I am not a fan of declarations of things will never be the same, or of the current penchant to include the words Here's how in any pronouncements, but perhaps this article does have quite valid points. In the aftermath of the deal worked out between te Three Stooges (namely, Obama, Democrats and Republicans), all talking heads are in a rush to provide instant, profound analysis.
My judgment is that all the Three Stooges look worse now than before the most recent crisis: Obama looks indecisive, seems to have no spine, to not understand how to use power, to be reluctant to twists arms (let alone kick a little ass), and to have no guiding principle other than reelection; the Democrats seem timid, weak, ignored by a president of their own party, and unable to fight the opposition effectively; and the Republicans look to be hostages of their right wing.
Nonetheless, perhaps the Republicans came out looking the best of the three. Speaker Boehner resisted the Tea Party dictates in the end, and he got his party to vote for the legislation.
Debt-ceiling increases are now tied to deficit reduction. With President Obama's signature, every future president until America's debt monster is tamed must come to Congress on bended knee and plead for the privilege of avoiding default.
Obama looked weak an dineffective, and was unable to impose his will. Then again, he does seem to believe he should be imposing his will. Score one for a weak president.
Bipartisan entitlement protection lives on. No one has the nerve to cut spending in any meaningful way. For all the GOP fervor to rein in government spending, the agreement defers all decisions about entitlement spending to a so-called super committee with an internal architecture almost built for stalemate. The legislationcreated a committee to com eup with cuts. Last year's Deficit Reduction Commission, already all but fiorgotten, is an indicator of how this new committee will fare: badly.
Congress's back-loading of spending cuts lives on. A Democratic president and a tea party-inspired Republican Party will mutually agree to cut domestic discretionary spending (defined by budget authority) by $10 billion compared with 2011 budget totals. That's out of projected domestic discretionary spending of just more than $2 trillion for fiscal 2012 and 2013. Crumbs.Half of one percentage point.
Speaker John Boehner wobbled but didn't fall. Does that make him a force to be reckoned with? Well, he still has the Sperakership. And he did get the votes.
Showing posts with label Government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Government. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Washington swaps magic show for vaudeville
The Gang of Six, breathless reporters told us this week, has found a solution that tons of senators in both parties are willing to go along with. It will cut $3.7 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years while lowering taxes. Wow! How did this group of Democratic and Republican senators do it? Well, for starters they’re going to save $500 billion just by changing the way inflation is calculated. And the rest will be put out to committee — you know, with six-month deadlines and specific targets and such.
Lower the deficit and cut taxes? Perfect. Except for the details: accounting sleight of hand generates half a trillion dollars, and the other three trillion? Figure that out later, of course.
The Gang of Six plan has now replaced the one proposed last week by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to simply abdicate responsibility for the debt ceiling as the favored way for Republicans to get out of the corner they’d painted themselves into.
I considered that proposal unconstitutional: it would give the president the right to change the debt limit, a congressional constitutional duty, so the Congress could avoid having to vote on it. Why not just get rid of the debt limit? Why, that would take away the opportunity for congressional posturing and media performance.
We all know how important it is to keep cutting taxes, so that we have more of our own money to spend on the resulting higher costs for health care, education, personal security and all those other needs that most countries take care of by, well, paying taxes.
But, we couldn't do that ... that's, that's ... socialism, that's what that is.
Lower the deficit and cut taxes? Perfect. Except for the details: accounting sleight of hand generates half a trillion dollars, and the other three trillion? Figure that out later, of course.
The Gang of Six plan has now replaced the one proposed last week by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to simply abdicate responsibility for the debt ceiling as the favored way for Republicans to get out of the corner they’d painted themselves into.
I considered that proposal unconstitutional: it would give the president the right to change the debt limit, a congressional constitutional duty, so the Congress could avoid having to vote on it. Why not just get rid of the debt limit? Why, that would take away the opportunity for congressional posturing and media performance.
We all know how important it is to keep cutting taxes, so that we have more of our own money to spend on the resulting higher costs for health care, education, personal security and all those other needs that most countries take care of by, well, paying taxes.
But, we couldn't do that ... that's, that's ... socialism, that's what that is.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Standoff, or stalemate?
President Obama will not promise that Social Security checks will go out on August 3 unless a deficit-reduction deal is struck. "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out … There may simply not be enough money in the coffers to do it,” he told Scott Pelley of CBS News on Tuesday. “This is not just a matter of Social Security checks,” he explained. "These are veterans’ checks, these are folks on disability and their checks. There are about 70 million checks that go out.” Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that he does not think a significant reduction deal can be reached as long as Obama is in power. He said, “After years of discussions and months of negotiations, I have little question that as long as this president is in the Oval Office, a real solution is probably unattainable.”
The president probably has the upper hand in this matter, but both sides smell pretty bad.
The president probably has the upper hand in this matter, but both sides smell pretty bad.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
All Nixon crimes now legal
40 years to the date, the full Pentagon Papers are finally being published ... by the Nixon Library. Small irony there. Daniel Ellsberg is still around, of course has a website, and is not short of opinions. SOme of what he has to say is thought-provoking, indeed.
The "declassification" of the Pentagon Papers–exactly forty years late–is basically a non-event. The notion that "only small portions" of the report were released forty years ago is pure hype by the Nixon Library. Nearly all of the study–except for the negotiations volumes, which were mostly declassified over twenty years ago– became available in 1971, between the redacted (censored) Government Printing Office edition and the Senator Gravel edition put out by Beacon Press.
A big tragedy is that the word redacted actually has to be interpreted for readers. It is equivalent to teevee showing subtitles for people who speak English with an accent. How dumb are we getting?
One source of the Papers is the website of a Clemson university history professor, Edwin Moïse.
What that comparison [between the 1971 edition and today's] would newly reveal is the blatant violation of the spirit and letter of the FOIA declassification process by successive administrations (including the present one), in rejecting frequent requests by historians and journalists for complete declassification of the Papers over the years.
Each new President quickly becomes a roadblock for declassification and a fanatic for secrecy.
Our Founders sought to prevent this. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, for the first time in constitutional history, put the decision to go to war (beyond repelling sudden attacks) exclusively in the hands of Congress, not the president. But every president since Harry Truman in Korea–as the Pentagon Papers demonstrated up through LBJ, but beyond them to George W. Bush and Barack Obama–has violated the spirit and even the letter of that section of the Constitution (along with some others) they each swore to preserve, protect and defend.
It certainly is true in Obama's case, as well as the others. US air forces have been involved in offensive military actions for months. Such are otherwise known as war. To pretend they are not is what Truman, Johnson and Bush did.
However, as has been pointed out repeatedly by Glenn Greenwald, and Bruce Ackerman , David Swanson and others, no president has so blatantly violated the constitutional division of war powers as President Obama in his ongoing attack on Libya, without a nod even to the statutory War Powers Act, that post-Pentagon Papers effort by Congress to recapture something of the role assigned exclusively to it by the Constitution.
When Kucinich and others introduced and gained support for a bill to end US military action in Lybia without Congressional sanction, Speaker Boehner covered his flank.
Boehner's amendment -- demanding that Obama more fully brief Congress -- ultimately passed, also with substantial bipartisan support, but most media reports ultimately recognized it for what it was: a joint effort by the leadership of both parties and the White House to sabotage the anti-war efforts of its most liberal and most conservative members.
Some call it bipartisanship; others might call it collusion.
Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life. He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me–which forced his resignation facing impeachment–are now legal.
War on terror? Or on what? Whom? Obama continues the same policies, and deepens them, that prevailed under Bush. Whether he has been coopted, or has chosen to be as conservative (or more) than his predecessor, the fact is that he has and is. Consequently, he has betrayed the trust he asked for and was given by those hoping for change from the prior administration. Yet the fault lies as much with us, who believed, as with him who lied.
The "declassification" of the Pentagon Papers–exactly forty years late–is basically a non-event. The notion that "only small portions" of the report were released forty years ago is pure hype by the Nixon Library. Nearly all of the study–except for the negotiations volumes, which were mostly declassified over twenty years ago– became available in 1971, between the redacted (censored) Government Printing Office edition and the Senator Gravel edition put out by Beacon Press.
A big tragedy is that the word redacted actually has to be interpreted for readers. It is equivalent to teevee showing subtitles for people who speak English with an accent. How dumb are we getting?
One source of the Papers is the website of a Clemson university history professor, Edwin Moïse.
What that comparison [between the 1971 edition and today's] would newly reveal is the blatant violation of the spirit and letter of the FOIA declassification process by successive administrations (including the present one), in rejecting frequent requests by historians and journalists for complete declassification of the Papers over the years.
Each new President quickly becomes a roadblock for declassification and a fanatic for secrecy.
Our Founders sought to prevent this. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, for the first time in constitutional history, put the decision to go to war (beyond repelling sudden attacks) exclusively in the hands of Congress, not the president. But every president since Harry Truman in Korea–as the Pentagon Papers demonstrated up through LBJ, but beyond them to George W. Bush and Barack Obama–has violated the spirit and even the letter of that section of the Constitution (along with some others) they each swore to preserve, protect and defend.
It certainly is true in Obama's case, as well as the others. US air forces have been involved in offensive military actions for months. Such are otherwise known as war. To pretend they are not is what Truman, Johnson and Bush did.
However, as has been pointed out repeatedly by Glenn Greenwald, and Bruce Ackerman , David Swanson and others, no president has so blatantly violated the constitutional division of war powers as President Obama in his ongoing attack on Libya, without a nod even to the statutory War Powers Act, that post-Pentagon Papers effort by Congress to recapture something of the role assigned exclusively to it by the Constitution.
When Kucinich and others introduced and gained support for a bill to end US military action in Lybia without Congressional sanction, Speaker Boehner covered his flank.
Boehner's amendment -- demanding that Obama more fully brief Congress -- ultimately passed, also with substantial bipartisan support, but most media reports ultimately recognized it for what it was: a joint effort by the leadership of both parties and the White House to sabotage the anti-war efforts of its most liberal and most conservative members.
Some call it bipartisanship; others might call it collusion.
Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life. He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me–which forced his resignation facing impeachment–are now legal.
War on terror? Or on what? Whom? Obama continues the same policies, and deepens them, that prevailed under Bush. Whether he has been coopted, or has chosen to be as conservative (or more) than his predecessor, the fact is that he has and is. Consequently, he has betrayed the trust he asked for and was given by those hoping for change from the prior administration. Yet the fault lies as much with us, who believed, as with him who lied.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Don't publish THAT
The government has issued warnings that formaldehyde can cause cancer and that styrene might as well. Formaldehyde, the report says, is found in worrisome quantities in plywood, particle board, mortuaries, and hair salons, while high levels of styrene are found in boats, bathtubs, and plastic cups and plates. The government's Report on Carcinogens said consumers should avoid contact with the materials, but that they probably don't pose a serious risk to most people. The workers who make formaldehyde and styrene products, however, are at greater risk. The report was delayed for several years because of intense lobbying from the chemical industry.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
After 40 years, the complete Pentagon Papers
At first blush, it sounds like the release of one of the worst-kept secrets in history — finally unlocking the barn door four decades after the horses bolted. The study, after all, has already been published by The Times and other newspapers, resulting in a landmark First Amendment decision by the Supreme Court. It has been released in book form more than once. But it turns out that those texts have been incomplete: When all 7,000 pages are released Monday, officials say, the study can finally be read in its original form.
That it took until the era of WikiLeaks for the government to declassify the Pentagon Papers struck some participants as, to say the least, curious. “It’s absurd,” said Daniel Ellsberg, the former RAND Corporation analyst who worked on the report and later provided it to The Times. He said Tuesday that the report should not have been secret even in 1971, when newspapers first published it, adding: “The reasons are very clearly domestic political reasons, not national security at all. The reasons for the prolonged secrecy are to conceal the fact that so much of the policy making doesn’t bear public examination. It’s embarrassing, or even incriminating.”
the secrecy has persisted. Timothy Naftali, the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, said that when he recently put together an exhibit on Watergate, he wanted to display just the blue cover of the Pentagon Papers report. “I was told that the cover was classified,” he said, adding that he was astounded.
THAT is absurd.
That it took until the era of WikiLeaks for the government to declassify the Pentagon Papers struck some participants as, to say the least, curious. “It’s absurd,” said Daniel Ellsberg, the former RAND Corporation analyst who worked on the report and later provided it to The Times. He said Tuesday that the report should not have been secret even in 1971, when newspapers first published it, adding: “The reasons are very clearly domestic political reasons, not national security at all. The reasons for the prolonged secrecy are to conceal the fact that so much of the policy making doesn’t bear public examination. It’s embarrassing, or even incriminating.”
the secrecy has persisted. Timothy Naftali, the director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, said that when he recently put together an exhibit on Watergate, he wanted to display just the blue cover of the Pentagon Papers report. “I was told that the cover was classified,” he said, adding that he was astounded.
THAT is absurd.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Putting Republican fear to good use
I enjoy reading this commentator's columns.
Will consumer advocate Warren run for Senate? - by Darrell Delamaide
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, seems to be the motto in mind for financial consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren as Democrats reportedly are urging her to challenge Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts in the 2012 election. The Harvard professor spearheaded the effort to get a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, and has been tasked by President Obama with helping to set up the new agency, designed to police predatory lending, credit card abuses and other attempts by financial institutions o fleece their customers.
Somehow the Republicans have managed to spin this as an anti-business, heavy-handed government regulatory nightmare, not a consumer protection initiative.
Banks, understandably, don’t like the idea of the new agency and don’t like Warren, and they have persuaded 44 Republican Senators – by means it’s easy to guess at – to block the nomination of Warren or anyone else as first director of the new agency.
Means easy to guess? Can he possibly mean bribery ... er, campaign contributions? {We don't have bribery in the US; we have campaign contributions.}
The seat that Brown won in a special election after Kennedy’s death in 2009 is one of those Senate Democrats would love to capture next year. Brown is trying to walk the tightrope between the tea party’s stringent orthodoxy requirements and a left-leaning Massachusetts electorate, and is seen as exceedingly vulnerable.
Brown has lurched left in some cases, but managing to placate the left and the right is a miracle beyond his power.
Massachusetts’ Brown has already broken with the Ryan proposal, arguing in an op-ed that escalating medical costs might outstrip government voucher subsidies in the plan, leaving seniors uncovered – the crux, by coincidence, of Democratic opposition to the plan.
It is a small wonder how Brown won in 2009.
Will consumer advocate Warren run for Senate? - by Darrell Delamaide
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, seems to be the motto in mind for financial consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren as Democrats reportedly are urging her to challenge Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts in the 2012 election. The Harvard professor spearheaded the effort to get a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, and has been tasked by President Obama with helping to set up the new agency, designed to police predatory lending, credit card abuses and other attempts by financial institutions o fleece their customers.
Somehow the Republicans have managed to spin this as an anti-business, heavy-handed government regulatory nightmare, not a consumer protection initiative.
Banks, understandably, don’t like the idea of the new agency and don’t like Warren, and they have persuaded 44 Republican Senators – by means it’s easy to guess at – to block the nomination of Warren or anyone else as first director of the new agency.
Means easy to guess? Can he possibly mean bribery ... er, campaign contributions? {We don't have bribery in the US; we have campaign contributions.}
The seat that Brown won in a special election after Kennedy’s death in 2009 is one of those Senate Democrats would love to capture next year. Brown is trying to walk the tightrope between the tea party’s stringent orthodoxy requirements and a left-leaning Massachusetts electorate, and is seen as exceedingly vulnerable.
Brown has lurched left in some cases, but managing to placate the left and the right is a miracle beyond his power.
Massachusetts’ Brown has already broken with the Ryan proposal, arguing in an op-ed that escalating medical costs might outstrip government voucher subsidies in the plan, leaving seniors uncovered – the crux, by coincidence, of Democratic opposition to the plan.
It is a small wonder how Brown won in 2009.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Where's my money?
As President Obama heads to Alabama in the wake of a tornado storm system that has left over 300 people dead, Texas Governor Rick Perry slammed the White House for not responding to his request on April 16 for a declaration of emergency as wildfires began to rage across the state, destroying two million acres of forests. "You have to ask, 'Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?' I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail," said the Republican governor who has been known to criticize the government in the past. Two firefighters have died while fighting the blazes, and 900 buildings have burned down. A federal disaster declaration could reimburse Texas 75 percent of the cost of their emergency response.
Gotta hand it to this guy: he refuses stimulus money during a recession, but now wants the Feds to bail him out.
Gotta hand it to this guy: he refuses stimulus money during a recession, but now wants the Feds to bail him out.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
GOP faces voter ire
In central Florida, a Congressional town meeting erupted into near chaos on Tuesday as attendees accused a Republican lawmaker of trying to dismantle Medicare while providing tax cuts to corporations and affluent Americans. At roughly the same time in Wisconsin, Representative Paul D. Ryan, the architect of the Republican budget proposal, faced a packed town meeting, occasional boos and a skeptical audience as he tried to lay out his party’s rationale for overhauling the health insurance program for retirees. After 10 days of trying to sell constituents on their plan to overhaul Medicare, House Republicans in multiple districts appear to be increasingly on the defensive, facing worried and angry questions from voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies. The proposed new approach to Medicare — a centerpiece of a budget that Republican leaders have hailed as a courageous effort to address the nation’s long-term fiscal problems — has been a constant topic at town-hall-style sessions and other public gatherings during a two-week Congressional recess that provided the first chance for lawmakers to gauge reaction to the plan.
Predictable, and welcome, results.
Predictable, and welcome, results.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Obama eyes entitlements, taxes
In a major fiscal policy address later Wednesday, Obama, to the profound irritation of his critics on the left, is going along with the Republican notion that there have to be further deep cuts in government spending, even though he’s trying to balance it out with revenue increases. A Republican budget put out last week by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was so radical in its plan to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid that it made the recommendations from Obama’s debt commission — which seemed to have been consigned to the dustbin of history — look mild by comparison. So the president retrieved some of these ideas for his plan to counter the Republicans. Ryan has in all likelihood permanently damaged his credibility — even conservative economists ridiculed his unfounded assumptions, and a Heritage Foundation study used for his rosy economic projections was withdrawn for some remedial work. The bottom line seems to be that economic and fiscal policy that affects the lives and well being of every citizen in this country is being made by people who don’t really know a lot about economics.What we have instead are politicians who seem intent on scoring points.
Perhaps Ryan's Republicans colleagues simply let him walk the plank. Is it too simple to assume politicians are cynical, and will let anything be said, gauge the public reaction, then adjust their position accordingly?
Obama seems less interested in economics than in doing what it takes to win re-election next year. His compromise on the tax cuts at the end of 2010 took the wind out of Republican sails despite their November victories, and whatever gains the GOP wants to notch up from last week’s game of chicken, most people seem to think they blinked first.
Interesting: Ed Schultz, over at msnbc, speaking with Senator Bernie Sanders, charged that the Tea Party won the first round. And, do we have to wonder that Obama is any different than other politicians in gauging his reelection his top priority?
So now Obama is taking on the debt ceiling and the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in October. He is giving in on some more spending cuts and envisages some entitlement reform, earning more opprobrium from the left but less resistance from the right, despite all their loud protests. And in the meantime, the line of those Republicans willing to run against him in 2012 seems to be getting shorter and shorter.
Yeah, but Michelle Bachman is in the wings.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Anti-Debt crusader
in articles and in speeches like the one he gave last month over red wine and beef tournedos at the Metropolitan Club, Mr. Peterson has been pushing his plan to fix Social Security: gradually increase the retirement age; put in place an “affluence test” to reduce benefits for the wealthy; raise the cap on the payroll tax; and proclaim Social Security’s trust fund — which, he says, is filled with government IOUs, not cash — as having already been spent. The odd thing about the politics of the debt is that many of those in power agree with him and yet refuse — or are painfully slow — to act.
Politicians in office rail against evils they blame for everything they despise or know will get them votes, but move with glacial speed to act do anything of substance. Peterson has the advantage of not needing votes.
Politicians in office rail against evils they blame for everything they despise or know will get them votes, but move with glacial speed to act do anything of substance. Peterson has the advantage of not needing votes.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Democrats pessimistic about avoiding shutdown
Let the Republicans force a shutdown. If they haven't read the history of what their party did, and suffered for doing, 17 years ago, go ahead, shut 'er down.
“Right now, they look a bit dismal,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said when asked about the prospects of keeping the government running beyond the April 8 deadline. Across Capitol Hill, expectations grew Tuesday that — given the procedural and political obstacles ahead — the parties will fail to reach an agreement, which would prompt a massive government disruption in just a matter of days. And while both sides are already engaged in a sort of blame game in advance of a potential shutdown, they are also bracing for the political blowback.
“Right now, they look a bit dismal,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said when asked about the prospects of keeping the government running beyond the April 8 deadline. Across Capitol Hill, expectations grew Tuesday that — given the procedural and political obstacles ahead — the parties will fail to reach an agreement, which would prompt a massive government disruption in just a matter of days. And while both sides are already engaged in a sort of blame game in advance of a potential shutdown, they are also bracing for the political blowback.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Run, Ron Paul, run
Paul once voted to deny Mother Teresa the Congressional Gold Medal because he didn't think the government should have to pay for it.
That's the spirit. I hope he runs.
That's the spirit. I hope he runs.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Change we need
House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers
The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public. The act was hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks. Three measures of the act are set to expire at month’s end, and the House’s lack of a two-thirds vote on Tuesday failed to move the sunsetting deadline to Dec. 8, as proposed. The vote was 277-148, or 23 votes short. The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act’s broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013.
The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public. The act was hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks. Three measures of the act are set to expire at month’s end, and the House’s lack of a two-thirds vote on Tuesday failed to move the sunsetting deadline to Dec. 8, as proposed. The vote was 277-148, or 23 votes short. The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act’s broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Republicans on Egypt and debt
G.O.P. Hopefuls Leave Egypt Crisis to the President - A parade of prospective Republican presidential candidates has been visiting the Middle East in recent months, making pilgrimages that are the first steps in a methodical process of building credibility in foreign policy.
I have never understood how visiting Israel builds foreign policy credentials. It is a must for domestic constituencies, but how is taking an airplane useful experience for conducting international relations?
But as the crisis in Egypt has intensified this week, elevating foreign affairs above domestic political skirmishes, the potential Republican candidates and the party’s leaders in Congress have, with only a few exceptions, had little to say.
What could they possibly say?
To some degree, the silence from Republicans reflects a lack of substantive differences, especially on Egypt. House Speaker John A. Boehner set the tone on Sunday, saying, “Our administration so far has handled this tense situation pretty well.” And in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Tuesday, “America ought to speak with one voice, and we have one president."
Suntan John has some difficulty tossing compliments the President's way.And it is good to see Mitch Mc has finally accepted the fact.
Party elders have largely agreed. On Wednesday, James A. Baker, the former secretary of state, said of the Obama administration, “They’ve been handling this Egyptian crisis quite well, frankly.”
Nice of him to say so.
While it is hardly rare for opposition candidates to have limited foreign policy experience — take, for example, Senator Barack Obama as he started his candidacy four years ago — the president’s Republican rivals so far do not even have a high-profile issue, as Mr. Obama did with Iraq, on which they can offer national security policies and values that contrast with those of the White House.
The escalating crisis in Egypt has attracted fresh attention to foreign policy at the very time that prospective Republican contenders are trying to establish their credentials as prospective commanders in chief. Gone are the days when the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire were the only obligatory stops on the campaign trail. Particularly for candidates who want to appeal to evangelical voters, Israel, Jordan and other points across the Middle East are now important stops as well.
A, an explanation.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, completed his 15th visit to Israel this week. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is set to leave on Saturday for a trip to Israel that is scheduled to include a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, made a similar visit last month, and Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has led a trade delegation to Israel.
Well, at least the Israeli tourism business is healthy.
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, who seldom goes more than a few days without criticizing the administration, has been silent about the turmoil in Egypt.
Maybe she just can't see the pyramids from her front porch.
Bernanke Takes Sides on Debt Limit Vote This one calls for some adult supervision, and Big Ben is just the one to provide it. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned Congressional Republicans on Thursday not to “play around with” a coming vote to raise the government’s legal borrowing limit or use it as a bargaining chip for spending cuts. Though he called on Congress and Mr. Obama to confront “daunting fiscal challenges,” Mr. Bernanke said the debt ceiling should not be used as a negotiating tactic, warning that even the possibility of the United States not being able to pay its creditors could create panic in the debt markets.
I have never understood how visiting Israel builds foreign policy credentials. It is a must for domestic constituencies, but how is taking an airplane useful experience for conducting international relations?
But as the crisis in Egypt has intensified this week, elevating foreign affairs above domestic political skirmishes, the potential Republican candidates and the party’s leaders in Congress have, with only a few exceptions, had little to say.
What could they possibly say?
To some degree, the silence from Republicans reflects a lack of substantive differences, especially on Egypt. House Speaker John A. Boehner set the tone on Sunday, saying, “Our administration so far has handled this tense situation pretty well.” And in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said Tuesday, “America ought to speak with one voice, and we have one president."
Suntan John has some difficulty tossing compliments the President's way.And it is good to see Mitch Mc has finally accepted the fact.
Party elders have largely agreed. On Wednesday, James A. Baker, the former secretary of state, said of the Obama administration, “They’ve been handling this Egyptian crisis quite well, frankly.”
Nice of him to say so.
While it is hardly rare for opposition candidates to have limited foreign policy experience — take, for example, Senator Barack Obama as he started his candidacy four years ago — the president’s Republican rivals so far do not even have a high-profile issue, as Mr. Obama did with Iraq, on which they can offer national security policies and values that contrast with those of the White House.
The escalating crisis in Egypt has attracted fresh attention to foreign policy at the very time that prospective Republican contenders are trying to establish their credentials as prospective commanders in chief. Gone are the days when the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire were the only obligatory stops on the campaign trail. Particularly for candidates who want to appeal to evangelical voters, Israel, Jordan and other points across the Middle East are now important stops as well.
A, an explanation.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, completed his 15th visit to Israel this week. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is set to leave on Saturday for a trip to Israel that is scheduled to include a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, made a similar visit last month, and Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, has led a trade delegation to Israel.
Well, at least the Israeli tourism business is healthy.
Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, who seldom goes more than a few days without criticizing the administration, has been silent about the turmoil in Egypt.
Maybe she just can't see the pyramids from her front porch.
Bernanke Takes Sides on Debt Limit Vote This one calls for some adult supervision, and Big Ben is just the one to provide it. The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned Congressional Republicans on Thursday not to “play around with” a coming vote to raise the government’s legal borrowing limit or use it as a bargaining chip for spending cuts. Though he called on Congress and Mr. Obama to confront “daunting fiscal challenges,” Mr. Bernanke said the debt ceiling should not be used as a negotiating tactic, warning that even the possibility of the United States not being able to pay its creditors could create panic in the debt markets.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Right wing flexes muscle
3 stories offer glimpses at the Republican Party early in 2011, the year it assumes some governmental power.
Darrell Issa, soon to be launching at least half a dozen investigations into the Obama administration's first two years, offers to have business tell him what laws and rules they it would like to have repealed.
Companies spend millions of dollars each year complaining to Congress about burdensome laws and regulations, pressing their concerns in public campaigns and in private meetings. They rarely wait for invitations. Last month a senior House Republican, Representative Darrell Issa of California, nevertheless dispatched letters to 150 companies, trade groups and research organizations asking them to identify federal regulations that are restraining economic recovery and job growth. Mr. Issa, incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the concerns of businesses had been ignored by the Obama administration as it pursued what he described as an unprecedented regulatory expansion.
He's offering them a rebate on lobbying, in effect. Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, has his own agenda: burnish his credentials as a budget hawk in advance of launching his own presidential bid.
Congressional Republicans have spent much of the last decade voting for tax cuts and spending increases, all the while giving speeches decrying the deficit. Mr. Daniels, who took office in 2005, has reduced the number of state workers by 18 percent and held spending growth below inflation. He has raised the sales tax to help make up for a property tax cut. Largely as a result, Indiana finds itself in better fiscal shape than many other states.
Reduce the state's work force, increase unemployment, and cut one tax whilst raising another: balm for the gilead?
Darrell Issa, soon to be launching at least half a dozen investigations into the Obama administration's first two years, offers to have business tell him what laws and rules they it would like to have repealed.
Companies spend millions of dollars each year complaining to Congress about burdensome laws and regulations, pressing their concerns in public campaigns and in private meetings. They rarely wait for invitations. Last month a senior House Republican, Representative Darrell Issa of California, nevertheless dispatched letters to 150 companies, trade groups and research organizations asking them to identify federal regulations that are restraining economic recovery and job growth. Mr. Issa, incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the concerns of businesses had been ignored by the Obama administration as it pursued what he described as an unprecedented regulatory expansion.
He's offering them a rebate on lobbying, in effect. Indiana's governor, Mitch Daniels, has his own agenda: burnish his credentials as a budget hawk in advance of launching his own presidential bid.
Congressional Republicans have spent much of the last decade voting for tax cuts and spending increases, all the while giving speeches decrying the deficit. Mr. Daniels, who took office in 2005, has reduced the number of state workers by 18 percent and held spending growth below inflation. He has raised the sales tax to help make up for a property tax cut. Largely as a result, Indiana finds itself in better fiscal shape than many other states.
Reduce the state's work force, increase unemployment, and cut one tax whilst raising another: balm for the gilead?
Thursday, December 23, 2010
More a party hack than revolutionary
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has become a hero in the Republican Party because he talks a blunt message about state government deficits.
He has scored early, and easy, points by showing a combative style and an unwillingness to let things continue as they have been. Well enough.
Christie, who sends his own children to Catholic parochial schools and like any good Republican supports school vouchers, clearly has it in for public schools.
He has been combative with teachers, and has seized on the parochial (pun intended) view of civil servants as overpaid, underworked, undeserving louts.
The Christie view, again solidly Republican, is that public employees have accrued too many benefits and enjoy financial security superior to those in the private sector — the ones who pay their salaries! This ignores a key point: Public employees also pay taxes. It also ignores the fact that when the economy was booming and private-sector employees were getting raises, bonuses and perks well beyond what teachers and police and firemen were getting, these same put-upon taxpayers didn’t hesitate to look down their noses at the “losers” who opted for the stability of government employment.
Those who can, do; those who can't teach is a favourite refrain of the corporate crowd. Heard it many times.
It’s inevitable that some of the benefits negotiated over the years by public-service unions in New Jersey, California and other states will have to be rolled back, and governments and unions will have to negotiate in good faith to that end. But it should be equally certain that state-level deficit problems won’t be solved by spending cuts alone. Voters will not let public services be cut to the bone: Even the well-to-do cannot isolate themselves completely from inadequate fire and police protection, crumbling infrastructure and dysfunctional government services.
Instead of castigating and insulting, and, yes, lambasting public employees, he and his ilk might start a dialogue and stop with the attacks and lectures. But the combative style is a calculated political ploy.
The most reasonable solution would be for the federal government to provide loans to tide over state governments until the economy recovers and restores state revenues. But while it was all right for Washington to rescue Wall Street bonuses, it seems to be politically anathema to provide the same support for such minor goods as public safety and our children’s education. Republican king-maker Rush Limbaugh has anointed Christie as “gutsy,” and numerous Web sites celebrate the “Christie Revolution” as a harbinger of America’s future. But Christie, appointed U.S. attorney in New Jersey in 2001 on the basis of his successful fundraising for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign despite a lack of experience in criminal law, appears to be nothing more than the blunt-speaking Jersey version of a party hack.
This article appeared in MarketWatch. To say that that surpirses me does not begin to express how much it indeed surprised me.
He has scored early, and easy, points by showing a combative style and an unwillingness to let things continue as they have been. Well enough.
Christie, who sends his own children to Catholic parochial schools and like any good Republican supports school vouchers, clearly has it in for public schools.
He has been combative with teachers, and has seized on the parochial (pun intended) view of civil servants as overpaid, underworked, undeserving louts.
The Christie view, again solidly Republican, is that public employees have accrued too many benefits and enjoy financial security superior to those in the private sector — the ones who pay their salaries! This ignores a key point: Public employees also pay taxes. It also ignores the fact that when the economy was booming and private-sector employees were getting raises, bonuses and perks well beyond what teachers and police and firemen were getting, these same put-upon taxpayers didn’t hesitate to look down their noses at the “losers” who opted for the stability of government employment.
Those who can, do; those who can't teach is a favourite refrain of the corporate crowd. Heard it many times.
It’s inevitable that some of the benefits negotiated over the years by public-service unions in New Jersey, California and other states will have to be rolled back, and governments and unions will have to negotiate in good faith to that end. But it should be equally certain that state-level deficit problems won’t be solved by spending cuts alone. Voters will not let public services be cut to the bone: Even the well-to-do cannot isolate themselves completely from inadequate fire and police protection, crumbling infrastructure and dysfunctional government services.
Instead of castigating and insulting, and, yes, lambasting public employees, he and his ilk might start a dialogue and stop with the attacks and lectures. But the combative style is a calculated political ploy.
The most reasonable solution would be for the federal government to provide loans to tide over state governments until the economy recovers and restores state revenues. But while it was all right for Washington to rescue Wall Street bonuses, it seems to be politically anathema to provide the same support for such minor goods as public safety and our children’s education. Republican king-maker Rush Limbaugh has anointed Christie as “gutsy,” and numerous Web sites celebrate the “Christie Revolution” as a harbinger of America’s future. But Christie, appointed U.S. attorney in New Jersey in 2001 on the basis of his successful fundraising for the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign despite a lack of experience in criminal law, appears to be nothing more than the blunt-speaking Jersey version of a party hack.
This article appeared in MarketWatch. To say that that surpirses me does not begin to express how much it indeed surprised me.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Once a conservative ...
In Health Law, Old Debate Gets New Airing
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Resistance to the expansion of the social safety net stems from tension between two competing traditions. Ronald Reagan took a stand against Medicare in the 1960s.
Dr. No's Yes roils GOP
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Sex and the frequent flyer
A thoughtful, perceptive, insightful look at war, flying and x-ray machines.
Nov. 24, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST
Sex and the frequent flyer
Commentary: Government will grope you — and kill you if needed
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The home front is in an uproar over the war on terror, and all it took was some dirty pictures.
On Wednesday, a massive protest is planned in the nation’s airports to call attention to the latest indignity: invasive full-body X-rays and intimate searches. Objecting to the newest scanning technology that produces a nearly nude digital image of air travelers, the protesters say they’ll try to shut down the system on one of the busiest travel days of the year by insisting on time-consuming physical pat-downs.
The anger has been quietly building for months, as more and more passengers were subjected to the new imaging machines, which some say amount to “porno searches.” Even worse, those who object to posing in the virtual nude for the Transportation Security Administration can choose to have a uniformed stranger feel their genitals to make sure they aren’t hiding a bomb in their underwear.
Suddenly, the war is news again. Remember the war? It’s the endless war, the one where Americans weren’t asked to pay more in taxes or to subject themselves or their children to the military draft. It was the one where the only sacrifice that average Americans were asked to make was to give up their liberty.
A small price to preserve freedom, they told us without the slightest sense of irony.
Since the war began, our country has lied, spied, kidnapped, tortured and killed in our name and in cause of the war on terror. Thousands of American soldiers lost their lives. Tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghanis lost theirs. More than $1 trillion was spent. Some patriots protested the loss of freedom, the incompetent execution and the losing strategy, but nothing much changed.
The war on terror continues into its 10th year, with no end in sight. We still have troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the globe. The prison at Guantanamo Bay is still open. The torture and kidnappings continue, and we know innocents are also caught up in the dragnet along with the bad guys. The bombings and attacks by unmanned drones haven’t let up, and we know innocents are also killed along with the terrorists.
And we’ve come no closer to winning this war. How could we, when we are fighting an abstract enemy? When we create one enemy for each one we kill or capture?
Since the horrible events of September 2001, we’ve asked our leaders, our military and our intelligence services to keep us safe, and damn the expense!
It was exciting, at first. America was united, by golly, just like the Greatest Generation! We got to eat freedom fries, and we got to close our eyes as our leaders marched our army into the wrong country for the wrong cause. The government asserted its right to bug our phones and read our emails, and of course we went along with it because we have nothing to hide.
As time passed, for most of us, the war on terror retreated into the background. It was only when we traveled by air that the war came back home. It was only at the airport that we remembered the war was still on: Throw your coffee cup away at the security gate, take off your belt, empty your pockets, take off your shoes, segregate your liquids and gels, don’t crack a smile, don’t question authority, do as you are told. Don’t you know there’s a war on?
Looking at the line of passengers winding their way through the security lines and on board the planes and back off again at the destination, you’d think there had never been such a complacent people resigned to their fate. Flying has become a thoroughly degrading experience: mindless security rules, long lines, long waits, no real meals, crummy snacks, cramped seats… what’s not to love?
And then sex entered the picture.
The untested full-body X-ray machines may not be effective at preventing actual threats, and they may kill more passengers with cancer than they could ever save from terrorists. But we Americans are fine with that. We’re used to the government doing stupid or self-defeating things.
But tell us that the new machines will let strangers see what we look like without clothes, or that someone will grope you if you object to the porno search, and you’ve got the makings of a mass movement that should not be underestimated.
Don’t touch my junk, indeed! We are such prudes, and so vain too! Do we really think the TSA employees want to see us with our clothes off? Or touch our privates? Working for the TSA has officially become the worst job ever.
In response to all this, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has introduced the American Traveler Dignity Act. Isn’t a little late for that?
The pornographic aspect of the TSA’s new machines certainly is creepy, but we should focus instead on the bigger picture.
Every American should know that, when national security is on the line, the government will lie to you even as it kills you. I had friends in Utah who died from the cancer the government gave them during above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s. Read more about the nuclear testing.
The same thing happened to the Sept. 11 rescue workers, who were exposed to deadly chemicals and carcinogens without adequate protection.
And now millions of Americans will receive doses of unnecessary and unwanted radiation each time they fly.
Which bothers you more? That the government will grope you, or that it will kill you?
Copyright © 2010 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.
Nov. 24, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST
Sex and the frequent flyer
Commentary: Government will grope you — and kill you if needed
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The home front is in an uproar over the war on terror, and all it took was some dirty pictures.
On Wednesday, a massive protest is planned in the nation’s airports to call attention to the latest indignity: invasive full-body X-rays and intimate searches. Objecting to the newest scanning technology that produces a nearly nude digital image of air travelers, the protesters say they’ll try to shut down the system on one of the busiest travel days of the year by insisting on time-consuming physical pat-downs.
The anger has been quietly building for months, as more and more passengers were subjected to the new imaging machines, which some say amount to “porno searches.” Even worse, those who object to posing in the virtual nude for the Transportation Security Administration can choose to have a uniformed stranger feel their genitals to make sure they aren’t hiding a bomb in their underwear.
Suddenly, the war is news again. Remember the war? It’s the endless war, the one where Americans weren’t asked to pay more in taxes or to subject themselves or their children to the military draft. It was the one where the only sacrifice that average Americans were asked to make was to give up their liberty.
A small price to preserve freedom, they told us without the slightest sense of irony.
Since the war began, our country has lied, spied, kidnapped, tortured and killed in our name and in cause of the war on terror. Thousands of American soldiers lost their lives. Tens of thousands of Iraqi and Afghanis lost theirs. More than $1 trillion was spent. Some patriots protested the loss of freedom, the incompetent execution and the losing strategy, but nothing much changed.
The war on terror continues into its 10th year, with no end in sight. We still have troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the globe. The prison at Guantanamo Bay is still open. The torture and kidnappings continue, and we know innocents are also caught up in the dragnet along with the bad guys. The bombings and attacks by unmanned drones haven’t let up, and we know innocents are also killed along with the terrorists.
And we’ve come no closer to winning this war. How could we, when we are fighting an abstract enemy? When we create one enemy for each one we kill or capture?
Since the horrible events of September 2001, we’ve asked our leaders, our military and our intelligence services to keep us safe, and damn the expense!
It was exciting, at first. America was united, by golly, just like the Greatest Generation! We got to eat freedom fries, and we got to close our eyes as our leaders marched our army into the wrong country for the wrong cause. The government asserted its right to bug our phones and read our emails, and of course we went along with it because we have nothing to hide.
As time passed, for most of us, the war on terror retreated into the background. It was only when we traveled by air that the war came back home. It was only at the airport that we remembered the war was still on: Throw your coffee cup away at the security gate, take off your belt, empty your pockets, take off your shoes, segregate your liquids and gels, don’t crack a smile, don’t question authority, do as you are told. Don’t you know there’s a war on?
Looking at the line of passengers winding their way through the security lines and on board the planes and back off again at the destination, you’d think there had never been such a complacent people resigned to their fate. Flying has become a thoroughly degrading experience: mindless security rules, long lines, long waits, no real meals, crummy snacks, cramped seats… what’s not to love?
And then sex entered the picture.
The untested full-body X-ray machines may not be effective at preventing actual threats, and they may kill more passengers with cancer than they could ever save from terrorists. But we Americans are fine with that. We’re used to the government doing stupid or self-defeating things.
But tell us that the new machines will let strangers see what we look like without clothes, or that someone will grope you if you object to the porno search, and you’ve got the makings of a mass movement that should not be underestimated.
Don’t touch my junk, indeed! We are such prudes, and so vain too! Do we really think the TSA employees want to see us with our clothes off? Or touch our privates? Working for the TSA has officially become the worst job ever.
In response to all this, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas has introduced the American Traveler Dignity Act. Isn’t a little late for that?
The pornographic aspect of the TSA’s new machines certainly is creepy, but we should focus instead on the bigger picture.
Every American should know that, when national security is on the line, the government will lie to you even as it kills you. I had friends in Utah who died from the cancer the government gave them during above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s. Read more about the nuclear testing.
The same thing happened to the Sept. 11 rescue workers, who were exposed to deadly chemicals and carcinogens without adequate protection.
And now millions of Americans will receive doses of unnecessary and unwanted radiation each time they fly.
Which bothers you more? That the government will grope you, or that it will kill you?
Copyright © 2010 MarketWatch, Inc. All rights reserved.
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