Hyper partisanship in the U.S. House

Apparently each day starts with both sides launching minute-long invectives at one another. To both parties: this is really, really dumb.

Things Republicans have taught me in discussing health care

1. Consistency is unimportant, but stridency is.
2. Knowing the definition of words you use does not matter.
3. Lying about who provides your health care does not matter, particularly when people like their government provider more than their private one. (yes, in America).
   
4. It's great fun to tell outright lies about health care legislation...
5. ...especially when the "death panels" were actually proposed by a Republican to help families make tough end-of-life decisions...
6. ...And (referring back to #1) let's not forget that Republicans have no problem with government interfering with end-of-life decisions.

Fiscal Conservatism? Try stupid

Dear public radio,

When a Republican governor attempts to reject the federal stimulus dollars for his state, he is not "burnishing his fiscal conservative credentials," he is an idiot.  Basic macroeconomic theory (read: Keynes) tells us to increase government expenditures via direct spending or tax cuts to help mitigate an economic downturn.  Doing otherwise, and thus increasing the pain and suffering of your citizens by deepening the recession is not only dumb - how can politicians who claim to believe in markets have so little understanding of them? - it is immoral.

Go ahead, Texas

In case you missed it, Texas governor Rick Perry suggested recently that Texas may want to secede from the Union because the stimulus bill is such a blow to the Constitution.

One election blogger suggests that the Democrats should seriously consider this idea.

Iraq tours shortened (back) to 12 months

National Public Radio is a great news source and they promise news with context.  So it was an extreme disappointment to hear them parrot the Bush Administration's horn toot that Iraq tours of duty will be reduced to (the original) 12 months.

See, in April 2007, the Bush Administration increased tours of duty from 12 to 15 months as part of the "surge."

Go ahead and let the President have a quote about "helping soldiers and their families," but for God's sake tell the truth, too.  This isn't some sort of special benefit or policy, it's restoring the tours of duty to the length that soldiers actually signed up for. 

Oh, and "it won't apply to troops now serving."

Liberal media, my ass.

High oil prices explained - 1 chart

In addition to an excoriation of the ridiculous pagentry over oil prices on Capitol Hill, R-Squared provides the chart that explains it all. When world supply is lower than demand, prices go up. (R-Squared credits Optimist for this chart)

When only the wrong get callbacks

Krugman has an insightful piece about the state of America's ability to problem solve. For many of the major crises facing the country - the Iraq War, the financial crisis - those we ask for solutions are the very same ones who got us into the mess.

• Alan Greenspan played down the subprime crisis and is being asked for advice on solving it.
• President Bush and Cheney lied repeatedly about the Iraq War and got re-elected in 2004 (and still have their jobs).
• And many major pundits keep getting airtime despite being wrong, wrong, wrong.

Heck, there's even a book on the subject.

Reagan was no bigot...

...but he sure knew how to campaign like one.

When he went on about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked, some people thought he was engaging in race-baiting. But it was all just an innocent mistake.

When, in 1976, he talked about working people angry about the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store, he didn’t mean to play into racial hostility. True, as The New York Times reported,

The ex-Governor has used the grocery-line illustration before, but in states like New Hampshire where there is scant black population, he has never used the expression “young buck,” which, to whites in the South, generally denotes a large black man.

But the appearance that Reagan was playing to Southern prejudice was just an innocent mistake.

Similarly, when Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been “humiliating to the South,” he didn’t mean to signal sympathy with segregationists. It was all an innocent mistake.

In 1982, when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating, he had no idea that the issue was so racially charged. It was all an innocent mistake.

And the next year, when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission, it wasn’t intended as a gesture of support to Southern whites. It was all an innocent mistake.

Poor Reagan. He just kept on making those innocent mistakes, again and again and again.

Are Congressional Republicans that ashamed of the Constitution?

In response to legislation curtailing the warrantless wiretapping and other illegal surveillance techniques used by President Bush's administration, many Congressional Republicans have expressed dismay:

The measure "extends our Constitution beyond American soil to our enemies who want to cut the heads off Americans," said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.).

I thought that Iraq represented an opportunity to spread democracy and American political values beyond our borders. So why would we be ashamed to extend our Constitution - the enumeration of our values - beyond American soil?

Al Franken brings some fresh air to the latest Iraq diversion

If you have been listening to Republicans for the past few days, the most important national issue is not the increasing quagmire in Iraq, is not children's health insurance, is not mental health parity. No, if you've been listening to Republicans you believe that the national priority is condemning a political ad in the liberal/commie New York Times. Sometimes it takes a humorist to see the humor in the situation (when BNL isn't available):

It is, of course, ridiculous that the United States Senate spent a day debating and voting on a resolution condemning an advertisement while our troops remained in Iraq, fighting a war with no end. And it's doubly ridiculous that [Senator] Coleman, of all people, is still playing politics with this issue.

So what's the appropriate dialogue for a nation at war?

There are more than 160,000 troops currently serving in Iraq. We should honor their service by providing them with the best possible medical care when they return. We should honor their sacrifice by refusing to allow this president to keep them there in the middle of a civil war. And we should honor them by taking seriously the difficult debate about the best way, or at least the least bad way, to end our engagement in Iraq.

It's shameful it takes a satirist to get us serious about this war.

GOP likes higher cost, less coverage health care

The U.S. House will consider a bill on children's health insurance soon, but the politics are getting far ahead of the actual debate. With new rules requiring offsets for new spending, the children's health care proposal asks for higher tobacco taxes and less money for Medicare patients in the private health care plans. The latter is actually a cost savings, since the government-run Medicare health plans are cheaper than the private ones.

That doesn't stop Republican opponents from political posturing:

“Dragging people out of private health insurance to put them into a government-run program is ‘Hillary care’ come back,” [House Republican leader] Mr. Boehner said.

If "Hillary care" means less expensive but more expansive medical care for Americans, let me know where to sign up.

Note: This post was titled in the spirit of the Republican opponents to children's health insurance. It's inflammatory and misleading and I approved this message.

Politics trumps science (again)

President Bush's executive order 13422 (pdf) took effect yesterday, guaranteeing that political appointees of government agencies will have final say over government regulations. The implications are widespread. This analysis from an environmental law firm notes that the executive order also requires that agencies identify the "specific market failure" that their regulation addresses. In other words, the review by a political appointee will have the potential to derail health and safety regulations, even if the best science has found them necessary or in the public interest.

January 2009 can't come quickly enough.

Tuesday roundup

I've been hit with my oft-acquired late spring cold, which in addition to my newly acquired (or acknowledged) allergies made for quite the cap on my weekend. All-in-all, it's created a less-than-stellar environment for blogging (staying home sick from work is an excuse to stay off the computer).

At any rate, here's a link or two to things I've found interesting while being unable to blog more thoroughly:

• The U.S. Congress is considering "price gouging" legislation. Blogger Robert Rapier has a nice explanation of how legislation like this will accomplish one thing: gas shortages.
• Modern Dragons has an interesting tidbit on the way naming a female child can impact their future interest in math and science.
• Dead Racist Weekly has debunked the obituary theory that Jerry Falwell and other evangelicals got political because of Roe v. Wade. It was actually the proposal to remove their Christian school tax exemption that got the masses uppity.
• GM has recently done more tests with a hydrogen car, but has yet to answer the question of where people will tank up these concept cars. In case anyone is wondering, GM was the maker of the all-electric EV1, which could refuel by using electricity (exercise: count the number of gas stations with hydrogen pumps. Now count the number of gas stations with electricity. Which fuel of the future seems more likely?)
  

"Cut and run" is a Republican tradition?

Steve Chapman has a knack for grabbing the attention of the Moldy, either with highly inane economic commentary, or today, with incredibly insightful hindsight on the foreign policy traditions in the Republican Party.

We all know that when it comes to war, Republicans are strong and resolute, while Democrats are weak and craven. We know because Republicans tell us so

...The truth is, Republican presidents are not known for staying the course in the face of adversity. Dwight Eisenhower ran on a promise to end the Korean war, which he did -- on terms that allowed the Communist aggressors to remain in power in the North. Richard Nixon negotiated a peace agreement with the North Vietnamese government, which provided for a U.S. pullout. Gerald Ford presided over the fall of Saigon and the final, humiliating American evacuation.

In those instances, the presidents came to grips with the unpleasant truth that sometimes, you can't achieve the desired outcome without an excessive sacrifice...What Republicans stood for in the past was a sober realism about the limits of our power and our good intentions. That spirit is absent today. They act as though slogans are a substitute for strategy.

Given the high cost of the Iraq War, perhaps it's time for some sober realism instead of sloganeering.

Liquor advertising: a note from a cynic

Jim Beam recently announced a plan to only advertise in establishments (or publications) where 75% of the audience is above the legal drinking age. This ups the ante on the two liquor trade groups, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and the Beer Council, whose benchmark is only 70%.

Of course, neither item is particularly impressive when 70% of the total population is above the legal drinking age. This means that the liquor folks have committed only to advertise to minors relative to their proportion of the population.

Of course, there's an old study (from 1980) that suggests that advertising does little to change overall consumption patterns. Another working paper suggests the same, but notes that making alcohol harder to actually obtain (by increasing prices) could have beneficial social outcomes.

Conclusion: it's a token gesture in a completely useless direction. But it gets you in the papers....

When does an activist become a hypocrite?

Skemono looks at anecdotes from a website titled "the only moral abortion is my abortion," relating tales from the field where previously anti-choice activists unapologetically get an abortion before heading back to the protest line. Skemono has one sentence that really highlights the mindframe of these abortion hypocrites:

The only valid choice is their own--everyone else are sluts who use abortion as birth control.

I'm fine if people want to protest abortion and to refrain from one themselves. But don't go picking the apple from the tree if no one else is supposed to.

President Bush opens his mouth about Iraq spending

I wanted to write on the inanity of President Bush's comments against the war funding bill headed for his desk, but I couldn't get it together yesterday. Fortunately, the folks at DailyKos did. Here's a teaser, before you head to DailyKos for the punchline:

Yes, George Bush hates the thought of the troops being caught in the middle of the showdown between the White House and Congress over the supplemental spending bill for Iraq...

Political Theater

In response to the passage through the U.S. House of an appropriations bill for Iraq that includes a deadline for withdrawal, President Bush accused Democrats of "political theater" in addition to his usual "you don't support the troops."

Of course, President Bush is no stranger to political theater, when it suits his purpose...

Image grabbed from Google Image Search

A commander who supports his troops?

There are many things that could be said about the scandalous treatment of veterans at Walter Reed army hospital and the subsequent sacking of the hospital head. In this case the Onion's three talking heads say it best.

It's disgusting to realize that our Commander in Chief's commitment to "supporting our troops" really was just a political slogan. He should take heed to Amy Lemeiux of Eagan, MN, whose letter to the editor earlier this week nailed the issue on the nose.

Donning a magnetic yellow ribbon or wearing red on Fridays to "show support for our troops" is as about as effective and supportive as spitting in the direction of a forest fire, pointing to the saliva as evidence of your support and condemning everyone who didn't spit.

Let's try supporting our troops in ways that are meaningful -- like trying diplomacy before resorting to more violence and providing medical care for them when they return.

Amen.

Waste

1. use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.
2. (usu. be wasted) fail to make full or good use of

By invading Iraq and failing to develop an adequate security plan, President Bush has carelessly expended American lives and failed to make good use of American military power that could have helped in Afghanistan.

When Republican John McCain (or Democrat Barack Obama) says we've "wasted lives" in Iraq, I don't think an apology is necessary.