We are spending $2 Billion a week in Afghanistan. If you want to see zeros, that's $2,000,000,000.00 a week. It also means $104 Billion a year.
Meanwhile, we can't afford to keep our education budgets in functional condition. We can't reduce our National Debt. We can't bring down our operating deficit. And we are spending a fortune on foreign servicing (read China) of our debt.
Using cold, hard cash and entertainment to smarten up otherwise dumbed down, American voters
The following diary is a quote from a long response of mine to a diary by Nathan Aschbacher at FireDogLake, "Define President Barack Obama in One Word".
It stands on it's own OK. For context, see Nathan's FDL diary
My voice is getting hoarse from yelling at the television today when the Republicans debating the Health Care BHill make statements which are patently untrue. The primary statement is one Boehner and his biddies keep making, that the majority of Americans have come out against this bill.
Now where is it that this has been shown, John? The various polls for weeks have shown the majority of Americans for this reform. Especially, they have shown a strong favor of the Public Option, something you keep saying all Americans are against.
Ed. note: The Weekly Pulse is becoming the Daily Pulse for September. Every weekday, we'll bring you highlights from the health care reform debate, including exclusive video interviews with leading experts and independent journalists each Friday. Even better, you can be a part of the conversation. Stay tuned to find out more!
A power shift is underway in Washington. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick announced on Monday that a special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy would not take place until January 19, 2010. With Kennedy's seat empty, the Democrats no longer have the 60 votes they need to break a filibuster in the Senate. Up until this point, the White House was hoping for a compromise bill that the entire Democratic caucus, and maybe even a few Republicans, could agree on.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that the Gang of Six has made itself irrelevant. These powerful members of the Senate Finance Committee were in charge of hammering out a bipartisan health care bill. They forgot that they were only powerful if people believed a bipartisan compromise was attainable.
Talking Points Memo reports that the White House has given up on Republican gangster Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY). They finally got the hint when Enzi told a radio listeners that Democrats wanted to kill the elderly with comparative efficacy research. The White House should have cut its losses two weeks ago when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) repeated the "death panel" meme at a town hall meeting. Grassley has also been raising money campaigning against "Obama-care."
It's looking more and more like the Democrats will have to look to budget reconciliation, a special parliamentary procedure that could sidestep a filibuster and pass a healthcare bill by a simple majority vote.
America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's top lobby group, dispatched 50,000 employees to town halls to fight the public option. Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones took a cue from Michael Moore in Sicko. She asks AHIP what kind of insurance their top lobbyist has. Mencimer says AHIP was so standoffish you'd think she had a preexisting condition.
In Mother Jones, Ben Buchwalter and Nikki Gloudeman take a closer look at the corporate megabucks behind the town hall brawls. Corporate enemies of healthcare reform are using front groups like FreedomWorks to organize angry mobs at town hall meetings. Zach Roth of TPM Muckraker reports that "legendary GOP bamboozler" Howard Kaloogian has launched a tea party bus tour to protest healthcare reform.
Speaking of frauds, you've probably heard about so-called crisis pregnancy centers that pose as abortion clinics in order to cajole women into having babies. Ever wonder what happens to those babies? In the Nation, Kathryn Joyce goes inside the world of high-pressure Christian adoption agencies that support desperate women, as long as they promise to give up their babies.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care and is free to reprint. Visit Healthcare.newsladder.net for a complete list of articles on health care affordability, health care laws, and health care controversy. For the best progressive reporting on the Economy, and Immigration, check out Economy.Newsladder.net and Immigration.Newsladder.net.
This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.
When it comes to the debate around health care, you've heard the same voices of pundits and politicians repeated on the morning and evening news. You've seen a small group dominate the airwaves by shouting and spreading lies at town hall events. You've even seen guns at presidential events enter the fray. But have you seen your personal health care story told? Or that of your friends, families, co-workers, or neighbors?
As the debate over public health care and insurance reform has raged this August, I have seen much via the cable news outlets about how President Obama has not been able to get his message across the great partisan divide. The media has been far more interested in giving a platform to those which it describes as the "fringe." They inevitably follow up with: "Where is the clear message from President Obama?" At no time does one ever see the media turn the light upon itself and ask itself if it is doing the responsible thing. It is the very agency that should be bringing clarity to the discussion. It is the very agency who has been entrusted with the public airwaves for this very purpose.
Out of all the polls we see paraded across MSNBC, CNN etc., we have yet to see a poll rating how Americans feel the media is living up to its obligations to actually inform us. We see polls that show that Americans don't really understand the discussion, but very little regarding those who present this discussion to us. I find this to be very curious.
If these "news outlets" put half as much effort into bringing clarity to the public health care debate as it does on presenting every little bit of trivia surrounding the death of Michael Jackson, then I would imagine these other polls that we're seeing would reflect a more informed public. Of course, it doesn't help that some of the interests that oppose health care reform are the MSM's biggest advertisers. It is rare that the MSM will bite the hand that feeds it. Unfortunately it leaves the American public starving for real information to make critical choices.
There have been, and will be posts here on openleft, that call for real pressure, strong pressure, on the drive to 'reform' our healthcare system, and what that 'reform' should be.
But there have been no diaries, the frontpage thrust of the debate here at openleft is on the economy, the debates and calls to action, such as the necessary calls to primary those who stand ion the way on necessary legistation are on jobs and laws. There are calls to organize around accuracy in reporting, the history of progressives and Keysian economic plans, calls to reinstate civil rights protection and a threatening survielance society.
But the debate on healthcare is lacking.
That is a shame. This is the time for 'economic, jobs and worker rights progressives' to listen closely to what 'health progressives' are saying, have been saying, will be saying louder and louder in the months and years to come.
The opportunity, the responsibility, right now to act desicively is greater than at any other time in our history. The ongoing lurch of history will beging to have turbulence, the debates about other significant issues will heat up, the situations in other crisis will press for attention. Right NOW is the time.
Chris Bowers posted today on the debate raging within the progressive blogosphere and even in some segments of the traditional media punditocracy over how to interpret Obama's staffing and cabinet picks. Some believe Obama's centrist picks are part of a brilliant plan to provide cover for progressive policy initiatives. Others believe the centrist picks signal Obama's intention to govern in a centrist manner. Bowers falls in with group B.
It's going to be a busy day, with the GOP sleaze hitting so fast and furious that there is literally just too much interesting and outrageous stuff to post. Our Better Dems page has expanded in keeping with the incredible moment we're in, you guys have helped us bust through $42k, and our traffic on the site is going gangbusters. This is a once in a lifetime election, where we really can pick up random seats that no one's paying attention to. So please give, let's make this happen.
We're gunning for $50K. I threw in some money for Josh Zeitz last night, we've got a bunch of new candidates on the Better Democrats page, go check 'em out. Now's the time to build our generational majority.
What the hell is Karl Rove doing speaking at the mortgage bankers convention? Comparing notes on fucking up the country? Speaking of which, Karl Rove just mentioned Pennsylvania as a place where they cling to their 'guns and their faith', on Fox News. I'm sure the outrage-o-meter will begin any. Second. Now.
I'm on a podcast on Horse's Ass with David Goldstein. If you want to hear an hour of Stoller and co, go for it.
The Florida GOP is limiting voting, again, through malice and incompetence. I remember in 1994, when Jeb Bush ran for Governor and got his ass kicked. It was a Republican year all over the country, but his campaign had the dumbest fucking bumper stickers ever: "Jeb!" I was all of 16, but I remember that campaign in Miami. I didn't really care about politics but even then I hated the Bush's.
This campaign season will cost more than $5B. Sounds like a lot? Come on, this is a $10T economy. We just bailed out banks for $700B. We probably spend four times that on ice cream every year.
Chuck Todd argues McCain and Palin have no chemistry. Not sure I like punditry like that, even when I agree with it. I know people love him, but I find Chuck Todd kind of irritatingly conventional.
Network news is shedding viewers even in an election year. I wonder if those numbers include streaming on the web.
Hedge Funds lost $180B so far this year, and it's only a $1.7 trillion industry. That means lots of funds going under, redemptions, etc.
In recent years, public pension funds, foundations and endowments poured billions of dollars into these private partnerships. Now, in the midst of one of the deepest bear markets in generations, many of those investments are souring.
Nonprofits, schools, etc are going to take a big hit.
GOP donors are mad Palin's spending their money on clothes.
"As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain's general campaign, I'd like my money back - he can still have my vote," complained one irate donor on Tuesday.
"I'm not one who says a candidate shouldn't wear fine clothes," he added. "I'd just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party's or the campaign's, which is really our money as contributors."
In the second presidential debate, moderator Tom Brokaw asked the candidates whether health care is a privilege, a responsibility, or a right. John McCain answered privilege, while Barack Obama said that health care is a right. With nearly 46 million Americans uninsured, and millions more unable to meet their medical expenses despite having insurance, the notion of an American right to health care seems far from today's reality. But a human right to health care is deeply rooted in our national history and values, and is broadly supported by the American people. It is an idea whose time has come.
After leading our country out of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt voiced the connection between health care and the Founding Fathers' vision of inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In his 1944 State of the Union address, Roosevelt explained that Americans have come to embrace a "second bill of rights" alongside the civil liberties set out in the Constitution. Those rights, FDR declared, include "the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health."
Four years later, the US played a leading role in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration states that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including ... medical care and necessary social services."
We have 57 more donors to go on the Better Democrats page. With the map expanding rapidly, candidates on this list will be able to use every penny to tremendous effect. Jim Martin, the progressive Senate candidate standing up on FISA in blood red Georgia, raised $1.3M last quarter (more than Chambliss) but has only $93,000 cash on hand. Aside from DSCC money, Martin needs to be funded on the fly. Throw some coin in, it'll help and you'll be proud of these candidates.
As he exited his hotel in New York City en route to a fund-raiser, the GOP presidential hopeful found his motorcade was lined up right next to the red-carpet premiere of Oliver Stone's new movie "W.," a disapproving portrayal of President George W. Bush.
RUBIN: I do think it was a deterrent to moving forward. I thought it was counterproductive. If you want to move forward...you engage with parties in a constructive way. My recollection was...this was done in a more strident way.
Roughly 50% of Democrats in Congress voted for that bill, along with Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and the entire top level of the House Democratic Congressional leadership. Yet here is Martin -- running in a bright red state in the South, just a few weeks before a very tight election, knowing that all hard-core Democrats and liberals in that state are already supporting him and that there are only independents and disenchanted Republicans left to target -- and he chooses to respond to a somewhat vague question about FISA and wiretapping (in response to which he could easily have mouthed some unspecific and safe platitudes about balancing security and civil liberties) by instead going out of his way to volunteer that he opposes telecom immunity to such an extent that he would have voted against the FISA bill that the Bush administration, the GOP caucus and many leading Democrats were insisting was Absolutely Vital if we wanted to avoid being slaughtered by the Terrorists (as Stoller said by email: "Apparently the pro-telecom movement is very popular in San Francisco and Maryland but not so strong in Georgia. Who knew?").
Martin outraised Chambliss this quarter, but has only $92,000 cash on hand. This is one we're going to have to fuel as we go. Give here.
Did Scott Kleeb opponent Mike Johanns violate the Hatch Act? Well my guess is yes, since Republican officials tend towards criminal activity as a matter of course.
I'm finding this race exhausting but exciting. What are you reading?
I don't think this debate mattered for the election, but for governance there are some consequences. Here was my post-debate wrap-up video for Al Jazeera. The gist is PAYGO is gone and Obama's embraced clean coal in an especially obnoxious manner.
Vice President Dick Cheney's planned surgery this afternoon to correct an abnormal heart rhythm might put the health issue -- and Sen. John McCain's age and bouts with cancer -- back in the presidential campaign spotlight.
Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states.
Karen Tumulty points to this remarkable piece from the Washington Post. Apparently, Cindy McCain had cell phone towers installed on her isolated property, at a cost in the six figures, from both AT&T and Verizon.
The bailout cost goes up to $2.25 trillion. Nouriel Roubini is very pessimistic and thinks that the government is going to have to buy more stakes in these banks, with voting shares and the ability to force lending to continue.
Black Swan author Nassim Taleb is also worth listening to. He gets very angry explaining his ideas, and he is 100% correct.
Congratulations to Planned Parenthood, which endorsed Tom Allen over the lukewarm Susan Collins. It's not easy to make this call, but few single issue groups on the left take these kinds of risks. Kudos.
This is John McCain rolling his eyes when Obama brings up Columbian union leaders being killed.
This debate didn't matter in the scheme of things, it was a calm and collected centrist debating a mean and sarcastic old man.
Update (Chris): I agree with Matt and, unfortunately, David Gergen (I've become everything I've ever hated!). McCain started well, but Obama closed well. In the end, I bet it won't matter. Wait for the polls--I bet we are seeing a draw. And yes, Obama wasn't very appealing to porgressives tonight.
Update 2--Obama Wins Huge (Chris): Obama scores his biggest victory yet in the debate, according to the CBS uncommitted voter group. 53%--22%! A total blowout. Huge Obama victory. Not even close.
Update 3--Obama Wins Even Huger (Chris): CNN poll shows Obama winning 58%--31%. Obama's favorables go up to 66%, and McCain's drop to 49%. With both Democratic and Republicans being oversampled (Inds are way down), can't be blamed on partisan ID. Obama has won huge huge huge. And the pundits on CNN are clearly now changing their views with the poll. Pundits are afraid to disagree with polls--kind of funny.
Question: Why are the US so bad at the readings and the maths?
Obama: This has to do with our economic future and national security, and we've got to get our education system right. We need more money and we need reform. Early childhood education, for instance. We need to recruit an army of new teachers, higher standards, accountability, college affordability, lots of college debt. He also wants more service, military, peace corps, etc. It's not just schools, parents have to show more responsibility, turn off TV set and video games, etc.
McCain: It's the civil rights issue of the 21st century. Why send a poor child to a failed school? Choice and competition is the key, it's been proved in places like New York and New Orleans. Give parents the same choice the Obama and McCain families have. Teach for America, troops to teachers, etc. We must improve education in this country, college education loans should be available, etc.
The problem with policy discussions is that McCain is just lying about his priorities. He's voted against a lot of these priorities.
McCain would turn the schools over to Joe the plumber, who will fix everything and is apparently the center of the universe. Now he's bringing up Sarah Palin's knowledge of autism.
... Obama brings up DC's new school commissioner, Michelle Rhee.
My girlfriend brings up a good point. McCain is just kind of a sarcastic dick.
Obama wants to expand health care access and lower costs. He wants to eliminate bureaucracy through IT spending, make families healthy and save money in the long-run.
... McCain: We need more community health centers, physical fitness programs, wellness and fitness, and a $5000 tax credit for health care. Joe the plumber is back.
... Obama says that the cost of the $5000 tax credit is that McCain will tax your health benefits, which are currently untaxed. And insurance companies will throw sick people off their insurance rolls.
... McCain is taking Joe the plumber's side, saying that Joe will have to buy health insurance that Obama mandates. 95% of people will receive more money, except for those people who want gold plated cadillac insurance plans for things like transplants. WTF?
Obama clearly won the health care part of the debate.
... Now on to Roe v Wade, could either of you nominate a SCOTUS justice who takes the other side of Roe v Wade? McCain says no on litmus tests. Now he's bragging about the Gang of 14. McCain voted for Breyer and Ginsburg, because he doesn't take ideology into account when voting. Then he throws 'strict Constitution' and 'legislating from the bench'.
... Obama won't impose a litmus test but he thinks Roe v Wade was rightly decided. Abortion is a moral issue. He looks for judges who know what ordinary people are going through, brings up Lily Ledbetter and equal pay.
Incidentally, the plumber's union was the first union to endorse Obama.
... McCain says that Obama voted against a ban on late term abortion, voted 'present' 139 times, aligned himself with the pro-abortion movement in America.
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