Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

T R E 4 5 O N

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Stand up, dammit!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

When I was faster i was always behind.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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Reader Interactions

169Comments

  1. 1.

    donovong

    From Ezra this morning, regarding passing HCR NOW:

    ” They should pass health-care reform because it’s the right thing to do, both for the millions of people whom it will directly affect and for the country as a whole.

    This legislation, like all legislation, is the product of an unending series of compromises and a long and tough political fight. The bill’s natural allies have made painful concessions that have sapped their enthusiasm, and its natural opponents have had a long time to learn to hate it. But for all the concessions, the bill is not that different, in effect or in construction, than it was at the beginning. The problem is that the bill’s supporters seem to have forgotten why they were doing this in the first place. And if they can’t remember the bill’s virtues, who will remind the country?”

    He’s right.

    voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/

  2. 2.

    max

    Since every post turns into the same argument in the end

    Oh, c’mon, man! You have got to admit Payton Manning is annoying.

    max
    [‘Just imagine if he played for the Cowboys!’]

  4. 4.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I would gladly troll or be trolled, but sadly, I must leave for work.

    Said work will include attending two separate events today with Gen David Petraeus, who is on a whirlwind visit to Atlanta including several public or semi-public speeches.
    I’d really like to stay in bed until noon . . .

  7. 7.

    Napoleon

    For God sake if the Dems do not pass the health care reform bill they deserve whatever is coming to them. Unfortunately the rest of us have to go along for the ride.

  8. 8.

    Joey Maloney

    Try to make a joke, end up in moderation. Serves me right.

    Joey +3
    (at GMT +2, lest you think I’m a total degenerate)

  9. 9.

    Dave Fud

    I have to say that it is more than a little discouraging to see the Congress, what used to be and should be the first among the three branches of government, take so long to do so little. I have no illusion that Congress has ever been any kind of speedy institution, but to debate health care for this long? I don’t know if slavery was ever debated this long. Even if one were very dedicated to health care as a cause as a congressperson, I can see why they want to talk about something else, to make Ezra’s point for him. They’re probably sick of repeating the same stuff over and over again.

  11. 11.

    Chinn Romney

    Decent line at my polling place as it opened this morning. NotScottBrown will pull it out IMHO. Brown badly overplayed his Palin card the last several days. I thought he wanted to stick to the issues, but all I’ve heard over and over, are his kids crying that NotScottBrown was mean to their Dad. I held my nose as I checked off NotScottBrown on my ballot.

    I just need to stay away from my electronic devices the rest of the day until this blows over. Every 30 seconds an ad comes on. And even the Coakley ads rarely mentioned her name. If I never hear the name Scott Brown again I’ll be a happy camper, but I suspect he’ll aim his sights at our crappy and vulnerable Governor next. Scott Brown, Scott Brown, Scott Brown. Aiiieee!

  12. 12.

    Joey Maloney

    BTW, today’s homemade sweet is candied ginger:

    1 hand ginger, peeled and chopped into 1/8″ slices
    equal weight of sugar

    Put the ginger in boiling water, simmer for 2 hours until tender. Pour off the liquid except for 1/4 to 1/2 cup (but save it as concentrate for ginger tea, excellent for when you are under the weather with a cold or sore throat). Add the sugar, raise heat to medium high. Cook, stirring frequently, until almost all the liquid has boiled off. Stirring is crucial here – left to itself the sugar will carbonize and burn before the liquid is gone. If the mixture starts to color, reduce heat and increase stirring.

    Turn the ginger out onto a rack, allow to cool to room temp. The remaining recrystallized ginger sugar can be saved to flavor your tea or coffee.

  13. 13.

    cat48

    Hope your feeling ok pain wise, John. Did you see Fred Hiatt’s op-ed. He thinks Obama had “a successful first year.” Who knew? I swear the op-ed page did not reflect that last year.

  14. 14.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Would a kitteh make things better? Smudge on a window ledge.

    ETA: in other randomly unrelated news, I just found out last week that my dissertation research was cited by a chapter author in a book (thanks Google Scholar!).

  16. 16.

    scav

    Wonko the Sane sends his greetings and is furthermore enjoying Rod Newman’s The History of the World Backwards and may even manage The History of Oil but we may be odd at that. Carry on and enjoy yourselves.

  17. 17.

    valdivia

    @donovong:

    this. exactly.

    @arguingwithsignposts:
    said it in the previous thread but will say it again: she is such a cutie pie this one.

    I am happy i am in the middle of a move today and will miss all the political fun until the very end when either I will be too tired to care or ready to have a drink to celebrate/drown my sorrows.

    have a good one and feel better John. Oh and if any of you are in Mass–vote early and often.

  18. 18.

    Incertus

    I wrote about this yesterday, but any chance I can get to spread the news–in New Orleans, prostitutes are being charged as sex offenders under an 1805 law which defines oral and anal sex as “crimes against nature.” They have to self-identify to their neighbors as sex offenders, and the net effect is that people trying to get off the street are hampered to an even greater degree than even an arrest record would cause.

  20. 20.

    4jkb4ia

    @Chinn Romney:
    Thank you for the words of encouragement. As I got up today I thought, “Today is the day of doom. People are lining up to vote for Scott Brown.” and I wanted to throw up. Then I thought what a petty person I was because I couldn’t concentrate on Scott Horton’s article because of this.

    (Also, after Peter Baker’s article, I can show you the place on the doll where Rahm touched me. The EW commentariat could come up with at least three good cynical reasons to try the KSM Five in federal court and he was still against it. I interpret a cynical reason as that they may have torture-tainted evidence but the sheer evil of this person will sweep all before it.)

  21. 21.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Incertus:
    Wow, that’s just awful. Does it say anything about what happens to the johns? Because I’m thinking if it started affecting those who initiated the transaction, the law would be changed the minute some city council member gets caught.

    The war on sex is catching a lot of people those sex offender laws were never intended to catch (16 year olds caught sexting who end up labeled as pervs for the rest of their lives, for instance). I don’t know how this country is going to unravel this mess if we ever come to our senses about these unintended consequences.

    I am continually amazed at the cruelty of our species toward one another.

  23. 23.

    Punchy

    Please no posts about the Mass Election. Depressing, disturbing, disgusting, and damming.

    Thanks.

  25. 25.

    jwb

    @arguingwithsignposts: If we ever come to our senses it will be easy enough to unravel the mess. The problem is I don’t see us coming to our senses until the baby boomers are dead and buried–and that’s a long way off.

  26. 26.

    The Ace Tomato Company

    I am still in a state of awe that significant chunks of the Democratic base are trying to align themselves with some of the most repulsive parts of the Republican base. Not only that, but it took them all less than a year to arrive here.

    How exactly will a progressive strategy benefit from an alliance with people who think that providing poor people with insurance is tantamount to the rise of National Socialism, Communism and terminal hemorrhoids?

    I was born in 1975 so my entire life has been spent watching the Democrats cower in fear and stab each other in the back. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 30+ times…well, then I’m starting to think I am the world’s biggest moron for sticking around this long. The only reason I have is because the alternative is so much worse.

    However, since the Democrats seem unable to grow a pair and govern after winning the presidency, super majorities in both houses of congress and a plurality of governorships, I am starting to wonder if they have any use whatsoever. A case could be made that they’ve kept the Republicans from completely destroying this country, but all I think they’ve done is allow the Republicans to do via a slow burn strategy. It takes much longer and is more pernicious because it happens too slowly for most to notice. Therefore, I am starting to hope the Democrats completely collapse and the Republicans sweep to power. This way we can finally have a long overdue revolution and line the wingnut caucus of both parties up against a wall…

    Of course, I’m just really pissed right now and don’t actually believe this, but I really do wonder which is more sad: The fact that we have one completely insane party, or a second party to schizophrenic and scared to stand up to it?

  27. 27.

    Incertus

    @arguingwithsignposts: It doesn’t, but I think it’s safe to say that the johns don’t face the same consequences as the prostitutes do–they never do, even though if johns weren’t out there, prostitutes wouldn’t be either.

  31. 31.

    The Ace Tomato Company

    Yeah! My comments keep getting stuck in moderation hell! Let’s try this again…

    I am still in a state of awe that significant chunks of the Democratic base are trying to align themselves with some of the most repulsive parts of the Republican base. Not only that, but it took them all less than a year to arrive here.

    How exactly will a progressive strategy benefit from an alliance with people who think that providing poor people with insurance is tantamount to the rise of National Socialism, Communism and terminal hemorrhoids?

    I was born in 1975 so my entire life has been spent watching the Democrats cower in fear and stab each other in the back. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 30+ times…well, then I’m starting to think I am the world’s biggest moron for sticking around this long. The only reason I have is because the alternative is so much worse.

    However, since the Democrats seem unable to grow a pair and govern after winning the presidency, super majorities in both houses of congress and a plurality of governorships, I am starting to wonder if they have any use whatsoever. A case could be made that they’ve kept the Republicans from completely destroying this country, but all I think they’ve done is allow the Republicans to do via a slow burn strategy. It takes much longer and is more pernicious because it happens too slowly for most to notice. Therefore, I am starting to hope the Democrats completely collapse and the Republicans sweep to power. This way we can finally have a long overdue revolution and line the wingnut caucus of both parties up against a wall…

    Of course, I’m just really pissed right now and don’t actually believe this, but I really do wonder which is more sad: The fact that we have one completely insane party, or a second party to schizophrenic and scared to stand up to it?

  34. 34.

    rootless_e

    What still blows me away about this debate is that whenever I bring up the massive sea-change in the way that the government is now defending civil rights and championing workers, the “progressives” dismiss it as chump change. Because all the work the Department of Justice is now doing to prevent cops from beating citizens and to punish investment scammers and all the work that the Department of Labor is doing to protect union organizers, keep employers hands out of the pockets of the poorest workers, save pension funds from looting, and punish employers who run unsafe workplaces doesn’t matter at all to the so-called “progressives”. That goes a long way to explaining why they dismiss the actual benefits of the current HCR bill. “Progressives” want theater, not change.

  35. 35.

    TR

    I have no illusion that Congress has ever been any kind of speedy institution, but to debate health care for this long? I don’t know if slavery was ever debated this long.

    Slavery was debated in Congress for about sixty years, but I’ll assume that was hyperbole.

    But consider the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took more than a full year from the time JFK introduced the bill in June 1963 to the time LBJ signed it into law in July 1964. It had the same committee stalling, endless compromises, dramatic cloture votes (Sen. Clair Engle was wheeled in from a hospital to cast his vote for cloture, even though he couldn’t speak), and repeated filibuster efforts.

    Thirteen long months, and that was even with the largest single demonstration in Washington D.C. to support the bill (the March on Washington in August 1963) and LBJ stating that passage of the bill was the best possible way for the mourning nation to honor JFK’s memory.

    The ball got rolling on HCR in, what, May? This is nothing, in terms of what it normally takes. (Medicare took about seven months, and that affected a much smaller percentage of the population.)

    This is the way it’s always been. We’ve just gotten more impatient and shortsighted, that’s all.

  37. 37.

    Seanly

    From yahoo’s article (originally from Bloomberg):

    Research “strongly suggests” that Brown, 50, will defeat Coakley, 56, the Washington-based nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report said. That outcome or even a narrow Coakley win could discourage House or Senate Democrats in competitive districts and states from running in this November’s elections amid a sagging economy and declining poll numbers for Obama.

    Umm, okay. So if Coakley loses, Democratic incumbents and prospective candidates will all commit suicide in remorse? Everything is double plus good news for the Republicans. When they win, they win. When they lose, they win.

    For the record, I don’t know enough about the Mass. race to predict it. Maybe Coakley will lose. Niether one sounds like a good candidate. It does seem that in a state that is pretty heavily Democratic that maybe the pollsters are not balancing out the party identifiers correctly, but I’m not a betting man.

    And if the Dems lose their 60 seat majority, maybe that will light a fire under their lazy butts to 1) sack milquetoaste Reid and 2) get motivated to make a good showing for the mid-terms.

  38. 38.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @TR:

    This is nothing, in terms of what it normally takes. We’ve just gotten more impatient, that’s all.

    I’d say this was nothing in terms of what it takes to get major legislation passed. Congress passes smaller bills swiftly all the time.

  39. 39.

    mr. whipple

    failure is innate.

    Even when Democrats win, no win can can be celebrated by them, because it’s obvious the win was insufficiently progressive, a half-measure at best, and always, always a compromise.

  41. 41.

    Toast

    Someday, after the blogosphere has died and we’re all standing around the grave mourning it, I’m going to suggest as an epitaph the line “Every post turns into the same argument in the end.”

  42. 42.

    Demo Woman

    For those able to watch Netflix instant may I suggest “Wall Street”
    They are removing it from the instant queue tomorrow. Since I refuse to watch the news, I have my instant movies lined up.
    Recently I saw “Amreeka” on instant which I rated a four. Stay away from the news today because if Obama does not have 60 senators, he is a failure. When was the last time a President had 60 senators?

  43. 43.

    Nick

    @Dave Fud:

    I have no illusion that Congress has ever been any kind of speedy institution, but to debate health care for this long?

    Civil Rights Act of 1964 took 13 months, Medicare and Medicaid was debated over the course of 11 months, 5 the first time, when it failed, six the second time when it finally passed. Social Security took about 9 months, held up by a Conservative Democrat from Utah who chaired the Finance Committee and watered down to get Southern Dems to vote for it. and since you asked

    I don’t know if slavery was ever debated this long.

    This one took about 45-50 years.

  44. 44.

    timb

    @Dave Fud: I get that it wa sa reference and all, but slavery was debated during the Declaration (Jefferson’s original draft included opposition to slavery) through to the Constitutional Convention itself, where it was basically tabled so that a national government could emerge and then all the way through to 1867 when Amendments 13, 14, and 15 were passed.

    Compared to that, healthcare is a piker.

    Anyone who has never read Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate should pick it up today and realize the entire book is about Johnson’s success in passing the wussiest civil rights act of all time. But in ten years, once the wall was breached, we got the ’64 Act and the Voting Rights Act. This healthcare bill is less than ideal, but once the vast majority comes to realize that –once again– Rush was lying and trying to scare folks, then everything will be fine on the healthcare front.

    To paraphrase Keyser Soze: the greatest trick the Republicans ever pulled was convincing people with insurance that they should be scared. Once they stop, then it’s 20 year to a National Health Service

    Good on you, John.

  48. 48.

    The Grand Panjandrum

    For a quick rundown on the real political makeup of Mass go read this piece by Al Giordano. Hint: Massachusetts is not the bastion of liberalism most people outside of the state believe it to be.

    In 1990, a whacked-out right-wing nutcase named John Silber – longtime president of Boston University, professor Howard Zinn said that his autobiography should have been titled Mein Campus – won a three-way Democratic primary for governor with his anti-abortion, anti-poor people, pro-business stances. Silber was defeated by descended-from-the-Mayflower millionaire Bill Weld, who ran as a pro-choice, pro-gay rights – but pro-business – Republican, who ushered in twelve years of Republican control – half by him and half by a Rogue’s Gallery in succession named Cellucci, Swift and then, brrrrrrrr, Romney.

    As I noted yesterday, the registered voter breakdown is roughly 35% Democrat, 12% GOP, and 50% Independent. The reason for Democratic hegemony is a result of a better political organization at the state level. But it also often results in candidates like Coakley.

  50. 50.

    Crashman06

    Well, I’ve done my civic duty for the Commonwealth and the Nation today. I don’t feel too confident about it at all, but I did peek at the voter rolls as they were checking my name off and there are tons of registered Dems in my neighborhood. Maybe if enough show up we’ll be alright.

    I reserve the right to remain pessimistic in the hopes that I will be pleasantly surprised.

  51. 51.

    Kerry Reid

    A friend did a performance piece earlier this year as part of an evening of comedic pieces about social networking. At various points, he read actual comment threads on his Facebook page. One of his status updates was “Today, I am trying to read the entire internet.” To which another friend replied “Spoiler alert! It ends in illiterate bickering.”

  54. 54.

    Redshirt

    Reporting in from MA: At least from my household, Coakley +2.

    Polling place was busy in the morning, and with surprisingly upbeat spirits. Lots of Coakley supporters with signs in the parking lot, nary a Brown sign nor supporter to be seen, but I’m pretty firmly in the liberal part of MA, so who knows.

    I will be shocked if Coakley loses, but not as shocked as if you told me she’d lose three months ago.

  55. 55.

    Platonicspoof

    Since every post turns into the same argument in the end, with a few people trolling each other

    I haven’t read the 9000 comment ‘Greenwald Does Gruber’ thread yet.

    Would wearing 3-D glasses make it worth seeing?

  56. 56.

    John Cole

    @cat48: The pain was really bad this morning because I actually slept for about 8 hours straight last night and missed two pain pill doses. Woke up and it was excruciating. I had to literally roll out of the chair to get up. I made some coffee and put my frozen pack of peas on my shoulder to ice it, and had a pill about two hours ago, and it is manageable now. My knees are really sore now, too. I landed on them as well, and they look like someone took a baseball bat to my knee caps, but at least there are no broken bones or tendon/ligament damage.

    On the upside, at least I have an effective pain management strategy now that those awful percocets are out of my life. I’ve really never had a worse experience with pain meds in my life. They were just awful. These milder pills take the pain from a 7-8 to a 3-4, which is just fine, but they also leave me able to think and function.

    I know I whine a lot, but I actually have a pretty strong tolerance to pain, so I am not used to taking pain meds. Every time I have been hurt in the past, I use the meds for a day or two and then go without. Not this time.

  57. 57.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Redshirt:
    I would really laugh my ass off if the election goes overwhelmingly for Coakley after all this rending of garments. Mass. Dems in a head-fake FTW.

    (of course, if she loses, I’ll be in a different mood)

  59. 59.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    Our daughter was visiting me in the garage the other day as I was finishing up putting our Mustang back together and she asked me how it was going. I told her that something was wrong because everything was going together without a problem and everything is working properly (all new suspension, springs and rebuilt differential). Murphy doesn’t like an imbalance like this in the mechanical universe so something had to go wrong.

    A bit later I was sweeping up the garage and had just filled the dustpan when I turned, while still bent over, and ran my forehead into my side mirror. That gouged a nice semicircular chunk of skin up that required some repair work outside of the garage and will leave a thin scar.

    I feel better now. Murphy got his dues paid and the car should run perfectly. ;)

  60. 60.

    GReynoldsCT00

    <blockquoteThe war on sex is catching a lot of people those sex offender laws were never intended to catch (16 year olds caught sexting who end up labeled as pervs for the rest of their lives, for instance). I don’t know how this country is going to unravel this mess if we ever come to our senses about these unintended consequences.

    I think the panty sniffers care not about he unintended consequences (unless they get caught themselves, as someone else mentioned)

  64. 64.

    trollhattan

    I troll your milkshake.

    We (Nor-Cal) are getting our butts kicked by a string of big storms for the first time since ’06. Don’t know if it will be enough to end the drought but it won’t hurt, and it may affect Sean Hannity’s ability to schlepp out here and make fish bait jokes in front of a gaggle of farmers and teabaggers.

    That is all.

  65. 65.

    Uriel

    @Incertus: Jesus jumped up Christ. That’s just god damned insane.

    And this isn’t far behind- maybe even worse:

    “The way Louisiana’s habitual offender law works, if you challenge your sentence in court and lose, and it’s a third offense, the mandatory minimum is 20 years. The maximum is life.”

    Parts of this country have seriously left the rails in a big way.

  66. 66.

    Bob In Pacifica

    Who thought it was a great idea to tax people with health insurance in order to ensure that everyone have health insurance?

    Interesting article in the SF Chronic about how a tax included in the Senate bill will tax more efficient HMOs over other plans, and how California will be disproportionately taxed because more people here have better health insurance. Here:

    sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/18/MN5S1BE2MF.DTL&tsp=1

    How do you think that will help Barbara Boxer this fall?

    In the calculation of feelgoodedness springing forth from the Senate health care bill, how many more people without health care insurance will vote Democratic than people with health care insurance who are so happy with their new tax that they’ll vote Democratic?

  68. 68.

    Bob In Pacifica

    trollhattan:

    Shots of snow coming down on roads going up to Tahoe. Rejoicing at the ski lift, but wear chains! Shots of building sliding into the sea in Pacifica! Flooding on 101.

    It’s that time of year again.

  69. 69.

    D-Chance.

    Is it time to roll out the Liberal Election Loss Excuse-o-meter yet? Which excuse will the magical gizmo choose this time? Marcia Coakley wasn’t a real Democrat… she should have just run as a Republican given how unreal her Democratness was? This election wasn’t all that important anyway, so no one cares? Rigged voting machines (already being posited on Nate Silver’s boards)? Way too much Republican money? Biased media tilting the voters? Massachusetts is a conservative state and should not have been expected to elect a Democrat? The all-time favorite… “Teh voterz iz teh stoopid!”?

    Should be an amusing day, no matter what the outcome. Always fun and frivolity with these little shin-digs.

  71. 71.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @trollhattan:

    I’m right above you on the Oregon coast and we are getting hammered too. We have already lost power for 10 hours the other day and more storms are on the way.

    At least I don’t have to shovel rain, just tread water.

  72. 72.

    Ash Can

    Someone was still posting on that Gruber thread this morning. If John were to put up a post declaring everyone there the winner, would those people finally just go the hell away?

  73. 73.

    SGEW

    I have been waiting for this explanation my whole life:

    So what emergency, exactly, does this emergency brake refer to? The explanation, transit officials say, is simple. If someone gets caught between the train’s closing doors, or between subway cars, and is about to be dragged to an unenviable fate, pull the cord. The train will stop, possibly saving a life.

  75. 75.

    Leaking Geek

    Thought for the day…Which republican lawmaker will bring glory to himself and his party during the State of the Union this year? Any bets?

  77. 77.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @Bob In Pacifica:

    We really need to have our politicians tailor bills to favor those who will actually vote to keep them in office. Why waste time pandering to the ungrateful rabble who will never vote for you or give you a single dollar in campaign contributions? Fuck them all.

  78. 78.

    The Other Steve

    I wonder if the Jane Hamsher’s of the left realize that they’re reminding me of why I find Democrats so fucking annoying and how much I miss Republicans?

  79. 79.

    ellaesther

    Oh lord. I’m reading through this thread and listening to Chicago NPR at the same time, and they just ran a montage of mudslinging lines from local election ads — and some man just told me that there are “solid rumors” that a particular candidate “is a homosexual.”

    Quad the fuck? I swear to you, I thought that we had to at least pretend to be past that particular brand of shit.

    Just had to share. Am going back to reading nao.

  80. 80.

    The Other Steve

    @Bob In Pacifica: Oh christ, it’s all about the whiney babies in California again.

    Jesus, just shut the fuck up already. You aren’t special. Your momma didn’t love you more then anybody elses momma. And you live on a fucking fault line. You could drop into the ocean tomorrow and nobody would give a fuck.

  82. 82.

    DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio

    @The Ace Tomato Company:

    You cannot use the word “sociaIism” spelled with the correct letters.

    The one I used here has a capital i where the lower case l should be.

    The mod filter is so smartly designed, it misses that and lets it through.

    Thanks to whoever it was that tipped me off to that trick.

  83. 83.

    DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)

    @The Other Steve:

    And I’ve got front row seats when it slides into the ocean! Barring an earthquake I am hoping someone comes up with a lever big enough to do the job.

    I’d even lend a hand!

    @The Other Steve:

    Thought I’d help a bit. ;)

  84. 84.

    PanAmerican

    @Demo Woman:

    1976. HCR was another of Carter’s fuck ups. Like Clinton it was a White House knows best approach that pissed off the legislative branch.

  85. 85.

    Keith G

    @Bob In Pacifica: Okay Bob. I will bite.

    As I was finishing up my career as a degreed professional, I was able to enroll in a program in which my various insurance and investment fees were taken out pre tax, thus lowering my taxable income and in fact making it easier to sign up for the more generous of the health plans offered. Workers outside such a system are screwed more ways than one.

    That is a market distortion and in my view unfair to all (including my S.O.) who did not have such options. And it is beyond me how any true “populist” could support such a scheme where low wage workers get fucked in order to help their betters.

    If those tax manipulations and advantages, unfair as they are, are vanquished forever, I would not shed a tear.

    You seem to have been flogging this horse for a while, Bob. Why do you hate the working poor?

  87. 87.

    Ash Can

    @ellaesther: LOL! That’s gotta be that chronic putz Andy Martin talking about Mark Kirk. I doubt that Martin will come anywhere near being a threat to Kirk in the primary, but it’s fun watching him play the part of punchbowl floater for the IL GOP in the meantime.

  88. 88.

    bago

    @Bob In Pacifica: Well, because health insurance is an untaxed form of compensation, at the higher end people will attempt to dodge taxes by creating health plans that can include almost anything, such as massages, steam rooms, etc. That way you can get the perks without the taxes you woul pay if you paid for it yourself. The whole point is to try and close this tx loophole, and use the efforts as such for deficet reduction purposes, so that you can say that the bill pays for itself.

    When the opponents are establishing the narrative of the bill by dropping off the accounts recievable part of the books though….

  89. 89.

    Sentient Puddle

    @Leaking Geek:

    Thought for the day…Which republican lawmaker will bring glory to himself and his party during the State of the Union this year? Any bets?

    I say DeMint. He’s on the record saying that he wished he was the one who shouted “You lie!”

  90. 90.

    Redshirt

    And before the end of the day, I just want everyone to know that regardless of what you’ve heard or even experienced yourself, Massachusetts kinda sucks. I suppose I’d think better of the state if I was forced to live in South Carolina or somewhere else in the South, but still: Massholes are the worst, and I’ve never understood, at all, how this state gets labeled “Ultra-liberal”. Tons of people I know are Masshole Wingnuts, which is so strange.

  91. 91.

    SGEW

    Another day, another edition of “The DFH’s Were Right”:

    “FBI Broke Law for Years in Phone Record Searches”

    The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.

    From the WaPo, written by Carrie Johnson and John Solomon(!).

  93. 93.

    ellaesther

    @Ash Can: I swear to you, it was like I had been whipsawed back in time for a split second. Hello, Mr. Hoover?

    And WTF is up with “solid rumor”? I mean, I no more want to see Mark Kirk elected to the Senate than any other Illinois Democrat, but, honestly: “solid rumor”?

    But I’m listening to Liam Finn now — much better.

  95. 95.

    Mr Furious

    We are all Dennis Sheehan now…

    “[link] The half of my family who voted for Obama are for Brown,” said Dennis Sheehan, an electrical technician from Lowell, who cheered the Senate candidate outside a Boston Bruins game. “They felt sold out. He said he’d bring the whole country together. I’ve never seen the country so divided in my life, and I grew up in the ’60s, with Vietnam.”

    Yeah. And that’s Obama’s fault. And this will help.

    This election is turning into The Darwin Awards.

  96. 96.

    matoko_chan

    Dr. Cole, if there hasn’t been one…..there should be a thread for this.
    No wonder Obama’s Kep-Trig matrix showed a special prosecutor for torture would be A Very Bad Thing. This is going to hit the vile Bush/Cheney legacy like a j-dam. There is simply going to have to be a special prosecutor.
    Hickman reads like a fuckin’ movie script. I’m literally sick to my stomach. A meme-war coup for the Reaver Brigade.
    If they didnt hate us before, they are sure going to hate us now.
    Thank god for the basic decency and honor of Sgt. Hickman and the students of Seton Hall.

    The Pentagon declined to make the NCIS report public, and only when pressed with Freedom of Information Act demands did it disclose parts of the report, some 1,700 pages of documents so heavily redacted as to be nearly incomprehensible. The NCIS report was carefully cross-referenced and deciphered by students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and their findings, released in November 2009, made clear why the Pentagon had been unwilling to make its conclusions public. The official story of the prisoners’ deaths was full of unacknowledged contradictions, and the centerpiece of the report—a reconstruction of the events—was simply unbelievable.

  97. 97.

    Lisa

    I just want it to be on record that I officially cannot deal with Glenn Greenwald anymore. He is “All Hysteria All the Time” and his commenters are just wingnut concern trolls lapping it up.

    I feel sad and disappointed about so many formerly thoughtful blogs. They have all gone nuts. I guess since they all came to popularity by being “in opposition” to the Bush Crime Syndicate, they just can’t get used to the idea of blogging about actual governance. They only know how to hysterically rant about “speaking truth to power” no matter who is in office. Because I suspect that even if Dennis Kucinich were president, they would be freaking out about betrayal and Corporate Manchurian Candidates and all that shit. The act of governing, it seems, is a betrayal to the revolution.

  100. 100.

    liberty60

    Just a few thoughts on the general despair by the Hamshers and Kos’s regarding the alledged “Failure” of the obama revolution.
    Like John, I am a former Republican conservative, who migrated out of the madhouse- My conversion was a slow one during the Clinton era.
    I remember being a conservative all through the 70’s, suffering defeat after defeat after defeat.

    Did everyone think that with one election, one President, one single victory with a razor thin majority, we would triumph? Did the progressives really think it would be so easy?
    Fact is, large swaths of the country ARE represented by Sarah Palin, and DO send checks to Pat Robertson. Did we think they would just stuff their hands in their pockets and shuffle home?

    If we really believe in what we say, we have to be willing to fight, for years on end to get even small victories.

    Politics is about the art of the possible, not the art of preening street theater trying to determine who is the most pure.

    If we want people who genuinely represent Main Street, we have to do what we did in the GOP- start at the local level, supporting primary candidates who can rely on the base, not checks from Citibank to earn their victories.

  104. 104.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Mr Furious:

    I’ve never seen the country so divided in my life, and I grew up in the ‘60s, with Vietnam.”

    That guy is an idiot.

    Because those police dogs and tear gas cannisters weren’t going to attack black people and hippies by themselves in Selma and Chicago.

    Geez, get some historical perspective, people.

  105. 105.

    SGEW

    @matoko_chan: There hasn’t been a thread devoted to it yet, but it has been remarked upon here quite a few times. DougJ basically said that he doesn’t have much more to say about it than “read the whole thing, but it is really fucking depressing” (which is fair enough, I suppose).

    In the blogosphere, Yglesias and Ackerman touched on it. Sullivan had some typically good writing about it as well.

    Additionally, if you haven’t read it yet (and if you can stomach it), the original Seton Hall report is here (pdf).

  106. 106.

    SGEW

    Blah, my response to matoko_chan got moderated for too many links (I thought I could sneak them in via edit – no such luck).

  107. 107.

    cat48

    John, just read your post. You don’t deserve all this pain. Glad you got different meds that work better for you. Unfortunately you will probably need them for longer than you like, but you need it right now so take as prescribed. Glad you are over a.m. pain for now. Sounds horrible.

  108. 108.

    danimal

    @rootless_e:

    “Progressives” want theater, not change.”

    I think this is right, and that it is unfortunate. It drives me crazy as the main goal for liberals over the past 40 years is being killed by friendly fire. I’ll never trust “progressives” to follow through on anything if they derail HCR. They don’t have a clue about the legislative process and their political strategizing has been stupendously stupid. But both sides of the progressive v. pragmatist conflict can learn a thing or two.

    So, I’ll posit a question: Why not throw in a bit of theater? The centrists and pragmatists really should have realized that there is a strong desire for some payback after the Bush regime and the economic collapse. Putting a few symbolic heads on a pike at all the entrances to Washington may have helped keep the troops happy.

    We could have done better with HCR, but that fight is almost over. It’s not too late to learn and adapt for the rest of the year. Jobs and financial reform need to be populist fights from the left. If not, everything could collapse.

  109. 109.

    PurpleGirl

    Nick @ 62: a species of political idiot — the American worker who becomes middle income and really begins to believe that they will be rich and starts listening to Republicans and following them. They deny the historical fact that Republicans are against workers and unionism.

  110. 110.

    Elie

    @The Ace Tomato Company:

    Though the Democrats can be disgusting, I would not confuse some of the so called progressive activists with Democrats. I dont think that they are and some of them may be operating out of way more cynical motives.

    I think that this is a time where, similar to navigating a boat through a narrow channel, you keep your eyes ahead and try not to get too distracted by how close many of the rocks are and the occassional scrapes across the hull…

    We have had a solid diatribe against government for over 20 years now. Many people grew up with that frame and even though calling themselves nominally “liberal” or progressive, have not actually witnessed effective governance by each of the branches — especially the legislative. As with any unused organ, the Congress is jittery and weak this first year, but I believe will get stronger over time and with use, most importantly. Their weakness and jitteriness has to be endured so we can get this to work right going forward.

    We are also unused to the time and effort it takes to get things done. We forget how hard it is to get big things done in other arenas as we scream at the top of our lungs why its taking so long to do this stuff. Its been a short time to tackle this very complex stuff with a lot of impact on our economy and political system but the complainers need the grievance and then we have to spend time answering their grievance.

    I do not believe that all the leftie critics have cynical motives or that they are bad people. Some are very idealistic and others may not really know how the system is supposed to work and others yet are more libertarian than liberal — meaning that they view things more from their rights as individuals rather than winning for the group. You see many comments related to what they don’t want to pay for while not really balancing that with the awareness that we will all have to pay to get everyone covered — and yes, it will take some time to smooth it all out to be fair for most folks.

    Finally, there is no trust. People are too used to feeling that they are exploited or will be exploited after years of corporate and social Darwinism…we are used to making only absolute arguments in win/lose fashion and fighting rather than negotiating, which just seems weak. We don’t like compromise or negotiation and that was programmed in by 20 years of run away corporatism which is top-down and absolute — even when wrong..

    I think it will get better over time — though not maybe for a while. We must pass health reform. That is number one, two and three. Then financial. Both will be starts and imperfect but despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth, are much needed and will bring us to the next steps we need to become a civil and functioning nation again…

  111. 111.

    SGEW

    @Mary; @Napoleon:

    It’s still a pretty solid piece of reportage, Solomon’s indisputably hackish nature aside. If anything, I think it’s a good thing that it’s being highlighted by such partisans (i.e., “Even John Solomon admits that there was illegal surveillance of innocent Americans” – even if the mealy-mouthed phrase “technical violations” got snuck in there).

  112. 112.

    ellaesther

    @liberty60: I bring you a quote from the very man who’s birth we celebrated just yesterday:

    The transformed nonconformist… never yields to the passive sort of patience which is an excuse to do nothing. And this very transformation save him from… making hasty judgments which are blind to the necessity of social progress. He recognizes that social change will not come overnight, yet he works as though it is an imminent possibility.

    – Martin Luther King, Jr, Strength to Love

    We so often don’t want to do the work — because the demands of social justice are urgent and right — but we can’t organize people where we want them to be. We can only organize them where they are.

    Or, in other words: This.

  113. 113.

    Xenos

    @Bob In Pacifica:

    Who thought it was a great idea to tax people with health insurance in order to ensure that everyone have health insurance?

    That was a John McCain idea. It appears to have been proposed by the Health Insurance lobby as a poison pill to drive away union support. They got it inserted in to the Senate bill, and miracle of miracle, it looks like the White House is getting the unions to put up with it.

    Now, of course, the health insurance industry is screaming like stuck pigs over this. Almost as amusing as the anti-workplace sex harassment that was put into the 1964 civil rights act by some dixiecrats who hoped sexism would trump the rejection of racism.

    Bill–if you read up on history (real history, not the fabulations of fundamentalist mormon nutcases), then you might not find this sort of thing confusing.

  114. 114.

    PurpleGirl

    Redshirt: I think Massachusetts got and stayed tagged as ultra liberal because it kept electing Ted Kennedy to the Senate. And their taxes were higher than other places. I assume New York would be a close second. (NY resident here who remembers the liberal Republicans like John Lindsay, Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits.)

  115. 115.

    jrg

    “They felt sold out. He that Marxist Nazi Kenyan said he’d bring the whole country real Americans and the fags together. I’ve never seen the country so divided in my life..”

    There. I fixed it for you.

  116. 116.

    Quiddity

    Can we revisit Jonathan Gruber?

    Over at Slate, an article says this:

    1) A Health Affairs study showed that health care insurance costs is largely tied to demographics (age, sex, geographic location, hazard of job) and not to benefits. Health Affairs is a peer-reviewed journal on health policy.

    2) The author, aware that this contradicted Gruber’s assertion on this point, tried to get a response.

    3) Gruber dismissed the study. Quote: “The point is that you don’t need to respond to the Health Affairs study.” .

    What say ye, Gruber-fans?

  117. 117.

    Elie

    @Mr Furious:

    Just remember, some of these people are liars.

    I have frequently heard, “I supported Obama but…” from folks I know never did.

    Just saying

  118. 118.

    Mary

    @SGEW: Fair enough. I didn’t read the piece. Just commented on the name. He sure has a lot of friends in Washington to job hop as he does with such success.

  120. 120.

    Mary

    @Xenos: I can’t tell you how much I loved your comment about the insurance companies screaming like stuck pigs over their own poison pill excise tax.

  121. 121.

    John Cole

    @Quiddity:

    What say ye, Gruber-fans?

    This is the kind of BS that drives me insane and spikes my blood pressure. No one here is a Gruber “fan.” No one here is a Gruber “groupie.” No one thinks his work is infallible, or beyond reexamination, or beyond scrutiny. No one.

    What we rejected was people pretending that an accomplished expert in the field with a long history and reputation of straight shooting was being compared to outright hacks being paid to covertly distribute propaganda because he didn’t disclose enough to please a few people (many of whom wanted to smear him falsely with the sole intention of bringing down health care).

    By all means, attack his work if it is flawed. That is how academics and scientific study work. But don’t bring the bullshit that he is just like Armstrong Williams. Really, now- I thought progressives and Democrats would be beyond sinking to the same bullshit that climate change deniers resort to in order to advance their political narrative.

  122. 122.

    Comrade Kevin

    @The Ace Tomato Company:

    I am still in a state of awe that significant chunks of the Democratic base are trying to align themselves with some of the most repulsive parts of the Republican base. Not only that, but it took them all less than a year to arrive here.

    The people you are referring to are not a “significant chunk” of the Democratic base. They are Internet bloggers and commenters, who manage to make lots of noise, but don’t really represent a huge number of people.

  123. 123.

    Skepticat

    Just got back from the polls, and the turnout is quite heavy, especially considering that the weather and driving are lousy. I live in a fairly red small town north of Boston, and there were way too many cars in the lot with Brown bumper stickers for my taste. (Of course one was one too many to suit me.) A few Coakley signholders, about a third the number of the Brownshirts, all of whom are positively giddy and whooping it up.

    John, we want to hear the updates, so you’re not whining. Like you, I prefer to be alone on the rare occasions when I’m sick or in pain, but I also appreciate the opportunity to vent about it to someone other than the cats. When I’m sick, everybody suffers. Hang in there. (Well, perhaps “hang” isn’t the proper word, given the wing problem, but you know what we mean.)

  125. 125.

    ellaesther

    @Comrade Mary: Brilliant. Fucking brilliant!

    I particularly love how mostly-black-but-also-white Obama Cat just sits there and quietly takes it: “Dude. Would you stop howling at me? I have things to do. You are in my way.”

  126. 126.

    Xenos

    @matoko_chan:

    umm….how did the Watergate coverage start out? Does anyone know?

    It was almost entirely ignored. Two reporters and one editor at the WaPo made all the difference. All of it, and it took months.

  128. 128.

    matoko_chan

    Heres a comment I made on a TAS thread….

    Consider what happens if Brown wins and the conservatives get their semi-permanent filibuster. Do you think, Conor, the Framers didn’t plan for this? They were geniuses in human nature.
    I expect HCR will still pass, either by reconciliation or by the House passing the bill as stands.
    And I expect filibuster reform also.
    The Framers never planned for NO change, they planned for slow, reasoned change.
    All the right side has anymore is tactics….maintaining the status quo is tactical, not strategic.
    And it is a game theoretic tautology that strategy always eventually beats tactics in an iterated game.
    We all know what happens to the cow on the tracks of progress.

    Unless the right can return to rationally abrogating radical change instead of just saying no and attempting to preserve the status quo, conservatives are doomed to 40 years in the wilderness.
    I keep telling you that Obama is a Machiavellian pragmatist. The Founders and Framers read Il Duce too.

    Niccolo— I am not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.

  129. 129.

    El Cid

    Wait — so is a theme emerging that had ‘progressives’ just shut up or maybe did more cheerleading that somehow this health care bill would have already been passed, or the economy in a better position?

    Really? By what mechanisms?

    I mean, I get entirely the opposition to unreasonable moves such as attempted alliances of any systematic fashion with types such as Norquist.

    But is a line emerging that somehow this would all be rainbow pony land if those meddling leftists hadn’t a ruined it all for the good Democrats?

  130. 130.

    Quiddity

    @John Cole

    Wow, what a sharp response to a light-hearted turn of phrase. And, the Greenwald/Cole disclosure-debate aside, there are supporters of Gruber’s work who were part of the massive comment thread. I think it’s reasonable to call them “fans”. That’s not ad hominem, in my book.

    As far as appropriateness of my comment, John explicitly said, “here is a blank one to continue the fun”. Was mentioning Gruber in the context of his dismissal of a study that he prefers not to address, an improper point to raise?

  132. 132.

    Quiddity

    More on Gruber. I don’t understand it, but Gruber is a trip-wire in various forums (not just here). I think it’s because criticism of Gruber is viewed as a proxy for “kill-the-bill” advocates. I don’t see it that way. For me, Gruber is part of the analytical crowd that you have to look at very closely. Over in the financial area, Barry Ritholtz is hopping mad over the Boskin Commission and the reformulation of CPI. In both cases (Boskin, Gruber) it’s about how the numbers are crunched; they can have enormous repercussions.

  134. 134.

    asiangrrlMN

    I like cats. I like cats a lot. I like the picture of Smudge. I like the video of Barack Obama cat, but I had to turn off the volume and just read the text. Today, I am all about the cats. And the dogs. I breathlessly await a pic of Anon Mom’s new puppeh.

    Cole, I am so sorry that your pain is so intense. Do take it easy, ok?

    @Elie: This is a very good summary as to much of what I feel is at work in our political sphere right now.

    Other than that, eh. Whatever happens in Mass. will happen in Mass. I, too, will laugh my ass off if Coakley wins by a landslide, but I fear that will not happen.

  135. 135.

    Mary

    @Quiddity: It is the “kill the bill” advocates themselves who made Gruber their screeching tripwire for healthcare reform. Having lost that battle but continuing to flog it nevertheless, it stands to reason that people aren’t going to listen to their further criticisms of Gruber. For that, they have no one to blame but themselves. There are consequences to destroying your own credibility. People just aren’t going to pay much attention to you in the future.

    Thus, when Marcy Wheeler pleads to be allowed to check Gruber’s work as if she has managed to impugn his credibility, without regard to the fact that she has destroyed her own credibility, people are going to ignore her. Consequences.

  136. 136.

    John Cole

    @Quiddity: Well, for me it was a tripwire the way you brought it up- as far as I was concerned, the “Gruber fans” was a step away from calling me and others O-bots, something we have to deal with every day from the progressives who seek out new and entertaining ways to attack their own

  137. 137.

    Annie

    @Quiddity:

    I think John’s point is that at least Gruber IS part of an intellectual crowd…………..

    It is a question of false equivalence — pure political hacks with no legitimate analytical work behind them are compared with and taken as seriously as scientists, researchers, and policy wonks who at the very minimum acknowledge respect for and rely on science and analytical work in some form. That is not to say that scientists, etc., are infallible, because we know there are not, BUT at least our representatives, the administration, and the public don’t look like complete idiots to the world by referring to their expertise.

  138. 138.

    John Cole

    @Mary: I don’t think Wheeler has lost her credibility with me- I’ll still read her every day. She has done invaluable work, is generally a solid reporter, and I wish there were a couple hundred more like her in our national press corps.

    I just disagree with the framing of the Gruber affair as just like Armstrong Williams, because it simply isn’t.

  139. 139.

    The Raven

    Over from Baseline Scenario, an economic policy blog run by academics and not exactly a bastion of radicalism:

    David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times has a horror story about Aetna, the large health insurance company. The basic facts are:

    1. Aetna increased a customer’s monthly premium by $32 as of August.
    2. On September 30, Aetna sent her a letter saying her premium had gone up. (This is the letter supplied to the Los Angeles Times by Aetna, which I think is pretty clear proof there was no earlier letter.)
    3. Beginning in October, the customer began paying the higher premium.
    4. In November, Aetna rejected payment for a doctor’s bill.
    5. The customer contacted Aetna, who said she had missed payment for October–which wasn’t true (she had paid the higher premium for October).
    6. When the customer appealed, Aetna wouldn’t let her simply pay the extra $64 (the difference for August and September), and insisted on rescinding her policy.

    And giving these businesses a mandate is going to make them into good corporate citizens because…?

  140. 140.

    gwangung

    @Annie: Hm, yes.

    Criticism of Gruber using his economic work, and taking apart the technical aspects of his argument is quite acceptable to me. That means the critics are trying to understand the work and pointing out the flaws.

    Now, to a certain extent, we have to rely on economic experts to do this, but it’s still our responsibility to understand those technical arguments as best we can. Otherwise, we’re defaulting back to “he said, she said” mainstream mass media arguments, and defaulting back to the crazy behavior of creationists, anti AGWers, and anti-vaxers.

  142. 142.

    Mary

    @John Cole: I get that. And I admire your even-tempered nature in these matters. She has lost her credibility with me, however.

    Whereas I once viewed her as a detail-oriented reporter, after the Gruber affair, I now view her as a non-independent cog in a propaganda machine. And I am really steamed at the no-holds-barred attempt to personally destroy Gruber. And I noticed in her comments here the other day that she was engaged in a similar credibility-impugning exercise against at least one of the 22 other scientists who signed the excise tax letter. So that’s why I’ll just go ahead and ignore her.

    And, as always, I reserve the right to change my hot-headed opinions.

  144. 144.

    PTirebiter

    @matoko_chan:

    …how did the Watergate coverage start out?

    Xenos is right, but Woodward & Bernstein had a Lieberman, aka a Judas. The acting director of the FBI expected Nixon to make him permanent, when Nixon didn’t, said acting director reincarnated as Deep Throat. Hell hath no fury like that of a Villager scorned.

  145. 145.

    Quiddity

    @John Cole

    In no way do I think you and others are O-bots. That was not my intent. I don’t particularly like the term or its use. I do think that there are “fans” of Gruber that comment here. I read many in that big thread where they said he was a number cruncher you could trust.

    Also, BTW, I don’t even care a whole lot about the Gruber disclosure “affair”. My concern has always been his assertion that the Senate bill:

    (a) will reduce the price of health care (not “costs” which are really “expenses”).

    (b) is “progressive” as we normally think of the term.

    (c) is a decent money-raiser (estimates now have the excise tax bringing in about $100B/decade, the House tax-the-rich could reap $450B/decade).

    (d) is targeting extravagant health insurance. Gruber appears to dismiss what looks like substantial evidence that “Cadillac” plans are that way because of demographic status (age, sex, geography, job hazard, etc.), and not some sort of extra-benefits that other do not get. That was my point of citing the Slate article about the Health Affairs study.

    (e) will have real impact, for the worse, since the excise tax is based on CPI numbers which others have said are artificially low.

    Maybe these things are beyond the scope of most blog posts and comment threads. Lots of details which require expert analysis that few of us have. In that case, then it really is a matter of who do you trust. I don’t trust Gruber.

    I’ll end this by saying that I do not like the hostility that I’m picking up. It sure feels like people are unloading on me with their anger they have for Hamshire and the FDL crowd. I literally expect that John will put me on the blocked IP list the way things are going.

  146. 146.

    Quiddity

    Edit: Point (e) above is not an assertion by Gruber. It’s a critique of the Senate bill that he supports.

    ALSO: As long as it’s confession time, I don’t even visit FDL. I get most of my information about the health care legislation from the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, The American Prospect, and Salon.

  148. 148.

    gwangung

    I’ll end this by saying that I do not like the hostility that I’m picking up. It sure feels like people are unloading on me with their anger they have for Hamshire and the FDL crowd. I literally expect that John will put me on the blocked IP list the way things are going.

    Aw, come on, you’re nowhere close to BOB levels, let alone Makewi or Bender level. I mean, you demonstrably have a triple digit IQ….

  150. 150.

    Quiddity

    @Mary

    No. Glad you brought that up. Letter link.

    1) The overall context. Instead of saying what will really bring down costs (by half!) through a radical change in the system, they list a bunch of things that they like in the Senate Finance Committee bill. That’s their “scope”. There is no mention of drug re-importation, Medicare negotiating for prices, public options, single payer, etc. The letter was from mid-November, and they write “As the full Senate prepares to debate”. This was before Liberman and Nelson and others said no to various provisions like Medicare buy-in. What’s their excuse for not bringing into the discussion, and supporting, features of the House bill?

    2) Their advocacy of the excise tax. The letter says it will “limit the costs of plans”. Again, the deployment of the dual-use word “costs”. “costs” aka “expenses” will be reduced. And most likely so will coverage.

    3) The “workers will benefit” angle. Get this, in the letter they write, “Analysis of the Senate Finance Committee’s proposal suggests that the excise tax on high-cost insurance plans would increase workers’ take-home pay by more than $300 billion over the next decade.” So, these economists can’t run the numbers themselves? They are accepting the Finance Committee’s conclusions! Amazing. Defend that. Why have economists sign a letter if they haven’t done the calculations on a hugely significant piece of legislation.

    So, no. I don’t trust the signatories.

  152. 152.

    The Raven

    Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, MIT professor, etc. etc. on banking reform:

    At this stage in the electoral cycle, Democrats should be running hard against big banks and their consequences. Some roots of our current economic difficulties lie in the Clinton 1990s, but the real origins can be traced to the financial deregulation at the heart of the Reagan Revolution – and all the underlying problems became much worse in eight years of George W. Bush’s unique brand of excess and neglect.

    Read the rest.

  153. 153.

    Mary

    @Quiddity: Yes. The 23 economist letter does reply within the scope.

    Those arguing against the excise tax rely on the EPI work and the work out of the benefits shops. EPI is a union-funded entity, no? The benefits shops represent employers and insurers. I understand why the unions objected to the excise tax but their concerns have been addressed and they are the ones most able to renegotiate their wage packages. Insurers would be against the excise tax because it falls on them. Employers would always want wages to be shunted into any vehicle that would avoid their portion of the FICA taxes, right?

    I just don’t see the excise tax as this crushing burden on the middle class in the same way you do.

    The Senate bill is a massive redistribution of benefits to the uninsured and puts significant restraints on insurance companies. It’s progressive enough for me, for now.

    Also, people sometimes forget that the wage cap on Medicare has been lifted for those making over $200,000.

    The way I see it, those arguing against the excise tax at this point are operating on behalf of insurers and employers since the unions are on board.

  154. 154.

    Mary

    @Mary: Adding to my last comment, I would trust the economists, who are for the most part academics and scientists, before I would trust the dreck coming out of benefits shops. You know what I mean?

  155. 155.

    Quiddity

    @Mary

    Fair enough. I disagree. The true test will be if the bill is passed and gets implemented and then we’ll see where things are like 10 years from now. I’m pessimistic because there are no meaningful price reduction mechanisms. “Expense” reductions, to be sure. Broader coverage, too. But, on average, I expect health care coverage to be reduced because of the failure to tackle prices at the root. (That’s not to say people won’t get care, it’s that they will be paying more out-of-pocket.) Instead, the Senate plan depends on a three-times-removed market mechanism (provider, insurer, employer, employee) that uses a mostly atomized consumer base to get prices down. Talk about economic “friction” and loss of bargaining power.

    And whatever is likely to pass, we’re still stuck with a ridiculous proportion of GDP going to health care going forward. When is that going to change? And I take a different view on the pass-it-now-or-wait-a-decade claim. I’m not hoping for a crisis, but something’s got to give when citizens are paying so much for health care and their wages are stagnating, or worse.

    Maybe the reality is that the public is getting more or less what they deserve: A largely unchanged health care system (because, as Giuliani likes to say, “we’re Number One”, so why emulate Europe or Canada or Japan). Some tweaks to eliminate the most outrageous practices, but other than that, a sullen acceptance that no big changes for the better are likely. That’s what the Senate bill is all about.

    QUICK ADDITION: You wrote, “those arguing against the excise tax at this point are operating on behalf of insurers”. I don’t see it that way at all (even now that unions got what they wanted – sort of).

  156. 156.

    Quiddity

    @Mary

    Re academics: What puzzles me is why they don’t refer to actual, running systems in Japan/Canada/Europe when advocating reform. They are, for the most part, saying that with the existing system + improvements X, Y, and Z, things will be all right.

    Why are they trying to make a steamship fly?

  157. 157.

    Redshift

    @PurpleGirl:

    Redshirt: I think Massachusetts got and stayed tagged as ultra liberal because it kept electing Ted Kennedy to the Senate. And their taxes were higher than other places.

    Operative word being “were.” Contrary to wingnut propaganda, taxes are now higher in Georgia than Massachusetts.

  158. 158.

    gwangung

    @Quiddity: Dude, I’m not very hostile. I agree with you on some things, disagree on others (but hold out the possibility I could be mistaken).

    At most, that’s worth a water balloon fight, and not much more.

  159. 159.

    The Raven

    @Quiddity:

    What puzzles me is why they don’t refer to actual, running systems in Japan/Canada/Europe when advocating reform.

    They do. See, for instance, Uwe Reinhardt. Senators, on the other hand, are mostly in the pockets of the big money.

  160. 160.

    Mary

    @Quiddity: I think it all goes back to the scope. Believe you me, I would have preferred single payer or a European system. And I want the marginal rates back up to where they were 30 years ago. I want lots of things. But I’ll take what I can get, for now.

  162. 162.

    Quiddity

    @The Raven

    I’m sure there are some that take that view. Thanks for that link.

    As to the Gang of Twenty-three, I just noticed that Brad DeLong is is a signatory. Good ol’ “free trade is great because it helps someone out there who is poor even if it hurts domestic labor” DeLong. With that attitude, I wouldn’t be surprised if DeLong considers the Senate excise tax to be a progressive measure.

    Having Brad DeLong co-sign a letter is probably not the best idea.

  163. 163.

    SadieSue

    @Redshirt:

    I’m not sure where you live but I’m guessing it’s not WMass in the Northampton area. There are quite a few crunchy-granola types, lots of old-timers, & a whole bunch of ordinary folks, most of whom are definitely not Massholes. While I’m not a fan of the word Massholes, if anyone deserves it, it’s the folks well east of Worcester. But then, I might just be a wee bit bitter at the amount of taxes that go east vs the amount of state funding that trickles west.

    PS I’m another FDL refugee – I started reading it just after Redhedd began writing for it & left right after the redesign.

  164. 164.

    Quiddity

    @Mary

    Unfortunately, it appears that real progressive change happens only after the citizenry is beat on the head with the failure of the existing system. Why didn’t this country have a Securities and Exchange Commission until after the crash of 1929? Why wasn’t there something like Social Security implemented before the Great Depression? Same for unemployment insurance, minimum wage, TVA-type federal management of natural resources (which included training farmers on optimal use of the land) – all which could have been done decades before FDR took office.

    I resist saying that a crisis is “needed” because of all the pain involved, but the historical record says otherwise. As to what’s going on now, I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that the problem with the housing/financial bubble-crash is that it happened too late in Bush’s second term. With Hoover, he was glued to the post ’29 failure for three years. People internalized that the existing (Republican) policies were no good. But in 2008, opinions hadn’t formed fully against the conservative economic agenda (which health care is a part). So we end up with a kind of no-consensus situation which is fertile ground for obstruction or maintaining the status quo.

  165. 165.

    SadieSue

    @liberty60:

    Absolutely! Winning one election, while absolutely marvelous, did not mean that everything was ok now & we could all take a nice long vacation.

    I guess when some of these same people quote Ted Kennedy “For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” they must must not notice the bit about “the work goes on”.

  166. 166.

    Corner Stone

    @El Cid:

    But is a line emerging that somehow this would all be rainbow pony land if those meddling leftists hadn’t a ruined it all for the good Democrats?

    It’s not so much that the meddling leftists *aren’t* allowed to be vocal and criticize, it’s just that they fail to do it within the properly framed constructs. And therein is where the problem lies.

  167. 167.

    Mary

    @Quiddity: Yes. The system in this country is depressing. Take Eliot Spitzer, for example. He was the only one doing any enforcement of the financial sector during the Bush II years. The Federal government was AWOL. I will always believe that he was taken out right before he could blow the whistle on the mortgage and securities fraud.

    One thing that bothers me about the loud progressives is that they don’t appear to have much experience in government and they don’t take the long view. We have laws on the books already for most of this stuff if we could only enforce them. That’s why Bush and Cheney seeded the government with burrowed in moles. We need a good long stretch with the Democrats holding the executive in order to get back to proper enforcement. They don’t seem to recognize that there’s any value in that.

    I will never believe talk that Obama is just like Bush or that the Democratic Party is just like the Republicans. That’s a recipe for return to Republican rule.

  168. 168.

    Elie

    @Quiddity:

    Well unfortunately, the admnistration and we have to take the world as we find it. I agree that in some ways what you say is true and that a longer period of suffering may have made all this a lot easier for us — maybe.

    We are a very different country than we were in the 30’s. There are more of us and we have information (not enough good filtering and analysis of that information but a lot of it. All the medial outlets afford even the smallest bit player the opportunity to put in his or her 2 cents and social Darwinism has accomodated us to the notion that the winner takes all and there is no mercy for the weak.

    While I am sure there was some of that then, now it is pervasive and continuous, making governance a nightmare. Any effort to discuss, reconcile and negotiate is viewed with contempt and as a sign of weakness. All results are expected immediately and without equivocation.

    To me its amazing that people actually thought we would all have all the jobs back by now and that the economy would be all fixed…

    I am flashing back to the comments made about Obama’s inaugural speech — what a downer many thought it was — how dark and filled with stern warning. It was right on — right on. Maybe he foresaw this …

    I wonder if O ever regrets being where he is. Maybe a stint with McCain and Palin would have brought us to a real understanding of what leadership should mean — if we could survive it…

  169. 169.

    Elie

    @Elie:

    “So let us mark this day with remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At the moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words to be read to the people:

    “Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive… that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

    America: In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words.

    With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back

    nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations”

    I so hope we can…

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