Monday, February 22, 2010

Monday Mashup (2/22/10)

(I also posted some stuff over here.)

  • The New York Times Magazine yesterday published a “10 Questions” segment with Repug U.S. House Rep Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who has put together an alternative GOP budget; here is one of the questions and answers about it…

    Your “Road Map,” we should explain, is a somewhat alarming document that proposes, in 600-plus pages, erasing the federal deficit by radically restricting the government’s role in social programs like Social Security and Medicare. The president described it as “a serious proposal.

    Right. And then the next day his budget director starts ripping me and then the day after that the entire Democratic National Committee political machine starts launching demagogic attacks on me and my plan. So when you hear the word “bipartisanship” come from the president and then you see his political machine get in full-force attack mode, it comes across as very insincere.
    In response, I give you the following from Matt Yglesias here…

    Paul Ryan has gone where I thought no Republican would dare to tread and put out an alternative budget proposal that would, in fact, balance the budget over the long term. Part of the program is draconian real cuts in all domestic programs—less money for Pell Grants, less money for local schools, less money for the FBI, less money for job training, less money for National Institutes of Health research, less money for food stamps, etc. And part of the program is cuts in Social Security—people work be getting what they’ve been promised. And part of the program involved Medicaid in a way I don’t really understand.

    But over the long haul the most important thing here is Ryan’s proposed cuts in Medicare.



    Ryan is proposing to ration care for seniors. He’ll take the baseline level of per capita medical costs for seniors in 2020 and then draw a curve representing 2.7 percent annual growth and say that any costs above that won’t be covered. If grandma’s got a bunch of money, then she can spend her money. If not, then the plug is pulled.



    If Obama’s efforts to create a viable regulatory framework in which individuals can buy private health insurance (a) pass congress, and (b) turn out to work well and be popular, then you can imagine a version of Ryan’s plan being put into place. But in the absence of that kind of reform, I just don’t see how you can do this, which is presumably why the implementation is delayed all the way to 2021 which helps Ryan avoid needing to think about implementation details.
    Also, Ryan has called the health care reform legislation currently working its way through Congress as a “terrible” bill, which is not surprising given his awful alternative, as noted here.

    And Ryan actually criticizes Obama for being “insincere.”


  • Also in the Times yesterday, John Harwood wrote the following here about what is, for the most part, congressional inertia originating from the Senate…

    Many Democrats now focus on curbing use of the Senate filibuster, even though they found the 60-vote threshold useful in preventing Mr. Obama’s predecessor from getting many conservative nominees to the federal bench.
    Well, if that indeed was the “focus” of congressional Democrats under President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, it should be noted that they failed miserably; this tells us that Number 43 managed to rank third in presidential judicial appointments between Bill Clinton (#2) and The Sainted Ronnie R (#1).

    And when it comes to Bushco judicial appointments, the following should be noted from here…

    WASHINGTON — Within weeks of George W. Bush's inauguration, he revealed a systematic, aggressive and tightly controlled approach to making lifetime appointments to the federal bench.

    The new president ejected the American Bar Association from the screening process, ending its half-century role of reviewing candidates' credentials before a nomination. Bush turned to lawyers who had been on Ronald Reagan's judicial selection team to help seek out prominent conservative thinkers. All indications were that Bush was trying to emulate Reagan, whose conservative mark on the bench has been deep and enduring.
    Also on the matter of judicial appointments, I thought this was a telling article, particularly the following…

    By February 2002, President George W. Bush had nominated 89 judges to the lower federal courts. This week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy prodded President Obama, who has nominated just 42 federal judges to date, to "get up names as quickly as possible." President Obama promised to make this "a priority." He'd better.

    There are currently 102 vacancies on the federal bench. Of these, 31 constitute "judicial emergencies"—vacancies that have severely threatened a court's ability to handle its workload. Before the end of the year, there will be dozens of additional openings on the lower courts (20 have already been announced) and, in all likelihood, one and perhaps even two Supreme Court vacancies to fill. With an energized Republican Party, the loss of a filibuster-proof majority, and a scary-looking midterm election in November, Obama faces a difficult task in filling these vacancies this year. But this is it—when is he likely to have a better opportunity?
    When indeed?

    And by the way, Harwood makes a remark about "some White House strategists" who want to see a congressional replay of 1994 for some reason. I have two thoughts on that: 1) No self-respecting journalist should publish a comment like that without proper sourcing, and 2) Anyone in the Obama White House nursing any notions that any Democratic defeat can be positive in any way should be fired immediately.


  • And turning to the Op-Ed page of the Bucks County Courier Times, I give you the following “vent” from yesterday…

    We should remember that Mike Fitzpatrick in the last year of his term was the first congressperson of his own party to publically repudiate George W. Bush's war policies.
    Of course, since this is a “vent” on the Op-Ed page, it must observe the approximately-25-word limit, which precludes proper sourcing (another reason why I think the whole “vent” thing is a dumb idea anyway).

    However, it should be noted from here that Mike Fitzpatrick didn’t propose “bringing battalions home” from Iraq until September 2006 in a Guest Opinion column (and in that same opinion column, in a truly unbelievable fit of partisan jujitsu, he criticized both Patrick Murphy and John Kerry for their “extreme withdrawal timeline” for bringing our troops home, even though that was plainly supported by the majority of the people in this country, which had more than a little bit to do with the fact that Mikey lost, as I recall).

    And besides, how did Mikey voice his “repudiation” of Commander Codpiece? By writing a “strongly worded letter” to the Iraq Study Group, the outfit that was supposed to give Obama’s predecessor cover for a withdrawal (though, as we know, Bush ignored that and plowed ahead with the “surge” anyway which succeeded because of our military working in concert with the Sunni Awakening councils; this doesn’t take into account the ethnic cleansing of that period, by the way).

    Mikey can continue to “repudiate” our prior ruling cabal all he wants to. However, it will take a Democratic president and what will hopefully remain a Democratic congress to clean up the Iraq mess for which Fitzpatrick is partly, though not primarily, responsible.


  • Finally, Dick Polman of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote the following yesterday…

    The date was Jan. 20, 2009. Ted Kennedy, who was battling a brain tumor, collapsed at an inaugural luncheon - prompting many anonymous participants in our national conversation to rub their hands in glee and root for his death.

    On the ABC News Web site, one commenter exclaimed, "Hot diggity damn! Maybe we're finally rid of him!" Another exulted, "And I thought nothing good would come of this day!"

    But this was mere foreplay compared with the purrs of satisfaction that were posted online when Kennedy died seven months later. Many commenters were frankly giddy at the prospect that the late senator would dwell forever in a fiery climate.
    And of course, Polman believes he is obligated to inflict some “yeah, well, the lefties do this stuff too” equivalency…

    When Rush Limbaugh was hospitalized with chest pains on Dec. 30, the left-leaning comment boards were jammed with celebrants:

    "Garbage in, garbage out. Let him die."

    "If he croaks, this is officially the greatest year in American history."

    "Come on, 2009! Don't fail me now!"

    And not all the trash-talkers were anonymous. Last spring, at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, comic Wanda Sykes said of Limbaugh, "I hope his kidneys fail."

    OK, she was joking, but the joke was symptomatic of our cultural illness. Incivility is rewarded; it's one big reason for Ann Coulter's success.
    “Left-leaning comment boards,” huh? What thorough sourcing! And by the way, the answer is no; I don’t condone death wishes against anyone except Osama bin Laden, no matter how repugnant they may be.

    I’ll tell you what, Dick. Do some Googling and get some pics of what goes on at these Tea Party rallies (including the signs in particular). Then, go attend any “Drinking Liberally” function of your choice, “Netroots Nation” when it come around again, or any liberal/progressive meetup of your choice; take lots and lots of pictures, and compare the two different types of gatherings, OK? And then ask yourself which ones are demonizing the opposition the most hateful way possible and which ones are meeting with political figures and journalists in an effort to effect political change in this country (and also ask yourself why the latter group receives a fraction of the media coverage of the former).

    And Polman, of course, is above such petty behavior and name-calling as we know. That’s why he called John Edwards a “headless chicken” here (well before Edwards’ political and personal lives imploded), and that’s why he also made fun about people supposedly not caring about the Supreme Court here (funny, but it looks to me based on this that they care a lot about the dreadful Citizens United ruling).

    Oh, and according to Polman here, Barack Obama would not get a post-Democratic Convention “bounce” in the polls in 2008 (uh, really?). Also, here is another “golden moment” with Polman where he claimed that the Internet needed a “sheriff.”

    Yeah, well, all I can say (quoting the movie “Die Hard”), “Yippee-ki-yay” (don’t worry – I won’t be so impolite as to provide the rest of the quote).
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