The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

04:38 Mar 24 2010
Times Read: 689

"This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.



At the appropriate time as regulated by the US Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory. I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to send via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.



After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to a house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it's valuables thanks to the local police department.



I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right."

17:44 Mar 22 2010
Times Read: 702


Boehner is angry -- and Republicans should worry. Passage may clear away the propaganda and let voters understand healthcare reform -- a scary prospect.

By Joe Conason



What is the reward for acting with courage and principle, confronting the worst slurs, threats of violence, waves of falsehood, major monied interests, and widespread predictions of electoral defeat? As President Obama said in his remarks to the House Democrats on the eve of their vote for healthcare reform, the only certain compensation for doing what is right will be history’s judgment. Yet perhaps all the forecasts of doom will prove wrong -- as they so often do in Washington -- and voters will honor lawmakers who finally stood up for the core values of their party.



A few days before Sunday night's vote, Dan Balz noted in the Washington Post that the electorate sounds even angrier at Congress than usual -- a threatening portent for incumbents in November. Even in that poll, however, the lowest status was reserved not for the Democratic congressional leadership, whose numbers have indeed dropped, but for the Republican leaders.



No doubt John Boehner is well aware of that public contempt. Watching the minority leader speak on the House floor, pretending to be a populist demagogue rather than a corporate stooge, his anger seemed less provoked by the specifics of the healthcare legislation than with its likely political impact. If he feels so confident that the people will massively repudiate this bill in the midterm election -- and thus make him speaker --why was he so furious? Why did the bill’s imminent passage turn his usual orangey-tan complexion almost incandescent red with rage?



The answer could be found in the subtext of Boehner’s speech, which did not dwell on the bill’s specific provisions, beyond its alleged expense. He knows that arguing the bill’s specific provisions is very dangerous to his party, because so many of them are quite popular and the public will hold Republicans in disrepute for opposing them.



An informed public was always the ultimate peril for the Republicans in this process, so distorted during the past year by wild propaganda about death panels, government takeovers, and the entire mythology of the Obama administration’s socialist-communist-Nazi-totalitarianism.



Creating those crazy expectations was a strategy that depended on the bill never passing. If and when people learn what is actually in the legislation, many of them will realize that they were misled, and will end up appreciating most of what the Democrats have passed, after all.



Certainly that possibility is what troubles David Frum, who expressed his fears yesterday evening in a post titled “Waterloo” (after the triumphal predictions of Sen. Jim DeMint of the consequences for Obama if healthcare reform were to be defeated). Before he became notorious for writing war-mongering speeches for President Bush, Frum was admired among conservatives for uttering unvarnished criticisms of his own movement, notably in a 1995 book titled "Dead Right" (a passionate screed that urged the party toward deeper ideological consistency -- much the opposite of his current complaint).



The Republicans bet on killing healthcare reform and lost, says Frum -- and by November, voters will come to understand the appealing aspects of the legislation, even as the broader economic and political environment improves for Democrats. Now he warns, “It's a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November -- by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.”



Frum is harshly realistic about the chances to reverse this historic step forward: “No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the ‘doughnut hole’ and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year-olds from their parents' insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there -- would President Obama sign such a repeal?”



Political scientist Ruy Teixeira found hard evidence that underscores Frum’s fears in a public opinion experiment undertaken by Newsweek last month. The magazine’s pollsters first asked respondents whether they support or oppose the president’s healthcare reform plan, with predictable results: 40 percent in favor, 49 percent opposed, 11 percent undecided.



Then the pollsters described major aspects of the bill -- the insurance exchanges, the strict regulation of insurance company policies, the requirement for insurance with government assistance to those who need help, the tax on expensive plans, the fines on those who don’t get insurance, and the public option. Not only did most of those aspects of the bill poll favorably, but the overall legislation ticked up by 8 points when the pollsters asked the same people again whether they support or oppose it. The second time reversed the initial results: 48 percent in favor, 43 percent opposed, 9 percent unsure.



That sharp turnaround in opinion occurred in a matter of minutes during a telephone call with a stranger. Now the president and the congressional Democrats have seven months to make the same argument, and smart Republicans are properly terrified that they will.

18:18 Mar 05 2010
Times Read: 725


I am not the loudest cheerleader for the current administration, but at least the priorities are there.





March 5, 2010

Op-Ed Columnist

Senator Bunning’s Universe

By PAUL KRUGMAN



So the Bunning blockade is over. For days, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky exploited Senate rules to block a one-month extension of unemployment benefits. In the end, he gave in, although not soon enough to prevent an interruption of payments to around 100,000 workers.



But while the blockade is over, its lessons remain. Some of those lessons involve the spectacular dysfunctionality of the Senate. What I want to focus on right now, however, is the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties. Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.



Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. That’s because the economy’s problem right now is lack of sufficient demand, and cash-strapped unemployed workers are likely to spend their benefits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office says that aid to the unemployed is one of the most effective forms of economic stimulus, as measured by jobs created per dollar of outlay.



But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”



In Mr. Kyl’s view, then, what we really need to worry about right now — with more than five unemployed workers for every job opening, and long-term unemployment at its highest level since the Great Depression — is whether we’re reducing the incentive of the unemployed to find jobs. To me, that’s a bizarre point of view — but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.



And the difference between the two universes isn’t just intellectual, it’s also moral.



Bill Clinton famously told a suffering constituent, “I feel your pain.” But the thing is, he did and does — while many other politicians clearly don’t. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that the parties feel the pain of different people.



During the debate over unemployment benefits, Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat of Oregon, made a plea for action on behalf of those in need. In response, Mr. Bunning blurted out an expletive. That was undignified — but not that different, in substance, from the position of leading Republicans.



Consider, in particular, the position that Mr. Kyl has taken on a proposed bill that would extend unemployment benefits and health insurance subsidies for the jobless for the rest of the year. Republicans will block that bill, said Mr. Kyl, unless they get a “path forward fairly soon” on the estate tax.



Now, the House has already passed a bill that, by exempting the assets of couples up to $7 million, would leave 99.75 percent of estates tax-free. But that doesn’t seem to be enough for Mr. Kyl; he’s willing to hold up desperately needed aid to the unemployed on behalf of the remaining 0.25 percent. That’s a very clear statement of priorities.



So, as I said, the parties now live in different universes, both intellectually and morally. We can ask how that happened; there, too, the parties live in different worlds. Republicans would say that it’s because Democrats have moved sharply left: a Republican National Committee fund-raising plan acquired by Politico suggests motivating donors by promising to “save the country from trending toward socialism.” I’d say that it’s because Republicans have moved hard to the right, furiously rejecting ideas they used to support. Indeed, the Obama health care plan strongly resembles past G.O.P. plans. But again, I don’t live in their universe.



More important, however, what are the implications of this total divergence in views?



The answer, of course, is that bipartisanship is now a foolish dream. How can the parties agree on policy when they have utterly different visions of how the economy works, when one party feels for the unemployed, while the other weeps over affluent victims of the “death tax”?



Which brings us to the central political issue right now: health care reform. If Congress enacts reform in the next few weeks — and the odds are growing that it will — it will do so without any Republican votes. Some people will decry this, insisting that President Obama should have tried harder to gain bipartisan support. But that isn’t going to happen, on health care or anything else, for years to come.



Someday, somehow, we as a nation will once again find ourselves living on the same planet. But for now, we aren’t. And that’s just the way it is.