe that it will remain mired in minority status through 2012 and beyond. Other analysts say it may even decline to the level of a minor regional party, with its only real strength in the South.
The Appeal to White Voters
The appeal of the anti-Obama agenda has proven to be particularly strong among whites of low and moderate incomes. The Pew Center, tracking evaluations of Obama's job performance, found in a July 30 report that there "has been essentially no shift in opinion among affluent whites [but] among whites with annual family incomes of less than $75,000, Obama's approval ratings have declined substantially (from 57% in June to 47% today). Assessments of Obama's performance remain high among African Americans (85%)."
ABC News polling similarly found in late June that the possible costs to consumers of cap-and-trade legislation "are particularly important to less well-off Americans. Among those making less than $50,000 a year, support for regulating greenhouse gas emissions drops by 17 points (from 75 percent to a still-majority 58 percent) if it raises prices; support if it costs $10 a month is 49 percent; and at $25, just 35 percent."
The trend lines reported by Gallup are perhaps the most striking: At the start of this year, during late January, Gallup found that Obama's job approval ratings stood at 63 percent among whites, 86 percent among African Americans, and 74 percent among Hispanics. In the Gallup survey taken in late July, Obama had gained 9 points among blacks, reaching 95 percent job approval, and was holding his own among Hispanics, dropping a statistically insignificant 2 points to 72 percent.
Among white respondents, however, he had dropped 16 points to 47 percent.
These findings are reinforced by recent trend lines emerging in the Wall Street Journal/NBC polling series.
In that series, the decline has been sharpest among white men, whose approval-disapproval ratio fell by 27 points, from 50-36 to 40-53.
The Demographic Trends
Republican pollster Bill McInturff notes that his party must make substantial gains among Hispanic voters or be relegated to minority status. But that just isn't likely.
With a solid majority of Republican senators opposed to the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina nominee to the Supreme Court, and a solid phalanx of adamant Republican opposition to any immigration reform which provides a path to permanent residency of illegal immigrants, the GOP has no real chance of increasing its share of the Hispanic vote.
In the short term, McInturff and others point out that virtually all the Democrats' vulnerabilities are among Anglo voters, especially white men. These trends are likely to produce some victories for Republican candidates in 2010, but the party continues to have long-term problems in building a sustainable election-day majority.
President George W. Bush and his top advisers were acutely aware of the long-range limitations of a "white" Republican Party. Bush, in his appointments and some of his policies, sought to reach out to the crucially important Hispanic electorate, most significantly pushing for immigration reform that would have provided a path to permanent legal residency and possibly citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants in the country.
The effort paid off for Bush in 2004, when he received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, a Republican record.
In 2005, however, Bush's use of the immigration issue as a vehicle to win over Hispanics imploded. Republican members of Congress overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, often using language suggesting Hispanics did not share American values and other comments that angered and offended the Hispanic electorate. In the 2006 elections, only 30 percent of Latinos voted Republican, and in the 2008 presidential election, the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, got just 31 percent.
The Republican Party thrived between 1968 and 2000 primarily because of the gains it made among white voters, especially among formerly Democratic working-class whites, a disproportionate share of whom were men. By 2000, however, the GOP's white strategy began to run out of gas, as the white percentage of the electorate dropped to 80 percent and below.
The trend is striking. In 1976, 89 percent of the electorate was white. That number fell every four years, to 88 percent in 1980, 86 percent in 1984, 85 percent in 1988, 83 percent in 1996, 81 percent in 2000, 77 percent in 2004, and 74 percent last year. The only exception was 1992, when the presence of independent candidate Ross Perot drove the white percentage of the electorate up to 87 percent.
Nate Silver, a sports statistician and political analyst, looks at this from a different vantage point:
Consider this remarkable statistic. In 1980, 32 percent of the electorate consisted of white Democrats (or at least white Carter voters) -- likewise, in 2008, 32 percent of the electorate consisted of white Obama voters. But whereas, in 1980, just 9 percent of the electorate were nonwhite Carter voters, 21 percent of the electorate were nonwhite Obama voters last year.
Thus, Carter went down to a landslide defeat, whereas Obama defeated John McCain by a healthy margin.
Silver points out that Republicans are getting slightly less dependent on white voters, but Democrats
are becoming less white at a much faster rate than the Republicans. Whereas 85 percent of their votes were from white voters in 1976, the number was just 60 percent last November. This is, of course, a helpful characteristic, since the nonwhite share of the electorate, just 11 percent in 1976 and 1980, represented more than a quarter of the turnout in November.
Silver produced this chart:
Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz has, in turn, tracked the growth of minority votes cast in presidential elections since 1992 and finds:
For the Republican Party, these trends not only illustrate the danger of attempting to win without improving margins among minority voters, but also the danger that a modest collection of Congressional wins next year - say 10-15 House seats --will only reinforce the dominant forces in the House and Senate wings of the GOP that adamantly support a conservative agenda that precludes concessions to minority groups. That, in turn, would increase the likelihood that the Democratic Party will be able to maintain majority status in 2012 and beyond.
Edsall@huffingtonpost.com HuffPost Reporting
With Republican party leaders so constrained by ideological blinders that none of their positions is likely to produce gains among non-white minorities, especially Hispanics, the GOP is finding it has no real alternative but to revert to a "white voter" strategy.
To some extent, it's working. The party's opposition to President Obama's agenda -- particularly his cap-and-trade energy proposal and health care reform plan -- is resonating strongly with disaffected white Democratic voters. Republican grievances about Obama, combined with race-baiting commentary from the far-right ideologues who have become some of the most dominant voices of the modern GOP, have led to a precipitous drop in the president's approval ratings among whites.
It's all very reminiscent of the party's notorious Southern Strategy, which carried the GOP for decades. But that strategy backfired spectacularly in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and there's no reason to think it will work any better in 2010 -- especially given the ever-growing importance of the minority electorate.
In this respect, even if the GOP picks up a few House and Senate seats in 2010, many of the party's top analysts believe that it will remain mired in minority status through 2012 and beyond. Other analysts say it may even decline to the level of a minor regional party, with its only real strength in the South.
The Appeal to White Voters
The appeal of the anti-Obama agenda has proven to be particularly strong among whites of low and moderate incomes. The Pew Center, tracking evaluations of Obama's job performance, found in a July 30 report that there "has been essentially no shift in opinion among affluent whites [but] among whites with annual family incomes of less than $75,000, Obama's approval ratings have declined substantially (from 57% in June to 47% today). Assessments of Obama's performance remain high among African Americans (85%)."
ABC News polling similarly found in late June that the possible costs to consumers of cap-and-trade legislation "are particularly important to less well-off Americans. Among those making less than $50,000 a year, support for regulating greenhouse gas emissions drops by 17 points (from 75 percent to a still-majority 58 percent) if it raises prices; support if it costs $10 a month is 49 percent; and at $25, just 35 percent."
The trend lines reported by Gallup are perhaps the most striking: At the start of this year, during late January, Gallup found that Obama's job approval ratings stood at 63 percent among whites, 86 percent among African Americans, and 74 percent among Hispanics. In the Gallup survey taken in late July, Obama had gained 9 points among blacks, reaching 95 percent job approval, and was holding his own among Hispanics, dropping a statistically insignificant 2 points to 72 percent.
Among white respondents, however, he had dropped 16 points to 47 percent.
These findings are reinforced by recent trend lines emerging in the Wall Street Journal/NBC polling series.
In that series, the decline has been sharpest among white men, whose approval-disapproval ratio fell by 27 points, from 50-36 to 40-53.
The Demographic Trends
Republican pollster Bill McInturff notes that his party must make substantial gains among Hispanic voters or be relegated to minority status. But that just isn't likely.
With a solid majority of Republican senators opposed to the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina nominee to the Supreme Court, and a solid phalanx of adamant Republican opposition to any immigration reform which provides a path to permanent residency of illegal immigrants, the GOP has no real chance of increasing its share of the Hispanic vote.
In the short term, McInturff and others point out that virtually all the Democrats' vulnerabilities are among Anglo voters, especially white men. These trends are likely to produce some victories for Republican candidates in 2010, but the party continues to have long-term problems in building a sustainable election-day majority.
President George W. Bush and his top advisers were acutely aware of the long-range limitations of a "white" Republican Party. Bush, in his appointments and some of his policies, sought to reach out to the crucially important Hispanic electorate, most significantly pushing for immigration reform that would have provided a path to permanent legal residency and possibly citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants in the country.
The effort paid off for Bush in 2004, when he received 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, a Republican record.
In 2005, however, Bush's use of the immigration issue as a vehicle to win over Hispanics imploded. Republican members of Congress overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, often using language suggesting Hispanics did not share American values and other comments that angered and offended the Hispanic electorate. In the 2006 elections, only 30 percent of Latinos voted Republican, and in the 2008 presidential election, the Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, got just 31 percent.
The Republican Party thrived between 1968 and 2000 primarily because of the gains it made among white voters, especially among formerly Democratic working-class whites, a disproportionate share of whom were men. By 2000, however, the GOP's white strategy began to run out of gas, as the white percentage of the electorate dropped to 80 percent and below.
The trend is striking. In 1976, 89 percent of the electorate was white. That number fell every four years, to 88 percent in 1980, 86 percent in 1984, 85 percent in 1988, 83 percent in 1996, 81 percent in 2000, 77 percent in 2004, and 74 percent last year. The only exception was 1992, when the presence of independent candidate Ross Perot drove the white percentage of the electorate up to 87 percent.
Nate Silver, a sports statistician and political analyst, looks at this from a different vantage point:
Consider this remarkable statistic. In 1980, 32 percent of the electorate consisted of white Democrats (or at least white Carter voters) -- likewise, in 2008, 32 percent of the electorate consisted of white Obama voters. But whereas, in 1980, just 9 percent of the electorate were nonwhite Carter voters, 21 percent of the electorate were nonwhite Obama voters last year.
Thus, Carter went down to a landslide defeat, whereas Obama defeated John McCain by a healthy margin.
Silver points out that Republicans are getting slightly less dependent on white voters, but Democrats
are becoming less white at a much faster rate than the Republicans. Whereas 85 percent of their votes were from white voters in 1976, the number was just 60 percent last November. This is, of course, a helpful characteristic, since the nonwhite share of the electorate, just 11 percent in 1976 and 1980, represented more than a quarter of the turnout in November.
Silver produced this chart:
Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz has, in turn, tracked the growth of minority votes cast in presidential elections since 1992 and finds:
For the Republican Party, these trends not only illustrate the danger of attempting to win without improving margins among minority voters, but also the danger that a modest collection of Congressional wins next year - say 10-15 House seats --will only reinforce the dominant forces in the House and Senate wings of the GOP that adamantly support a conservative agenda that precludes concessions to minority groups. That, in turn, would increase the likelihood that the Democratic Party will be able to maintain majority status in 2012 and beyond.
Get Your Kenya Birth Certificate Right Here!
August 5, 2009
by Keith Thomson
From the Huffington Post
The recent torrent of Kenyan Barack Obama birth certificates calls attention to the relative ease with which one can acquire forged identity documents nowadays. Say, for whatever reason, you want your own Kenyan Barack Obama birth certificate. All you will need is: (1) about $200; (2) the ability to use the internet or a telephone to place an order.
I'll take the leap that you know to use the internet: Go to superiorfakedegrees.com. Customer service manager Jamie Ross gave me a quote of $220 for a "100% authentic looking" Kenyan birth certificate.
"Our offset printers are able to replicate that older generation look," he says. "For new certificates, depending upon the jurisdiction we replicate raised ink seals, and utilize identical paper stock."
According to Ross, Superior Faked Degrees, which is based in Thailand (it's illegal in the United States to possess, produce or distribute falsified government documents), has earned about $2 million in its five years in business.
An official at another fake ID powerhouse, China's b-id.info, takes us through the steps that will yield a Birther-movement-caliber Kenyan certificate:
1. Old typewriter: Do a Google search for models made that year (if you wanted to be real exact) and then find on eBay or other online sources selling old typewriters.
2. Search online for Kenyan birth certificates (many found on Google image search) and save the image when a good one is found. If you have a real one in hand it is much more simple, but either way just Photoshop out old type, print blank, type in with old typewriter. You more than likely will have to clean the scan or image, since it will not be crisp, like a newly printed document.
3. Signature with a little practice makes perfect.
4. Only step that would set you back a few days is the embossed seal. Many websites will make you any seal you want, just send them the template file.
5. Aging the paper (techniques found online).
6. Done.
The forgers' resourcefulness is staggering. Take drivers' licenses: They have the exact same grade PVC or Teslin on which real licenses are printed. Moreover, the licenses have bar codes and magnetic strips that will not only pass muster at scanners but display the information of your choice on the scanner's readout. Where applicable for security, the forgers ultraviolet ink. They even clone in-laminate holograms. Cost: $85.
Passports -- in sum, "designed to fool anyone," according to Superior -- go for $50
0, which includes a free visa stamp.
The forgers have limitations, however, like birth notices for Mr. Obama that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1961, with the birth itself thoroughly documented and additionally substantiated by Hawaii's Department of Health.
The consensus: "Can't be done without a time machine."
If you still want a Barack Obama document, though, operators are standing by. Have your credit card ready. And if you don't have a credit card, Superior sells Visas and Mastercards too.
sample courtesy of Superior Fake Degrees
Follow Keith Thomson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kqthomson
by Keith Thomson
From the Huffington Post
The recent torrent of Kenyan Barack Obama birth certificates calls attention to the relative ease with which one can acquire forged identity documents nowadays. Say, for whatever reason, you want your own Kenyan Barack Obama birth certificate. All you will need is: (1) about $200; (2) the ability to use the internet or a telephone to place an order.
I'll take the leap that you know to use the internet: Go to superiorfakedegrees.com. Customer service manager Jamie Ross gave me a quote of $220 for a "100% authentic looking" Kenyan birth certificate.
"Our offset printers are able to replicate that older generation look," he says. "For new certificates, depending upon the jurisdiction we replicate raised ink seals, and utilize identical paper stock."
According to Ross, Superior Faked Degrees, which is based in Thailand (it's illegal in the United States to possess, produce or distribute falsified government documents), has earned about $2 million in its five years in business.
An official at another fake ID powerhouse, China's b-id.info, takes us through the steps that will yield a Birther-movement-caliber Kenyan certificate:
1. Old typewriter: Do a Google search for models made that year (if you wanted to be real exact) and then find on eBay or other online sources selling old typewriters.
2. Search online for Kenyan birth certificates (many found on Google image search) and save the image when a good one is found. If you have a real one in hand it is much more simple, but either way just Photoshop out old type, print blank, type in with old typewriter. You more than likely will have to clean the scan or image, since it will not be crisp, like a newly printed document.
3. Signature with a little practice makes perfect.
4. Only step that would set you back a few days is the embossed seal. Many websites will make you any seal you want, just send them the template file.
5. Aging the paper (techniques found online).
6. Done.
The forgers' resourcefulness is staggering. Take drivers' licenses: They have the exact same grade PVC or Teslin on which real licenses are printed. Moreover, the licenses have bar codes and magnetic strips that will not only pass muster at scanners but display the information of your choice on the scanner's readout. Where applicable for security, the forgers ultraviolet ink. They even clone in-laminate holograms. Cost: $85.
Passports -- in sum, "designed to fool anyone," according to Superior -- go for $50
0, which includes a free visa stamp.
The forgers have limitations, however, like birth notices for Mr. Obama that appeared in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1961, with the birth itself thoroughly documented and additionally substantiated by Hawaii's Department of Health.
The consensus: "Can't be done without a time machine."
If you still want a Barack Obama document, though, operators are standing by. Have your credit card ready. And if you don't have a credit card, Superior sells Visas and Mastercards too.
sample courtesy of Superior Fake Degrees
Follow Keith Thomson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kqthomson
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Health Care Reform
I truly believe we are living in a new age of ignorance. The same media that keeps us more informed than ever causes more and more ignorance, for if you aren't careful, you'll fall for the worst propaganda.
I hear people say they are against government run health care. If you say this and you are consistent, then you must be opposed to Medicare, a government run single payer system. What is your alternative to Medicare?
The Republican Party opposed Medicare vehemently in 1965. They have fought it ever since. Ask America's seniors if they are opposed to Medicare. I daresay you won't find a single one opposed to Medicare.
The point is that we have a government run system now that works better than private insurance. Medicare overhead is less than half that of private insurance.
What's so great about private insurance now? If you don't have a major claim, it works great. But have you ever had a major claim? The paperwork goes on seemingly forever. Have you ever been denied coverage by your private insurer? If not, then you are lucky. But your time is coming.
Private insurers make their money by denying coverage, restricting coverage, and refusing people with preexisting conditions. They are in business to make money, and that's all they care about. I work in private industry. I know what I'm talking about. Companies will do whatever they have to do to keep making their profit margin. It's called Capitalism, and I believe in Capitalism--the free market--but when it comes to health care, the free market does not work.
This is what the ignorant do not understand, and the barage of propaganda from the private health care industry aims to keep it that way to protect their huge profits.
I hear people say they are against government run health care. If you say this and you are consistent, then you must be opposed to Medicare, a government run single payer system. What is your alternative to Medicare?
The Republican Party opposed Medicare vehemently in 1965. They have fought it ever since. Ask America's seniors if they are opposed to Medicare. I daresay you won't find a single one opposed to Medicare.
The point is that we have a government run system now that works better than private insurance. Medicare overhead is less than half that of private insurance.
What's so great about private insurance now? If you don't have a major claim, it works great. But have you ever had a major claim? The paperwork goes on seemingly forever. Have you ever been denied coverage by your private insurer? If not, then you are lucky. But your time is coming.
Private insurers make their money by denying coverage, restricting coverage, and refusing people with preexisting conditions. They are in business to make money, and that's all they care about. I work in private industry. I know what I'm talking about. Companies will do whatever they have to do to keep making their profit margin. It's called Capitalism, and I believe in Capitalism--the free market--but when it comes to health care, the free market does not work.
This is what the ignorant do not understand, and the barage of propaganda from the private health care industry aims to keep it that way to protect their huge profits.
Tess Callahan - April and Oliver (2)
So I finish this novel, an entertaining novel about human relationships. You have April and Oliver, friends since childhood, who are separated then reunited when April's brother dies. Oliver is set to marry Bernadette, but when April and Oliver are around each other again, things get complicated. Sometimes relationships never get fully worked out and it goes on and on. That seems to be the message here.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
About Lou Dobbs
I hope CNN doesn't fire Dobbs. He's too much fun to kick around.
As someone jokes below, how long before Lou Dobbs or Fox News does a story: THE EARTH IS FLAT: WE REPORT-YOU DECIDE.
AP -- He's become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network's "no bias" brand. And on top of all that, his ratings are slipping.
How does Lou Dobbs keep his job?
It's not a simple answer. CNN insists it is standing behind Dobbs, despite calls for his head from critics of his reporting on "birthers" - those who believe President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States despite convincing evidence to the contrary. The "birthers" believe Obama was born in Kenya, and thus not eligible to be president.
Dobbs' work has been so unpopular that even Ann Coulter has criticized him.
Dobbs has acknowledged that he believes Obama was born in Hawaii. But he gives airtime to disbelievers, and has said the president should try to put questions fully to rest by releasing a long version of his birth certificate. He's twice done stories on his show after the public leak of a memo from CNN U.S. President Jon Klein saying that "it seems this story is dead."
Klein said those stories were OK because they were about the controversy and weren't actually questioning the facts. But critics suggest Klein is parsing words, that even raising the issue lends it credence.
Joked The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes: it "explains their upcoming documentary: `The World: Flat. We Report - You Decide."'
Dobbs hasn't made it any easier by using his radio show to fight back at critics, who he called "limp-minded, lily-livered lefty lemmings." He considered going on CNN tormentor Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show to thank him (O'Reilly says the birthers are wrong, but he defended Dobbs' right to talk about it).
"He's embarrassed himself and he's embarrassed CNN," said Brooks Jackson, a former CNN correspondent. "And that's not a good thing for any network that wants to be seen as a reputable, nonpartisan news organization."
So who needs the headache?
Klein said Dobbs does a smart newscast that explores issues that get little in-depth attention elsewhere, such as trade with China, health care funding and the stimulus plan. He suggested Dobbs' CNN work is unfairly lumped in with his unrelated radio show, and that he's judged on the show he did a couple of years ago, when Dobbs became a political target for his campaigning against illegal immigration.
The two men sat down after last year's election to make changes, aware that the anti-immigrant Dobbs' image ran counter to the brand CNN was trying to create. CNN calls itself the network of unbiased reporting compared to conservative commentators on Fox and liberal ones at MSNBC.
Since then, Dobbs has been doing a relatively straight newscast, Klein said.
"He brings more than three decades of experience reporting and broadcasting the news," Klein said, "and that's very valuable to a news network."
As someone jokes below, how long before Lou Dobbs or Fox News does a story: THE EARTH IS FLAT: WE REPORT-YOU DECIDE.
AP -- He's become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and hosted a show that seemed to contradict the network's "no bias" brand. And on top of all that, his ratings are slipping.
How does Lou Dobbs keep his job?
It's not a simple answer. CNN insists it is standing behind Dobbs, despite calls for his head from critics of his reporting on "birthers" - those who believe President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States despite convincing evidence to the contrary. The "birthers" believe Obama was born in Kenya, and thus not eligible to be president.
Dobbs' work has been so unpopular that even Ann Coulter has criticized him.
Dobbs has acknowledged that he believes Obama was born in Hawaii. But he gives airtime to disbelievers, and has said the president should try to put questions fully to rest by releasing a long version of his birth certificate. He's twice done stories on his show after the public leak of a memo from CNN U.S. President Jon Klein saying that "it seems this story is dead."
Klein said those stories were OK because they were about the controversy and weren't actually questioning the facts. But critics suggest Klein is parsing words, that even raising the issue lends it credence.
Joked The Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes: it "explains their upcoming documentary: `The World: Flat. We Report - You Decide."'
Dobbs hasn't made it any easier by using his radio show to fight back at critics, who he called "limp-minded, lily-livered lefty lemmings." He considered going on CNN tormentor Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show to thank him (O'Reilly says the birthers are wrong, but he defended Dobbs' right to talk about it).
"He's embarrassed himself and he's embarrassed CNN," said Brooks Jackson, a former CNN correspondent. "And that's not a good thing for any network that wants to be seen as a reputable, nonpartisan news organization."
So who needs the headache?
Klein said Dobbs does a smart newscast that explores issues that get little in-depth attention elsewhere, such as trade with China, health care funding and the stimulus plan. He suggested Dobbs' CNN work is unfairly lumped in with his unrelated radio show, and that he's judged on the show he did a couple of years ago, when Dobbs became a political target for his campaigning against illegal immigration.
The two men sat down after last year's election to make changes, aware that the anti-immigrant Dobbs' image ran counter to the brand CNN was trying to create. CNN calls itself the network of unbiased reporting compared to conservative commentators on Fox and liberal ones at MSNBC.
Since then, Dobbs has been doing a relatively straight newscast, Klein said.
"He brings more than three decades of experience reporting and broadcasting the news," Klein said, "and that's very valuable to a news network."
The Country is Changing
The country is changing, and people like Lou Dobbs can't stand it.
by Frank Rich
Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter have condemned the birther brigades and likened them to “the truthers” who accused the Bush administration of engineering the 9/11 attacks. But those conspiracy theorists couldn’t find 11 congressmen willing to sponsor a bill supporting their claims. Even Liz Cheney has publicly refused to dispute the libels on Obama’s citizenship.
One of the loudest birther enablers is not at Fox but CNN: Lou Dobbs, who was heretofore best known for trying to link immigrants, especially Hispanics, to civic havoc. Dobbs is one-stop shopping for the excesses of this seismic period of racial transition. And he is following a traditional, if toxic, American playbook. The escalating white fear of newly empowered ethnic groups and blacks is a naked replay of more than a century ago, when large waves of immigration and the northern migration of emancipated blacks, coupled with a tumultuous modernization of the American work force, unleashed a similar storm of racial and nativist panic.
As Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post and Helene Cooper of The Times have pointed out, a lot of today’s variation on the theme is class-oriented. Some whites habituated to a monopoly on the upper reaches of American power just can’t adjust to the reality that Obama, Sotomayor, Oprah Winfrey and countless others are now at the very pinnacle, and that they might sometimes side with each other just as their white counterparts do. Threatened white elites try to mask their own anxieties by patronizingly adopting working-class whites as their pet political surrogates — Joe the Plumber, New Haven firemen, a Cambridge police officer. Call it Village People populism.
Sometimes the most revealing expressions of this resentment emerge in juvenile asides — Bill Kristol (on The Weekly Standard’s blog) ridiculing Gates for writing a flowery travel magazine article about his privileged vacation home of Martha’s Vineyard, or Heather MacDonald (in National Review) mocking Gates as a “limousine liberal” for his supposedly hypocritical admission that he has a “regular car service” and a “regular driver” to fetch him at the airport.
Who does Henry Louis Gates Jr. think he is, William F. Buckley Jr.?
The one lesson that everyone took away from the latest “national conversation about race” is the same one we’ve taken away from every other “national conversation” in the past couple of years. America has not transcended race. America is not postracial. So we can all say that again. But it must also be said that we’re just at the start of what may be a 30-year struggle. Beer won’t cool the fury of those who can’t accept the reality that America’s racial profile will no longer reflect their own.
by Frank Rich
Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter have condemned the birther brigades and likened them to “the truthers” who accused the Bush administration of engineering the 9/11 attacks. But those conspiracy theorists couldn’t find 11 congressmen willing to sponsor a bill supporting their claims. Even Liz Cheney has publicly refused to dispute the libels on Obama’s citizenship.
One of the loudest birther enablers is not at Fox but CNN: Lou Dobbs, who was heretofore best known for trying to link immigrants, especially Hispanics, to civic havoc. Dobbs is one-stop shopping for the excesses of this seismic period of racial transition. And he is following a traditional, if toxic, American playbook. The escalating white fear of newly empowered ethnic groups and blacks is a naked replay of more than a century ago, when large waves of immigration and the northern migration of emancipated blacks, coupled with a tumultuous modernization of the American work force, unleashed a similar storm of racial and nativist panic.
As Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post and Helene Cooper of The Times have pointed out, a lot of today’s variation on the theme is class-oriented. Some whites habituated to a monopoly on the upper reaches of American power just can’t adjust to the reality that Obama, Sotomayor, Oprah Winfrey and countless others are now at the very pinnacle, and that they might sometimes side with each other just as their white counterparts do. Threatened white elites try to mask their own anxieties by patronizingly adopting working-class whites as their pet political surrogates — Joe the Plumber, New Haven firemen, a Cambridge police officer. Call it Village People populism.
Sometimes the most revealing expressions of this resentment emerge in juvenile asides — Bill Kristol (on The Weekly Standard’s blog) ridiculing Gates for writing a flowery travel magazine article about his privileged vacation home of Martha’s Vineyard, or Heather MacDonald (in National Review) mocking Gates as a “limousine liberal” for his supposedly hypocritical admission that he has a “regular car service” and a “regular driver” to fetch him at the airport.
Who does Henry Louis Gates Jr. think he is, William F. Buckley Jr.?
The one lesson that everyone took away from the latest “national conversation about race” is the same one we’ve taken away from every other “national conversation” in the past couple of years. America has not transcended race. America is not postracial. So we can all say that again. But it must also be said that we’re just at the start of what may be a 30-year struggle. Beer won’t cool the fury of those who can’t accept the reality that America’s racial profile will no longer reflect their own.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Tess Callahan - April and Oliver
So far I am enjoying this tense first novel of relationships. I noticed it only because it was featured at BAM. The ratings on amazon.com are quite high.
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