Category: Barack Obama

Building on the President’s Health Care Agenda

The President’s vision is the right one, […] Congress should enact specific policy changes that are consis­tent with that vision and that would fulfill its promises. However, Congress should be bolder than the White House and broaden the scope of change well beyond the President’s specific policy recommendations by:

— Expanding the proposed tax provisions to cover all health plans, not just HSA-qualified plans;

— Encouraging health insurance portability through individual ownership, a defined-contribution system, and establishment of a consumer-based “health exchange” marketplace; and

— Transforming the health care market into a more consumer-based system in which individuals are empowered to take direct control of their health care decisions.

http://www.heritage.org/Resear…

Nina Owcharenko, 05/11/06

That is the advice from the Conservative Think-Tank — the Heritage Foundation!

AND the President they are talking about — is George W. Bush!

SO … a Health Exchange Marketplace = Marxist Socialism ???

Oh Really!?

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

R.J. Matson, New York Observer, Buy this cartoon

The plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty used to say, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Now it says, “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.”

Why did everything go to Hell so fast?    

driftglass knows why, we ll know why . . .

We got the Bush Regime, arguably the most incompetent, corrupt and outright-treasonous Administration in American history. A regime so reckless, savage and gleefully bestial that it made the career-Nixon-hating Hunter Thompson actually pine for the good old days of Tricky Dick: “I miss Nixon.  Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal.”

And, like Nixon, it is more than likely that not a single one of the smirking traitors who nearly wrecked this country will ever spend a day in jail.  Instead they remain lodged in our flesh like so many ricin pellets, oozing their poison into our national bloodstream, waddle from one fawning audience to another, worming their way into major media outlets, or dispatching their degenerate children and underlings out into the world the keep their poison pumping.

They soiled our good name, bankrupted the country, shredded the Constitution and kicked the crutches out from under the global economy on their way out the door, and while it is sometimes hard to focus on them through the flames of the world they set on fire, we must.

America could have had justice.

But America didn’t get justice.  

America got Hopey McChange, who said he wants to look forward, not backward.  Who said there must be no “retribution”, no “vengeance”, no “payback”, who said the era of “divisive partisanship” must end.  

In a lengthy interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Congressman Dennis Kucinich explained why he would not vote for the present health care bill and defended his position against attacks from people on the left like Markos Moulitsas.  He also spoke about the subjects of Afghanistan, campaign finance, and the passing of activist Granny D.

I mean, I have a responsibility to take a stand here on behalf of those who want a public option. There’s about thirty-four members of the Senate, at least, who have signed on to saying they support a public option. If I were to just concede right now and say, “Well, you know, whatever you want. All this pressure’s building. Just forget about it,” actually weakens every last-minute bit of negotiations that would try to improve the bill. So I think that it’s really critical to take this stand, because without it, there’s no real control over premiums. Without it, we have nothing in the bill except the privatization of our healthcare system.

Anybody who ever reflected on the evidence for as much as a minute knows that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all smoked pot. Obama admitted it, Bush never really denied it, and Clinton (ha ha!) “didn’t inhale.”

So if smoking pot doesn’t mess you up too much to be President, then what’s the problem with pot?

The problem is shameles and hypocritical politicians sucking up to tight-assed low-IQ no-info hoodoos in Alabama and South Dakota, who fear that their little Barbies and Kens will end up in the gutter if they sample the demon weed, although…

Since 1992, your chance of getting elected President without a whole lotta preliminary tokin’ has been zero.

But while Obama is prancing around the Oval Office and laughing at the net-roots because they made legalizing marijuana and ending the “War on Drugs” #1 and #2 on Obama’s own bullshit website Ideas for Change in America…

While Obama is prancing around the Oval Office and enforcing even the very few drug-laws that he promised not to enforce…

Meanwhile the “War on Drugs” continues to decimate black communities, as described in a excellent new book by legal scholar Michelle Alexander…

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

AMY GOODMAN: Nearly half of America’s young black men are behind bars or have been labeled felons for life? That’s an astounding figure. Also, what does it mean in terms of their rights for the rest of their lives?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, thanks largely to the war on drugs, a war that has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies have consistently shown that people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites. The war on drugs waged in these ghetto communities has managed to brand as felons millions of people of color for relatively minor, nonviolent drug offenses. And once branded a felon, they’re ushered into a permanent second-class status, not unlike the one we supposedly left behind. Those labeled felons may be denied the right to vote, are automatically excluded from juries, and my be legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, public benefits, much like their grandparents or great grandparents may have been discriminated against during the Jim Crow era.

In fact, in 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession. Only one out of five were for sales.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes, I just wanted to bring it up to President Obama, because this piece you wrote, very interesting, at tomdispatch.com called “The Age of Obama as Racial Nightmare.” Explain.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: What is the system designed to do? The system is designed to send you right back to prison, which is, in fact, what happens to the vast majority of people who are released. About 70 percent of former prisoners are returned within three years. And the majority of those who are returned are returned within three months, because the obstacles, the legal barriers to just surviving on the outside, are so great. I’m often-you know, people often say to me, “Well, I know somebody who is a felon and who managed to get a job. You know, it’s possible to get a job,” they say.

Well, it may be possible, but what kind of job? Why is it that, you know, our young kids, young black and brown kids, are expected to be locked into low-wage jobs for life, if they’re lucky enough to get them, but kids in other communities are given the opportunity to go on to college, to compete for a full range of job opportunities? During the Jim Crow era, the problem wasn’t that black people couldn’t get jobs; it was that they were locked permanently in a lower tier of jobs. And that’s the reality.

Considering the shameless hypocrisy and downright idiocy of politics in America, maybe it isn’t surprising that after 40 years of failure, the “War on Drugs” is still fully funded and still destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of black Americans…

But how many people who voted for “Hope and Change” with Barack Obama foresaw that they were only electing a new Enforcer-in-Chief of the new Jim Crow?

Michael Walzer’s piece entitled “Missing the Movement” is so relevant and smartly written that I felt inclined to read it through four times before beginning to thinking about formulating an adequate response that would do it justice.  I am overjoyed to find someone who has managed to put forth a strong, sound hypothesis as to why recent reform efforts tied to a resurgent liberalism have been so limited while setting out cogently what we ourselves ought to do to fix the problem.  Having identified what went wrong, let us now proceed to take on the hard work and soul searching necessary to get past it.  For as it is written, “Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.”

Walzer writes,

Liberalism is the American version of social democracy, but it lacks a strong working-class base, party discipline, and ideological self-consciousness. None of these are in the offing, but we need to be aware of what we are missing, and we need to begin at least the intellectual work of making up for it. European social democrats are on the defensive right now, but they have a lot to defend. Liberals here are in catch-up mode, and not doing all that well. We know more or less what we have to do, but we haven’t managed to give the American people a brightly colored picture of the country we would like to create. There is a lot of wonkishness on the liberal left, among American social democrats, but not much inspiration. We haven’t found the words and images that set people marching. As an old leftist, I can talk (endlessly) about citizenship, equality, solidarity, and our responsibility to future generations, but someone much younger than I am has to put all this in a language that resonates with young Americans-and describe a “city upon a hill” that may or may not be the same hill that I have been climbing all these years.

It is this section in particular which resonates most strongly with me.  I notice this kind of stultifying dullness among those who have, for reasons unknown, exchanged wonkery for truly impassioned discourse and inspirational rhetoric.  The result produced is robotic and bloodless, for one.  For another, it’s downright Pharisaical.  In this circumstance, Dictionary.com defines Pharisaical as “practicing or advocating strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit.”  I have noted, sometimes with anger, sometimes with frustration, never with satisfaction, that this is true not just in gatherings of religious liberals, but also quite evident in multiple settings and causes comprised of vocally secular liberals.  Going through the motions without understanding the passion will never serve anyone’s cause well and indeed, it is partially why we find ourselves in the mess in which we are now.  Layering laws upon laws, formalities upon formalities, and procedures upon procedures might seem to be helpful upon first glance, but they end up separating ourselves from each other, not pulling us together.    

Over at Daily Salem Witch Trials, where Jane Hamsher has been burned at the stake so many times they’ve run out of stakes, someone set their torch down long enough to deliver a sermon about the dangers of fire . . .

Obama Warns Progressives We Will Go Down In Flames . .

President Obama told progressives that if this healthcare bill fails, not only will the democrats go down in flames but his presidency. I think those who are not satisfied with this bill need a come to jesus moment. We democrats need to realize that we can’t get everything we want.

I’ll have a come to Jesus moment if you stop sniffing glue.   While drinking a case of beer. While posting a diary from a rabbit hole somewhere deep beneath the surface of Obamabot Land.  

Someone needs to understand the basic difference between flying and never getting off the ground.  You can’t go down in flames when you never even got the damn plane into the air.   It didn’t even make it to the runway, because there aren’t any runways.  It’s still in the hangar.  At the No We Can’t International Airport.  Where there’s no runways, where there’s no control tower, where there’s no departure gate because nothing ever departs, where the only thing in the air is Rahm’s middle finger.    

Did I mention the plane doesn’t even have a pilot?  No?  Well then I’d better mention that.

THE DAMN PLANE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A PILOT.

Hopey McChange talks about flying, he talks about it all the time, he talks about soaring high up into that Sky of Change, soaring high above the status quo, high above those red states and blue states, way up into that Heaven of Bipartisanship, where the Centrist Angels play their harps and halos glow above every Republican head.  

He talks so much the wind never stops blowing . . .  

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth . . .

Blowing down the backroads heading south.

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,

You’re an idiot, babe, it’s a wonder,

That you still know how to breathe.

“Why are Obama and the Democrats so incompetent/such wimps/such ‘pussies’?  They control the White House and  both houses of Congress, yet they haven’t even managed to [insert embarrassingly modest and/or reformist liberal/progressive goal here, e.g., “pass health care reform that includes a public option”, “end the Iraq war”, “enact strict regulations on Wall Street”, etc.]! Obama needs to ‘grow a pair’ and start acting more like the Republicans did when they were in power! You know, like a man.  I mean, Bush never cared about bipartisanship and consensus-building when he was president.  He was willing to use his power to enact his agenda, and he did so without giving the Democratic opposition in Congress a second thought.”

The Left’s™ persistent broadcasting of variations on the  Democrats-as-incompetent-“pussies” (Bill Maher’s word, not mine) meme  reeks of a highly sophisticated and finely-tuned advertising campaign. The corporate owners of Brand Left™have so thoroughly saturated the nation with this message that even Apple’s marketing department has started taking notes.

Of course, it is unsurprising when Brand Left’s™ corporate mouthpieces help spread such a patently false characterization of Obama and the Democrats. The Leftists™ that have been anointed by our capitalist dictatorship — Rachel Maddow,  Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore, Ariana Huffington, and Bill Maher (to name a few)- have each done their part to perpetuate this dangerous lie about Obama and the Democrats. One should expect nothing less of such a distinguished cadre of amoral hypocrites.

Despite their faux-leftist rhetoric, they are cut from the same rotting, moth-eaten corporate cloth as Certainly Not News and Fox. The plutocracy has allowed them to express their “left wing” convictions for one primary reason:  A few advertising firms conducted focus groups to figure out what kind of programming would best attract a coveted demographic to various media sources where they could be subjected to target marketing (i.e., mostly white limousine liberals who constantly reiterate their love for National “Public” Radio whenever they are going for progressive realness). Likewise, The Jersey Shore was created so that advertisers could target an equally repugnant demographic.   

I’ve been poor, and I’ve been not so poor — and not being Poor is better.

Finally after 50 years of treating those in Poverty, as a bothersome statistic, the Federal Govt has begun to acknowledge, that there ARE individual stories, in that invisible demographic group:

Federal Gov’t Expands How It Measures Poverty

The Census Bureau will expand how it measures poverty beyond just cash income to get a more accurate picture of what people actually have to spend.

Frank James, NPR — March 2, 2010

NPR’s Pam Fessler summed up the changes for network’s newscast:

Things such as taxes, child care, housing and out-of-pocket medical expenses, along with the value of government benefits such as food stamps, will be included in the calculation. The official poverty measure, which is based on an individual’s cash income, will still be used to determine eligibility for government programs. The supplemental measure will be used to study poverty trends and the impact of anti-poverty programs. The change is something that’s been long sought by poverty experts. The new measure will be available next year.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw…