Hopefully this will discourage the Democrats from putting up shitty, hand-picked, "law and order" party cronies who appeal to almost nobody.They actually did have a primary, but not many people voted. She was definitely a party hack, promoted by insiders though. Her opponent was pretty good Andrew Sullivan posted a video of him castigating some walstreet goons. And Josh Marshall said there would have been no way he would have lost.
Democrats [sic] concerns with Obama's Afghanistan plan forced Coakley to oppose the Afghan war in the primary, which hurt her in the general.It's like these people have never seen an election before.
They "put up" the person who won the primary. The person the machine was supporting (Congressman Mike Capuano) didn't win.I'm kind of surprised. I thought that Coakely was the party hack candidate. I've herd her described as a Kennedy-family ally.
He's a member of the House of Representatives, for Christ's sake. He knows the importance of this.What is the importance? Do you think the democrats would actually have been to coral 60 votes again on anything, even with Coakley? With Joe Lieberman and Bauccus and Ben Nelson? I doubt it.
The [bank] bonus issue is just a way to stir up populist rage, and both sides (nationalize vs. let banks fail) are using it well. The only catch is putting the tiger back in its cage once it's let loose; angry, pitchfork-wielding denizens are a tricky bunch and can turn on you at a moment's notice. I think Obama dug his own grave when he railed against bonuses because he incited an uncontrollable furor that'll be tough to control...--SeizeTheDayOkay so you're saying that Obama should have allied himself with the banks. Sounds like a recipe for success. I think I should point out that you're constantly defending the banks and arguing against people being angry at them. I don't know if you work for a bank for what. But the idea that Obama's problem is that not pro-wallstreet enough is one of the craziest things I've ever heard.
When it comes down to issues, Brown is really pretty moderate. He's pro-choice and supports civil unions, though he is against things like healthcare reform and, one of my personal things, Cape Wind.odd, I thought the major opponents to that were the Kennedy family. You'd think a republican would support it just piss them off (since that's usually how they operate.
The only thing that made me vote for Coakley was the fact that the MA Senate seat would be the swing vote for a supermajority for healthcare reform. Literally the only thing. I want to see it pass. She will not be a swing vote on Afghanistan policy, so I didn't care about her dumbass Afghanistan-related remarks. She's not a swing vote on anything else, really. Just healthcare. So that's why I voted for her, figuring two years of "meh" was doable if she could actually contribute to forward momentum on healthcare reform.This was always BS. Yeah, it makes it a little more complicated and harder. But this bill already passed the senate. The house can vote on it tomorrow if they wanted too. It's done. The only question is whether or not the democrats are going to use this as an excuse to give up, which is what half them want to do anyway, because they seem to think that people really want to vote for politicians who never try to do anything.
Hey, way to miss the point delmoi. Once you stir up the rage, you use it to do something. Obama didn't. He rode the bandwagon of "oooh, bonuses too big, let's all get mad" and failed to accomplish any sort of meaningful regulation. I'm not saying he wasn't pro-Wall Street enough, I'm saying he riled up the natives, everyone got their pitchforks, and Obama failed to deliver someone's head on a platter.Don't be an idiot. The anger was out there. All Obama did was mention it. And actually they just announced some big-bank tax stuff and are planning on pushing it forward. But anyway, If Obama ignored it everyone would just have thought he was totally on their side.
2a) We don't really have universal healthcare in any but the most conservative sense of the term. We have a mandate to buy private insurance that is just as expensive as yours unless we have low enough incomes to qualify for state-funded care. Real reform is something we care about, and that goes for Democrats and Republicans alike.Which is exactly what the current HCR looks like. A mandate to buy private insurance, plus some subsidies. Real reform would be good, but for MA this bill won't change much.
hahahahaha, i'm enjoying this sooo much, every lib is gonna put me on ignore. It's over losers, and Obama's done COOKED! Ha ha, and have a fantastic 2010, you twerpish failures!!!!!!!!!!!!!A random sampling of some of the inspiring patriotic speech being held forth by
Posted by barry25 at 01/19/2010 @ 8:36pm
America won big time tonight. I might even have to look at the Repubs again. Here in COthe dems are in trouble from the Quiting Governor to the US Senators...
..... a trend has started in Boston and now with the Tea Partys. I love this country.
Posted by YourJomamma at 01/19/2010 @ 9:51pm
Hmmmm.....
Republican blowout in VA...Republican governor in true blue New Jersey....and now REPUBLICAN SENATOR IN PLACE OF TED KENNEDY.....and some lefties like METTEYYA think the Obama agenda is working and is what America wants? Heh heh...and these people think they are the country's 'intellectual and moral elite?
Helloooooooooooo...MCFLY!!!
LOL!
Posted by pontificus at 01/19/2010 @ 9:02pm
2. Made the election into a referendum on a bill that not only makes failure to buy junk insurance a federal crime, but is worse than the system MA already has.THE BILL DOSN'T MAKE ANYTHING A CRIME, PEOPLE.
Reminder: Bush never had a super majority and got many, many bills passedPlease also remind me exactly how many Republican Senators bent over backwards within minutes of a bad result for them to say that the majority Republican Party should stop trying to oppose the will of the minority Democratic Party.
In the wake of Scott Brown’s decisive victory in Massachusetts, House Democrats appeared to rule out the idea of quickly approving a Senate-passed health care measure and sending it to President Obama.posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:23 PM on January 19, 2010
After a meeting of Democratic leaders as Mr. Brown’s win was being declared, top lawmakers said they were weighing their options as the Senate race had thrown the fate of the health care legislation into serious question.
Noting that the election in Massachusetts turned on a variety of different factors, Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said, “Health care was also part of the debate, and the people of Massachusetts were right to be upset about provisions in the Senate bill like the Nebraska purchase and other special deals.”
The comment was a clear indication that Democrats were recalibrating their approach on health care.
At the same time, Mr. Brown’s decisive victory appeared to ease his seating in the Senate as Democrats on Tuesday said their new Republican colleague would be sworn in as soon as he could present documents certifying his election.
“The people of Massachusetts have spoken,” Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and majority leader, said even as Mr. Brown’s win denied Democrats the 60 votes needed to break Republican filibusters.
In the wake of Scott Brown’s decisive victory in Massachusetts, House Democrats appeared to rule out the idea of quickly approving a Senate-passed health care measure and sending it to President Obama.God these people are pathetic. The healthcare system in MA is basically the same as what's being proposed. and they generally like their plan Maybe they didn't like the idea of paying higher taxes in some cases to pay for the rest of the country.
After a meeting of Democratic leaders as Mr. Brown’s win was being declared, top lawmakers said they were weighing their options as the Senate race had thrown the fate of the health care legislation into serious question.
Noting that the election in Massachusetts turned on a variety of different factors, Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said, “Health care was also part of the debate, and the people of Massachusetts were right to be upset about provisions in the Senate bill like the Nebraska purchase and other special deals.”
I had a lovely evening before opening up the political threads out of some misplaced sense of obligation. Why did I do that? No point. The world will continue down its path to the gallows regardless of whether I make myself suffer. That's over.I know you feel that way, but stop. The democrats are perpetual failures, and a lot of them need to be replaced. But they're just using this loss as an excuse to fail. Again.
You speak about the Democrats inability to pass this legislation as though this is a team that is unable to score points. Framing this as the "Democrats" inability (like Jon Stewart has) overstates the power of this organization and understates the fact that each, individual Senator is very powerful.There are levers that they could, but don't use. The republicans require senators to toe the line when it counts, and can punish senators who don't do it by stripping them of comittey chairs. The democrats don't do that. Why not? Perhaps because they care more about the feelings of each senator then they do about effectively governing. And they seem to be opposed to reconciliation, even though the republicans didn't have a problem using it during the bush years for things like ending the inheritance tax on millionaires.
Look, I'm as disappointed as anyone else here, but denying the difficulty of this is not the answer. Blaming "the Democrats" or even Martha Coakley is not the answer. Let's aim our targets correctly...the problem is that the filibuster is being used in a way in which it was never intended. The solution lies in working towards amending the filibuster rules. Period.I'm totally for it.
It's like our own little Haiti, isn't it?People need some perspective.
Well, you're wrong about that, because the government has been busily spending an immense, gargantuan amount of money that we don't have. And that wealth will have to be repaid. If it's not repaid through higher taxes, it will be paid for with currency depreciation, which is much more painful. -- MalorThis is wrong on so, so many levels. The first level of wrongness is that we don't have the money. Of course we do, we just have to raise taxes. And not even by that much. Something like a 10% increase in tax revenue (meaning a 3% point increase for most people) would cover the gap. It's just not a good idea to raise taxes in a recession/depression. And it's politically hard. But it's certainly doable
I'm hoping fervently that it doesn't pass. It should die on the vine. We need to be focusing on getting our financial house in order; this will be an immensely painful process that will take at least a couple of decades. THEN we could realistically talk about universal healthcare. Not today. -- MalorListen. The HCR bill costs money. But it also raises revenue. That's right it raises revenue. In fact, it raises more money then it spends. The national debt goes down if it passes, not up!
As the boomers age and need pensions and healthcare, Social Security will stop being a money source, and will start becoming a money sink. Each month, as they have to send out more and more money, they'll be presenting more and more of the 'lockbox' bonds to Congress, who will have to then pay that money out of that year's tax receipts. The lockbox is a total fiction; it's just sleight of hand to pretend that funds exist when they don't. Instead of saving for their retirements, we blew all the money they gave us on bridges to nowhere and immense, stupid wars. -- MalorYeah. We'll spend more money in SS then we take in, which is why people have been paying more into it for decades. SS won't finish spending that money until 2080 or something.
We do not have the right to put future generations in debt for our own comfort and convenience.Future generations also inherit all our shit. I mean, if the government went into debt in the 1950s to build the national highway system, we still benefit from it. If we borrow money to pay for schools, then kids benefit.
The Democrats simply have no party discipline. There is no real penalty for against the party line, which means that statements like "BUSH DID MORE WITH FEWER SENATORS" are clearly pretty misguided. The Republicans, on the other hand, have a Bloc. They can generate 40 votes at the moment on whatever they like. -- TypographicalErrorListen very closely. democratic senators don't have a penalty for voting against the party line republican senators do. They can lose their seniority. The caucuses have different rules, and the democrat's rules are especially stupid.
This special election came about because we lost someone very dear to Massachusetts, and to America. Senator Ted Kennedy was a tireless and big-hearted public servant, and for most of my lifetime was a force like no other in this state. His name will always command the affection and respect by the people of Massachusetts, and the same goes for his wife Vicki. There's no replacing a man like that, but tonight I honor his memory, and I pledge my very best to be a worthy successor.posted by delmoi at 3:48 AM on January 20, 2010
Also, if you live in MA and didn't vote for that dumbass Coakley because of some Red Sox thing, you are medically too stupid to live.What if they decided not to vote for her because she was a dumbass? I mean, people in MA already have universal healthcare. No denial for preexisting conditions. Mandates. Subsidies. Same deal as the senate plan. They didn't actually lose anything. At least not for themselves.
1) He posed nudeHCR is a big deal for the nation. But for MA it's a blip the bill wouldn't change much of anything.
2) He defended Bristol Pailn by pointing out that Obama's mother was about the same age as her when she got pregnant (this was never an attack on Obama, like some liberal bloggers tried to make it out to be)
3) He drives a truck, lol.
But if Brown's that dumb then he'll lose the seat in his next election. Getting rid of a democratic lackey is different. A lot of liberals in Mass didn't want to face the prospect of new Democratic-U.S. Senator-For-Life Coakley.Very good point. I would not have voted for Choakley if I lived in MA. Optimus, are you familiar with the Amirault case and Choakley's role in it? What's your response to that? Seems a hell of a lot worse then posing naked in '81. Frankly it's a dealbreaker for me, and it should be for you too.
The dude said HIMSELF that a) whatever he did was going to take a long time because we were in the shitter, and b) that he was not going to be able to do it alone, WE ALL HAD TO HELP, because THAT'S THE WAY THINGS LIKE THIS WORK.This is kind of an annoying argument. The idea that somehow "We" needed to do something. Like vote for Choakley? None of us have senate seats. We can't actually do anything! And furthermore, Obama didn't actually ask for anything from his supporters. He completely failed to utilize the grass roots, working instead with Washington insiders like Dashel and striking secret deals with lobbyists to pass the bill. It was actually kind of obscene.
I'VE posted before on the perverse results that would be generated by a Supreme Court ruling that a mandate to buy health insurance would be unconstitutional. Yesterday Ezra Klein made the same point. Basically, a lot of Democrats would love to establish a single-payer system for universal health insurance, like Canada's, or a single-payer system for basic insurance with private supplementary insurance, like France's. They've shied away from attempting such a reform because it's agreed that America's private insurance industry is too powerful, and American political culture makes it easy to demagogue any national centralised system (though this rests on a mighty rock of cognitive dissonance—Americans like their Medicare and Social Security just fine).viz. national health expenditures
Hence, Democrats have spent the past two years working out a private-sector universal health-insurance reform plan that's similar to those of Switzerland and the Netherlands: private health insurance with community rating and a buyer mandate. But that kind of system is impossible without a mandate; it would get ripped apart in a vortex of adverse selection. A Supreme Court ruling that the mandate is unconstitutional would mean that the only kind of universal health insurance America can have is the British, Canadian or French kind, where the government runs the whole show (for basic insurance, anyway). It seems perverse that America's constitution would mandate a more socialist approach to universal health care than the Netherlands has. It's also, as Mr Klein says, a disaster for free-market conservatives, in the long run.
But it's also worth thinking about exactly how this would play out. The clearest way to explain it is that right now, what we have already is a system that's getting ripped apart in a vortex of adverse selection. Health spending is rising at 8% per year. PriceWaterhouseCooper says medical costs will grow 9% in 2010; health insurance premiums generally rise even faster than costs. Premiums now amount to 18% of the average household's income, up from 11% in 1999. As insurance costs rise far faster than wages, unsurprisingly, the number of uninsured keeps rising too, to 46.3m in 2008. And those who aren't uninsured are increasingly insured by the government. Medicaid added 3m people to its rolls in 2008. The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) picked up another 1.5m. As this process continues, federal spending on health insurance keeps climbing; it grew 10.4% in 2008. Sick people, poor people, and older people are increasingly unable to afford insurance, and many are winding up on the government's dime. As premiums rise, people at higher and higher income strata find they cannot afford them, drop out of private insurance, and end up being covered by the government or not covered at all.
This is single-payer by attrition. The health reform measure in Congress now proposes to use tax subsidies to get America's working poor into private insurance plans. If it is ruled unconstitutional, the country will face a choice: allow the numbers of uninsured to continue shooting up, or enroll more and more people directly in taxpayer-funded government insurance plans. It's not impossible that America will choose the former, and become an increasingly bimodal two-class society where the working class simply doesn't get adequate health care. But it seems more likely that, after whatever number of years elapses between health-care reform efforts, universal health insurance will be back on the agenda of some future Democratic president. And this time, it will be single-payer, because nothing else will be constitutional.
There's nothing about Scott Brown's victory that needs to derail health-care reform in particular, or the rest of Obama's 2010 agenda in general. But if Democrats decide to cower and hide, they can end Obama's presidency on Brown's behalf.cf. What Ted Kennedy would tell the Democrats - "a Democratic Party that would abandon their central initiative this quickly isn't a Democratic Party that deserves to hold power"
That said, I really wonder what the Democratic Caucus thinks will happen if they let health-care reform slip away and walk into 2010 having wasted a year of the country's time amidst a terrible recession. It won't be pretty, I imagine. If health-care reform passes, the two sides can argue over whether it was a success. If it fails, there's no argument.
Very good point. I would not have voted for Choakley if I lived in MA. Optimus, are you familiar with the Amirault case and Choakley's role in it? What's your response to that? Seems a hell of a lot worse then posing naked in '81. Frankly it's a dealbreaker for me, and it should be for you tooI hadn't known about the case at first, but I first was introduced to Coakley's fervor for prosecution when I lived in Boston during the Mooninite scare. I see a common theme: a refusal to admit that the government messed up after a hysterical reaction, and the application of justice according to political winds. In a prosecutor-slash-politician I find it appalling.
The TARP money keeps getting sent out even those in charge say that the taxpayers won't ever see it returned. Then to get the money back by proposing a new tax? Don't send it out to begin with under the guise of we're saving the economy.You know, if you're going to be mad about something, you should really find out what's actually happening. TARP money went out once. And since then it's been coming back in. The U.S. government allocated $700 billion for TARP and since then most of the money has come back. Only $120 billion or so remains. And, of course it's impossible to "Don't send it out" at this point. What do you want. Tarp passed under Bush, not Obama.
I think it's time we realize that we simply will not have the quality or quantity of life that our parents and grandparents had.Of course not, it will be way better. Just like how our parents were better off then our grandparents.
If we keep running 1.5 Trillion defecits we are well on our way.
Why? You can't "make" someone filibuster outloud. All they have to do is have one single republican in the room and they don't even need to say anything. Just sit there and whenever anyone calls for a vote, request a cloture vote at which point you need 60 votes. Again, you only need one republican in the room at a time to do it, and they can trade off.MAKE. THEM. FUCKING. ACTUALLY. DO. IT.Wish I could favorite this more. I favorited it very hard.
Make them go up there and read from the Bible or the phone book or the sports page. There's no way in hell some remarkable stupid shit won't be said in the process. Refute said shit with a press release every day. Get really cagey and schedule a few defense appropriations votes right after so they get delayed.
Then keep it up till they all drop.
posted by Cyrano at 10:36 PM on January 19 [57 favorites -] Favorite added! [!]
There is no evidence that the increased spending is accomplishing anything. Japan spent like crazy and it didn't accomplish anything other than to raise their debt to 200% of GDP with nothing to show for it.You mean besides having higher GDP growth? They have a 200% deficit and... their economy isn't any worse then before. They can still borrow money at low rates.
"An exit survey of Massachusetts voters confirms that 'decreased turnout among constituencies that historically have voted for progressive candidates,' combined with a strong Republican performance among independents, delivered Scott Brown the margins he needed to win."posted by ericb at 9:47 AM on January 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
...the big picture, the narrative, the atmosphere and perception that brought last night's nightmare - That's all due to a terrible political system, a terrible media, and especially due to a terrible Democratic Party, divided and disloyal. Andrew Sullivan wrote last week: "I hate what the Democrats did to Obama", and i couldn't agree more.Glenn Greenwald:
And then there is the "Blame the Left" theme from Obama loyalists, who actually claim that the Democrats' problems are due to the fact that the Left hasn't been cheering loudly enough for the Leader. I recall quite vividly how Bush followers spent years claiming that the failings of the Iraq War were not the fault of George Bush -- who had control of the entire war, the entire Congress, and the power to do everything he wanted -- but, rather, it was all "the Left's" fault for excessively criticizing the President, and thus weakening both him and the war effort.posted by Joe Beese at 10:22 AM on January 20, 2010 [2 favorites]
To insist that the Democratic Party's failures are not the fault of Barack Obama -- who controls the entire party infrastructure, its agenda, the news cycle, and the health care plan -- we now hear from Obama supporters a similar claim: it's all the Left's fault for excessively criticizing the Leader.
What Obama said through Gibbs was that he was "Surprised and Frustrated" about this election.posted by Joe Beese at 11:56 AM on January 20, 2010
What does that say?
"Surprised" = I wasn't listening to the voters
"Frustrated" = Don't blame me
You don't have the right to ... maintain a global empire, and sack your kids with the bill.... Notice how there was no discussion about the escalation in Afghanistan being "deficit neutral"?Yes. But Afghanistan is only a part of our overall overspending on global-empire-type projects which are pursued precisely because there's money available that would otherwise be spent on health care reform. I feel you're picking on a straw man here because the military problems go far beyond Afghanistan into Iraq and the original plan for a stronger posture in the middle east, and even Afghanistan itself has warped itself into a long-term occupation, not to mention the fact that Joe Beese was pointing out the mere fact-- Malor didn't mention what we were really spending money on and was never concerned with, for example, paying for things that don't sustain themselves (like Afghanistan). But you wanted to nit-pick a straw man. It's not even about a cost-benefit analysis. It's about the fact that we gin up military adventures and don't even bother to think of how to pay for them and then get disingenuously self-righteous about HCR or infrastructure priorities when it comes to paying for them
[Y]ou can go argue with that straw men [the proposition that Afghanistan was escalated as part of maintaining a global empire] elsewhere, because it wasn't being made here.
Read much?
What!?!? The "Point" of Rahm Emmanuel has been to do that to liberals and suck up to the republicans constantly. What planet have you been living on?
Well, exactly. I thought that was the whole point of Rahm Emmanuel and his ilk. -- unSane
I wonder if this is when we finally get to see Rahm Emanuel and his like let off their leashes. -- Philip-randomDude, Emanuel has is the chief of staff. He's been off his "leash" the entire time. Maybe you should look at what the dude's actually been doing, rather then reading hagiographic profiles and imagining that people have the same goals that you do. Yeah, he's an enforcer. For the corporate interests. He wasn't even in favor of universal healthcare before joining the Obama team, fer chrissakes!
So if we have a pool of ten kids, and it costs ten million dollars to get all of them to the age of 18, do we have the right to put them all in debt? Of course not; the equation doesn't change. It doesn't change if you have a thousand kids, or a million. We have no business charging them for healthcare we provided them. We especially have no business charging them for healthcare we provided ourselves.Oh yes, most people would rather be dead then in debt. *rolls eyes*. The whole idea that national debt is somehow immoral is idiotic. Wake me up when future generations start paying us back for all the stuff they inherit. Like roads, hospitals, universities, factories, etc. They inherit far stuff then they do debt. They're far better off with a functional economy with low unemployment then a shitty economy with 15% unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, bad educations, and so on.
Consider the following [Greenspan] quote:posted by saulgoodman at 1:55 PM on January 20, 2010 [5 favorites]
"…But continuing to run surpluses beyond the point at which we reach zero or near-zero federal debt brings to center stage the critical longer-term fiscal policy issue of whether the federal government should accumulate large quantities of private (more technically nonfederal) assets. … I believe, as I have noted in the past, that the federal government should eschew private asset accumulation because it would be exceptionally difficult to insulate the government's investment decisions from political pressures. Thus, over time, having the federal government hold significant amounts of private assets would risk sub-optimal performance by our capital markets, diminished economic efficiency, and lower overall standards of living than would be achieved otherwise."
Based upon this reasoning that the government should not accumulate large sums of private sector assets (held as loans to the public made through financial intermediaries), the Social Security Trust Fund was allowed to lapse.
...The worst is that I can't help but feel like the main emotion people in the caucus are feeling is relief at this turn of events. Now they have a ready excuse for not getting anything done. While I always thought we had the better ideas but the weaker messaging, it feels like somewhere along the line Members internalized a belief that we actually have weaker ideas. They're afraid to actually implement them and face the judgement of the voters. That's the scariest dynamic and what makes me think this will all come crashing down around us in November...Which is what I was saying way upthread. The democrats are using this as an excuse not to get anything done. It's an excuse to fail. There's no valid reason why this should end HCR, except for validating the senate and house democrats self-loathing and love of failure.
From the latest talking points released by senate Dems ...'Mathematically impossible'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"Republicans have an obligation to the American people to join us in governing our nation through these difficult times and to help clean up the mess they left behind. It is mathematically impossible for Democrats to pass legislation on our own. Senate Republicans to come to the table with ideas for improving our nation and not obstructionist tactics."That's throwing down the gauntlet.
Brown’s Victory Wasn’t A Referendum On National Health Reform Legislation.I feel like there's an Onion headline out there "Brown victory vindicates everything I've said" Conservatives claim it's because the dems have been to liberal, liberals say because they havn't been conservative enough, and so on.
Obama's Secret Tax cut:posted by delmoi at 2:38 PM on January 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
...the Obama administration implemented, as a core element of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a large temporary payroll tax cut.
This seems like exactly the sort of thing that would be politically smart to do. It’s a populist-ish measure that doesn’t require the public to have any faith in government action. But it’s also Keynesian stimulus that should lower unemployment rates and help create an environment that’s more hospitable to collective action. But the Obama administration’s reading of behavioral economics literature led them to believe that the tax cut would be more economically effective if it was deliberately disguised so that people would merely perceive a bit more money in their pocket each week without psychologically focusing on the windfall.
Clever! Sort of. Unless, that is, you’re trying to show people that your agenda involves helping the middle class and isn’t just shoveling money at banks and public employees.
"Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004–2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.* This amounts to an export value of about $64 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords and drug traffickers.*.posted by ericb at 3:03 PM on January 20, 2010
"Official: 15 of 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia."posted by ericb at 3:09 PM on January 20, 2010
"George W. Bush has finally acknowledged that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were citizens of the U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia."
Here's one question that I think needs to be asked in the wake of the Massachusetts special election: did media outlets that reported at length on the Boston Globe poll showing Martha Coakley with a 15 point lead while ignoring the ones from Rasmussen and us showing a toss up really do their readers/viewers a service?posted by delmoi at 3:49 PM on January 20, 2010
Maybe the Globe poll was correct when it was conducted but there's no question the one we put out the night of Saturday the 9th showing Brown up by a point and then the one Rasmussen put out Tuesday the 12th showing Coakley with just a two point lead gave a more accurate picture of the race. Yet some media outlets kept on talking exclusively about the Globe poll for five days, until Suffolk came out showing Brown in the lead.
For the most part this happened not because of liberal bias in the media but because some outlets are still sticking to 20th century policies against reporting automated polls, despite the fact that their predictive accuracy is proven one election cycle after another.
What was perhaps most amusing about this particular election is that several outlets, including the New York Times, actually talked about our polls and Rasmussen's in their pages generally but refused to name us or print the actual numbers. I will be interested to see if any of the outlets who gave their audiences an unrealistic picture of the race at this time last week by reporting on the Globe poll and ignoring the others out there will be transparent with their readers about why those decisions were made and either change their policies in the future or defend them in a way based on quantitative data and not just emotion or conventional outdated wisdom about what does and does not make an accurate poll.
But I'm not holding my breathe.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. --Theodore Rooseveltposted by jock@law at 5:09 PM on January 20, 2010 [2 favorites]
I spent a lot of time yesterday going back and forth with myself about what I liked and didn’t like in Ezra Klein’s post on the end of the White House’s “inside game” strategy and the need for an “outside game” that features speaking to the country.posted by delmoi at 5:21 PM on January 20, 2010 [2 favorites]
What I’ve come up with is that neither of these are really the crucial game. What’s been missing from Obama’s approach is what, for lack of a pithy name, I’ll call “objective political pressure.” One of the striking things about the Obama presidency is that throughout his time in office not a single Republican Senator has been in serious fear that he or she is going to lose her seat in 2010. That was true even when Obama’s approval ratings were in the high-sixties. And it’s true even though Obama won a number of seats represented by Republicans.
This is the big contrast with Bush’s first term. Democrats were less-than-resolute in their opposition to Bush’s ideas in large part because many of them correctly perceived themselves to be in electoral peril. Generating electoral peril is often equated with “outside game”—speechmaking—but there’s much more to it than that. Indeed, “mobilizing public opinion” is probably the least important part of it. It comes down to a lot of political nitty-gritty. Recruiting top-tier challengers. Raising funds. Getting the oppo done. Making sure the party committees are committed to electing new members and not just defending incumbents. Dispatching surrogates.
The Obama/Baucus theory of writing a bipartisan health care bill seemed to basically amount to “have a lot of meetings with Chuck Grassley.” A different theory would be “have Tom Vilsack run against Chuck Grassley with a nice war chest so Grassley feels it’s in his interests to strike a deal.”
Those who've been saying that Democrats don't actually want health reform are right, and this proves it. I've never been so disgusted with the party. The Senate Bill is basically what was going to get to Obama anyways, the House has the opportunity to send that bill to the President, and for no real reason, they say no. I mean, look at it--no reason is given for Pelosi and co.'s refusal, and the media just reports on it like it's a fact that needs no questioning.Actually, a large portion of the House Democrats who are saying that they won't vote for the Senate bill are those who, arguably, want health reform the most: the progressive wing. They say that the Senate bill is too flawed in too many ways, and they have been saying this for a long time.
The democrats are going to get slaughtered in 2010.Slaughtered? What's that? Like, they'll only have a seventeen vote majority?
Actually, a large portion of the House Democrats who are saying that they won't vote for the Senate bill are those who, arguably, want health reform the most: the progressive wing. They say that the Senate bill is too flawed in too many ways, and they have been saying this for a long time.Other then Barney Frank, which liberal democrats are now, post brown, saying they won't vote for the senate bill then amend later
Other then Barney Frank, which liberal democrats are now, post brown, saying they won't vote for the senate bill then amend laterHouse Liberals To Pelosi: "We Cannot Support The Senate Bill. Period."
In a private meeting in the Capitol just now, a dozen or more House liberals bluntly told Nancy Pelosi that there was no chance that they would vote to pass the Senate bill in its current form — making it all but certain that House Dems won’t opt for this approach, a top House liberal tells me.That's from about four and a half hours ago.
“We cannot support the Senate bill — period,” is the message that liberals delivered to the Speaker, Dem Rep Raul Grijalva told me in an interview just now.
For instance, Grijalva said, why not send the Senate individual bills that would, among other things, nix the “Cadillac” tax or close the donut hole, pressuring the Senate to deal with each provision separately?Is that guy living on the moon? There's no way the senate will have a problem with 'filibustering' these component bills.
“If the Senate chooses not to close the donut hole, that’s their damn problem,” Grijalva said. “They’ve had it too easy. One vote controls everything. Collectively, we’re tired of that.”
Is that guy living on the moon? There's no way the senate will have a problem with 'filibustering' these component bills.I believe that he, and several other House progressives, prefer that possibility to the unchanged Senate bill.
Beck launched into a long rant about how Brown had just put his daughters up for grabs on a "meat market" and how shocked he was that anyone could say something like that on national television. Then came that moment that differentiates Beck on the radio from Beck on the TV: he started comparing Brown to Gary Condit.Glen Beck asking the important questions, like "Did Scott Brown rape and murder a 13 year old girl in 1990!?"I want a chastity belt on this man. I want his every move watched in Washington. I don't trust this guy. This one could end with a dead intern. I'm just saying. It could end with a dead intern.
Delay in HCR is _okay_. You guys have been trying to do this since 1910's, a few months here and there won't matter much.Exactly what do you expect to change in "a few months"?
And it looks like Paul Krugman wants to know where his unicorn is.I'm kind of annoyed how everyone is using this to make the claim that their ideas were right all along. Of course I'm doing it too. That might seem like a contradiction, but come on. Who hasn't eaten a pint of ice-cream and then felt guilty all day.
...I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.
There is sort of an interesting idea being floated, most recently by Ed Rendell on TRMS, which is that the Dems should start by passing a 'no-pre-existing conditions' clause and dare the Repubs to vote it down. The insurance companies would then scream that the only way it could work would be if everone were insured, which would mean that a mandate would be passed very swiftly afterwards. And do the same with the other parts of the bill... pass the popular parts then pass the necessary parts.Sounds like a good idea. You know what else would have been a good idea? Figuring out what the fuck they were going to do once the tracking polls went south instead of freaking the fuck out.
This is being discussed in a thread on LGF, with several commenters noting that the DHS memo doesn't seem so wrong any more.Dude, Glenn Beck just called Scott Brown an incestuous child molester, who might just kill an intern. They're shooting their seed corn in the head. I don't know what is wrong with these people but they are clearly out of their minds.
One of these days, the support that republicans lend to these crazies is going to come back and bite them in the ass hard.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.jock@law, why are you posting this already well-worn maxim, particularly when it is the republicans who seem hellbent on not actually doing anything?
Speaker Pelosi just said "I don't see the votes for [passing the Senate bill] at this time."Ugh.
In other words, plug pulled. Health care reform over.
Pelosi followed with a bunch of muddying caveats that seemed to make the statement more ambiguous. So I strongly recommend reading her whole statement word for word so you can interpret it yourself. But the other 'options' she mentions seem to be clearly impossible. So I don't think there's any way to read her comments other than to say she's ready to sweep health care reform into the dustbin for good.
She says she lacks the votes now but hopes at some point in the future she might.
Would have been nice to know back in January they didn't have the fortitude for this.
I'm just worried about what this is going to do to the democratic party.At this point, I genuinely don't understand why that matters.
How could the Party be so weak! How? I am so frustrated and upset with your actions, I can barely speak. I have never in my life been angrier at a Democrat than I am angry at you today.Although we disagree about the merits of the bill, I am pretty disgusted with the Democratic Party in the house right now. Yes, the senate bill sucks, but at this point it really is the best we can get. Even I can see that splitting it up won't work at all and the republicans will have no problem voting it down. It doesn't even make sense that this guy's election should change the calculus in the house. At least have a vote even if it gets voted down. So we can see who needs to get primaried out.
For the first time in my entire life, I have to state that the Democratic Party does not stand for what I stand for and does not share my values. I am ashamed to say that it also does not share my resolve. I have donated time and money to the Party for years. Now I am frightened to see that you and the Party lack the resolve to do the right thing.
Asked today if health care was on the back burner, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "The president believes it is the exact right thing to do by giving this some time, by letting the dust settle, if you will, and looking for the best path forward."Seriously, what is it with these people? They're dealt a minor (in practical terms) setback and suddenly they fucking just give up? What the hell? Pelosi and Obama just give up, like that?
This is not a particularly strong argument, for as often as it gets used. Just about anyone who's ever purchased cheap auto insurance understands that the insurance you're required to purchase doesn't protect you, it protects other people that you might run into. There's no requirement to get the automobile equivalent of health insurance -- "comprehensive" coverage -- that would cover repair to your own vehicle, or your own injuries if you drive into a tree.Peter Orszag made the point that we want to create a 'social norm' that having health insurance is important, just like wearing a seatbelt. The problem is that health insurance is really fucking expensive and wearing a seatbelt is only a minor inconvenience.
Mandatory health insurance is more like mandatory seat-belt laws, in that it makes it unlawful to put yourself at risk, presumably because there's an assumption that in doing so, you're going to externalize costs on others. But seatbelt laws are fairly controversial, and even people in states where they've been passed sometimes resent them as an intrusion.
Rather than trying to change that essential characteristic of the electorate, the Democrats would do better to embrace it, and sell healthcare as a way of protecting the public from those who are irresponsibly uninsured.You don't get chemotherapy at the ER. I think I actually went through and calculated it out and the total ER costs in the U.S. come out to about $50 a person a year, or something. According to This 1996 paper Total E.R costs came to about 1.9% of annual health costs in 1987 (obviously a long time ago, but I don't think ER costs are that high)
I've been poking around some sources in Washington, DC (and combining this with what I've heard from our TPMDC team) and my sense is that Health Care Reform is both dead and not dead. Let's say it's among the Undead. There does seem to be some continuing effort to see how a Senate bill plus amending bill deal might work -- both for what would be needed in political terms and what would be workable under reconciliation rules. But there's also a lot of happy talk about generally marginal and meaningless reforms that might be pushed through as consolation prizes. And what seems unmistakably clear is that the White House is taking an extremely hands off approach to the whole situation.Has this guy actually fought for anything at any point?
And Democratic voters are just as self-interested as republicans. They support policies that benefit the poor because that's who they are.This strikes me as just as cliche as "liberals are smart and thoughtful, bla bla bla". If anything, I'd guess that "Democrats are poor" is even less accurate than the cliche you're complaining about.
I'd guess that "Democrats are poor" is even less accurate than the cliche you're complaining about.Well, you'd be guessing wrong. The income/partisan correlation holds true regardless of State, demographics or even religion. Now obviously there are rich democrats and poor republicans. But the average income for democrats is lower. And that's even given that blue states over all are wealthier then red states. But even in blue states, the majority of the wealthiest people are republicans. (can't find a link for demographics, right now, though But it's definitely the case.)
Counting the new Republican Senator Scott Brown from Massachusetts, the 41 Republicans in the Senate come from states representing just over 36.5 percent of the total US population. The 59 others (Democratic plus 2 Independent) represent just under 63.5 percent. (Taking 2009 state populations from here. If you count up the totals and split a state's population when it has a spit delegation, you end up with about 112.3 million Republican, 194.7 million Democratic + Indep. Before Brown's election, it was about 198 million Democratic + Ind, 109 million Republican.)cheers!
Let's round the figures to 63/37 and apply them to the health care debate. Senators representing 63 percent of the public vote for the bill; those representing 37 percent vote against it. The bill fails.
A well-informed source tells The Mouth Nancy Pelosi is set to announce the House will go the reconciliation route on health care reform.
Of course, that means using a budgetary procedure that requires a simple majority to pass.
It’s still unclear to us precisely what that means would be passed, but possibilities would be creating a national health care exchange and expanding Medicare or Medicaid coverage.
Update 2: Several legislators tell us Pelosi wants to use reconciliation, but after the meetings today, there still is no agreement on precisely how to do that. The only certain thing is they’re not passing the Senate bill, then trying to fix that.That update wasn't dated, but seems to partially undermine the lede.
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posted by gman at 7:16 PM on January 19, 2010