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Evaluating 2009: What The Dems Did Wrong, Part 1 - "It's Very Stimulating"

DF — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:11:45 +0000

If you wish, you can dismiss it as mere Monday morning quarterbacking. I prefer to call it taking advantage of hindsight. What follows here is my take on the major mistakes of the Democratic party during the first year of the Obama administration. It's my opinion, straight up. Take it or leave it.

This is the first of three installments.

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Whether or not you consider yourself a Democrat, whether or not you are or were a supporter of Barack Obama, there seems to be wide agreement at this point that things have not gone well for the Obama administration and Democratic governance over the last year. The Obama administration started out with a very high measure of public support and the largest congressional majorities in decades. One year later, the Obama's approval numbers are middling and the numerical congressional majorities seem not to mean much at all. Already into the 2010 election cycle, the Democratic party seems incredibly vulnerable. What happened?

In my opinion, the first major mistake was the stimulus package. Economic analysis called for a stimulus of approximately $1.2 trillion to compensate for lack of aggregate demand. The stimulus package that was passed was $500 billion short of that. The typical explanation for this is that the package that was passed is the one that was "politically possible."

I find this notion to be specious in general, especially as it has been issued over the last year. The limits of possibilities are revealed. The way that this phrase gets used has been to provide cover for beginning negotiations from a decidedly weak position. It goes something like this:

Well, the other side will not give us what we want, so we shouldn't even bother to ask for it.

This is the first reason that the Democratic approach to the stimulus was a mistake: It signaled to the GOP that Democrats were all too willing to negotiate from a position of weakness. The GOP learned early on that this Democratic party was not going to negotiate from a position of strength and that they could very easily be made to capitulate.

Furthermore, it raises the question of whether the Democratic leadership even believes in the economic theory that recommends such a stimulus. One is inclined to think that they must believe in it in some measure since they championed and passed some form of it, but I'll employ an analogy here to illustrate why I question whether they really understand and/or believe the theory.

Imagine that you wish to build a bridge across a river. Your engineers assess what will be required to build this bridge. You decide to proceed by allotting the construction crew about two-thirds of what the engineers say will be required. The result is two-thirds of a bridge.

Perhaps this gets you across the deepest part of the river, but you're still going to get wet.

This places the Dems in a sort of political double-jeopardy. There are two reasons for this.

The first: It leaves the Dems facing elections in the face of high unemployment. Everyone knows the conventional wisdom here. The incumbent party always suffers when there is high unemployment. This is my main reason for questioning whether they believe the economic theory behind fiscal stimulus. It's all about a lack of aggregate demand. If you don't make up for the lack of demand, you'll still have unemployment. If you accept the conventional wisdom about how this becomes detrimental to the incumbent party, then they should have avoided this outcome at all poltical costs. Even if all you care about is winning, this was a sink or swim initiative if you believe the conventional wisdom.

Ah, but the stimulus prevented things from being much worse than they otherwise would have been, right? This is true, but it's hardly relevant in political terms. Most people don't understand economic theory (again, I'm not even convinced the Democratic leadership does). What people understand is this: The government spent $750 billion dollars and there's still double-digit unemployment. Put otherwise, we have the second reason why this has resulted in political double-jeopardy: The Dems must now argue the counter-factual.

The GOP is now free to argue exactly what I've stated above. It doesn't matter whether or not it's true. It sounds like it could be true and the only rebuttal is something that can't be proved. Indeed, the GOP has now moved to hammering on the deficit, which is a direct attack on the ability of the Obama administration to have any fiscal latitude in addressing the issue of unemployment. Again, it's not at all relevant that these attacks are contradictory within the framework of economic theory. What's relevant is high unemployment for the short-run and widespread fear of deficits for the long-run.

Finally, and perhaps most regrettably, Obama passed up what I believe will prove to have been his best (and perhaps only) opportunity to use his oratory and charisma in order to persuade a nation at a crossroads of a bold, new vision for the future. That $1.2 trillion could have been invested in a vast new array of infrastructure and R&D projects to create the energy and transportation technologies of the future. Platitudes about "going green" and becoming less dependent on foreign oil are just that. Without investment, it's just talk. And without investment in these areas, America is destined to slip economically. In the long-run, it's all about being on the cutting edge of technology.

There are so many reasons to have done this, but really only one not to: Being afraid to put your political career on the line for something truly audacious and visionary.

In the parlance of Rahm, the crisis has been wasted. Fear has returned to eclipse hope. Even Obama's biggest detractors are willing to acknowledge his exceptional skill in working a crowd. The moment to parlay both that skill and the political moment of early 2009 into a political agenda that would have been truly historic, not just in terms of price tag, but in terms of scope and vision, is gone.

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This has been the first installment of three. The next installment: Be Aggressive

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Let Them Eat (mud)Cake

DF — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:53:10 +0000

Listening to Marketplace this evening, I heard guest Tyler Cowen mention that the people of Haiti are literally eating mudcakes. This struck me as astonishing, so I immediately employed the use of Google to verify whether this was true. Well, it turns out that it is:

At first sight the business resembles a thriving pottery. In a dusty courtyard women mould clay and water into hundreds of little platters and lay them out to harden under the Caribbean sun.

The craftsmanship is rough and the finished products are uneven. But customers do not object. This is Cité Soleil, Haiti's most notorious slum, and these platters are not to hold food. They are food.

Brittle and gritty - and as revolting as they sound - these are "mud cakes". For years they have been consumed by impoverished pregnant women seeking calcium, a risky and medically unproven supplement, but now the cakes have become a staple for entire families.

It is not for the taste and nutrition - smidgins of salt and margarine do not disguise what is essentially dirt, and the Guardian can testify that the aftertaste lingers - but because they are the cheapest and increasingly only way to fill bellies.

I'm not sure that I really have anything to add here (except perhaps to consider this in light of the likewise dire sanitation situation). Mostly, I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that people in the Western hemisphere during the 21st century are literally eating dirt.

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American Politics in One Lesson

DF — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:16:25 +0000

Here's how American politics can be swiftly summarized:

If I give you five dollars in exchange for consideration in your decision-making process in the voting booth, that's illegal. If I give a member of Congress five-thousand dollars for the same purpose, that's politics.

Many Americans seem to be fond of a sort of ersatz independent politics, though for the most part these people are transparently partisan. Glenn Beck claims he is independent. Lou Dobbs calls himself Mr. Independent. The list goes on.

But Glenn Beck, who criminally lifted the name of Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlet for his book, won't tell you that Tom Paine was one of the first Americans to advocate progressive taxation, even going so far as to draw up his own tax schedules. How's that for American socialism? Lou Dobbs will seethe over reforming our immigration policies, but have you ever heard him suggest that we erect an economic wall by criminally prosecuting those who employ illegal aliens? Nope, of course you haven't. That's because that would harm Dobbs' friends in the business community.

With so many transparent pretenders to the cause of "independence" it behooves us to ask what they're really trying to sell us. Superficially, it's easy to observe that partisanship is seen as the greatest of all political evils at present. Even our Democratic President eschews the trappings of partisanship, openly pining for a post-partisan politics.

But why is this the case? Why is partisanship so evil and independence the sought after position? If I'm to believe the polling data, Americans are in fact sharply divided on a number of issues. Especially when it comes to social issues, "independence" doesn't seem like something people desire at all.

Yet on other issues, like healthcare reform, it seems clear that the American people do want to change the system. Even beyond the polling data, Americans made their choice known in the polling place when they elected Barack Obama, who campaigned at least partially on what, at least last year, was being discussed as "universal healthcare."

What's amazing though is that this reform seems so difficult. You would think that if the majority of Americans want it, then politicians would get it done for them. Right?

It's okay. I'm laughing, too.

Nevertheless, here we are in a place where Congress can't pass legislation that the majority of people want. Why is that? Furthermore, what have the great "independent" voices to say on this issue?

Oh, that's right. It's a socialist endeavor that's rapidly bringing on the downfall of Western Civilization.

But I still don't understand what this "independence" is. The one thing that I do observe in claims of independence is that it's always preface to a political position, as if to create an air of credulity. "Hey, I'm an independent, so you can trust that I'm not being partisan at all when I tell you that Barack Obama is the spawn of Satan." Something like that.

What exactly are people distancing themselves from when they claim independence from partisan affiliation? Perhaps for the more right-wing examples, the answer is "George W. Bush." But then there's the President himself, unquestionably the top Democrat in the nation, denouncing partisanship.

I have a suggestion as to what is generally driving this phenomenon: When people are making claims of independence from partisan affiliation, they are trying to distance themselves from the obvious corruption in the American political system without addressing it. You see, this way you don't offend your keepers, whether they be lobbyists or advertisers, and you can keep espousing your view in order to forward your agenda, which is, after all, the reason for politicians and pundits to exist.

And this is perhaps no more clear than when we examine the world of finance. Last year, I blogged in favor of the nomination of Barack Obama. One of the things that I was most excited about was his apparent penchant for transparency and his shunning of so-called "soft money." I have to say at this point that those views were at least somewhat naive. It's not that I was wrong about soft money, but the nearly $1B election of Barack Obama tells me that the soft money ain't running the system.

No, despite Obama's dismissal of soft money, he collected and spent a fortune. And like pretty much every other politician that's successful at the national level, plenty of that money came from the financial sector. In fact, the only sector that sent more money his way (by one popular breakdown) was lawyers and lobbyists. However, it's very important to point out that he's not unique in this respect. The same can be said of Hillary Clinton, John McCain, George W. Bush, etc.

It's been about a year since Hank Paulson's magnum opus, his criminally broad bailout proposal, was drafted. How has team Obama done when it comes to dealing with the banks? Apparently, not much better.

I'll summarize the findings of the federal government's negotiation with AIG counter-parties for you:

Geithner proposed that counter-parties take a haircut.
Counter-parties said, "Umm, no."
Geithner said, "Okay!"

That's all folks! I bet those dumb auto-manufacturer bond-holders are really kicking themselves right about now. All they had to do was refuse to take less than they wanted! Okay, in fairness they were actually faced with the offer the government gave them or the almost certainly worse scenario they'd get from a judge, but this only serves to underline the stark difference in the way these business entities were treated. Why? Because there was never even the slightest hint at the pretense of a suggestion that the i-banks were going to end up in bankruptcy court. Receivership, like impeachment, was off the table.

This underscores what I would argue is the single biggest problem in American politics. It's not crazy Republicans. It's not one party or the other. That much is true. The ersatz independents might even glean that much. However, it's obviously not that there's no difference between the two parties. All you have to do is look at their issue platforms to understand that. No, the problem is that the two parties are little different when it comes to one issue, but that's because it's a systemic issue and they function within that system. The issue is that the system is hopelessly corrupt. The issue is, as I summarized above, that what we would call bribery on an individual level is simply how we do business at the national level.

I like the idea of no PAC money. What I didn't bargain for is that this new era of hard money politics was going to double-down on the flows of capital into the political system. That's not the right direction to head in. Americans from every part of the political spectrum ought to be mad as hell about this. Partisan demagogues in the robes of the Independent aren't going to get the job done. In fact, people don't even need to give up their political views to rally around the cause of getting the money the hell out of our political system. If we don't do that, then I think you can take all of the hope and change, flush it right down the toilet and let it float down the Potomac and out to sea.

People need to wrap their heads around this: If the currency of politics is the dollar and not the vote, then those with the most dollars have the most political power, votes be damned.

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Trial by Blitzer

DF — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:54:25 +0000

I don't subscribe to cable or satellite television. The reason for this is that I basically see no value in it. Pay television doesn't really seem to offer me much. For one thing, it's rife with advertising content. Why do I have to watch ads constantly when I'm paying for the service? Furthermore, much of the content available to basic cable subscribers is now available for free on the Internet.

However, cable news content is not entirely available on the Internet at this point in the game. I'm really okay with that. When I've had cable in recent years, for example last year when I was living at a residence where cable was included, I end up watching cable news. This is regrettable because I really dislike cable news.

So, I'm happy that my exposure to cable news is limited to what I encounter on the Internet. That's usually more than enough to remind me about how awful it is.

While it's easy to hate on Fox, the other networks are in many ways different only in degree and not in kind. Case in point is CNN's Wolf Blitzer who recently engaged in this astounding display:

It's easy for me to hold figures like Anderson Cooper in contempt. His typically pedestrian infotainment niche is papered over by rare, redeeming incidents like his reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but Cooper is, in a sense, just giving the people the show they want. Not too heavy, plenty of witty banter with the equally easy-on-the-eyes Erica Hill. It's a perfectly supeficial bedtime send-off after Larry King.

Blitzer's boffo brand of bullshit is something entirely different to behold. The above clip puts this on full display. Notice Blitzer's Fox-like use of ambiguous "someones" who supposedly put him up to this question. It's utterly obvious, especially with Blitzer's attempted closing salvo, "I'm sure he will get a much fairer hearing than those 13 Americans who were brutally gun downed the other day," that Blitzer is sharply editoralizing here, but he's a complete and utter coward hiding behind the pretense of "journalism" and so slinks furtively behind contrived anonymity of unnamed persons. This is exactly what Fox News does with their infamous refrain of "some people say."

Worse than this though is Blitzer's utter contempt for the very notion of American justice. In Blitzer's estimation, Col. Galligan needs to morally justify the defense of Hasan because Hasan has, after all, been accused. That's more than enough for Blitzer.

Due process isn't for people like Hasan. His trial is to take place in the court of public opinion. His should be a trial not with representation and by a jury of his peers, but a trial by CNN, the honorable Justice Wolf Blitzer presiding.

Blitzer is not only unconcerned, even superficially as a journalist, with due process, but views the notion that Hasan would receive it as disgusting. The remedial explanation offered by Col. Galligan is frankly beneath anyone with even the vaguest notion of due process of law. Blitzer's line of attack is no different than the equally vicious attacks against former Attorney General Ramsey Clark for his representation of figures like Milosevic and Hussein.

The presumption of innonence is not even a factor here. How could it be that Hasan is innocent? Why should there be a burden of proof on the government? Why should Hasan even be represented? It's unnecessary because Blitzer knows that he is guilty. The justice system is nothing but a perturbing speed-bump on the road to revanchism for Blitzer.

Nor is it apparently important to Blitzer that we be able to hold up as just a verdict on Hasan's actions after the final gavel fall. Given the sharp line of Blitzer's questioning, Hasan no longer even holds his military rank in Blitzer's eyes. After all, why else would it be relevant to ask Col. Galligan how he, as a former member of the military, could possibly defend Hasan? The only context in which this question even makes sense is to assume Hasan's guilt and thus strip him of his rank.

In Blitzer's mind, Hasan has already been convicted by a court martial. Pests like Col. Galligan are not agents of justice, but intemperate fools to be goaded into standing out of the way of the inevitable "guilty" verdict.

Blitzer's entire modus operandi is precisely about stomping all over the very notion of justice. Everything he says in this clip contributes to the difficulty that will ensue in this case in trying to carry out the due process of law. Nothing that should be his concern as a supposed journalist, namely the facts of the case (which remain elusive) or the specific mechanics of due process in this proceeding, are of the slightest concern to him. To the contrary, these are notions that he holds in utter contempt.

Wolf Blitzer shows us plainly here that he is not, in fact or in practice, a journalist, but rather a vicious shill against the very notion of American justice.

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You Can't Hate Government and Love the Constitution

DF — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:48:22 +0000

It's probably a fool's errand to make attempts at parsing the paranoid, hysterical rhetoric that's been flying around in the healthcare debate, but that's never stopped me before. So, I'm watching the fun on C-SPAN this afternoon. Listening to some of the "against" calls, I noticed something that I probably should have noticed before, which is this: The bizarre dichotomy of professing your undying love for the Constitution, while breathlessly spewing venom at the fundamental evil of the government.

Folks, I have to tell you that I love you very much for your dogged support of the Constitution. I'm with you. I believe that it's been a net positive for humanity despite its flaws, which in many cases have been adjusted over the years in a manner that, I would contend, has been largely for the better. Through our history, we've righted some serious wrongs by broadening and deepening our commitment to the ideas that are embedded in that oft referred to document. And we may yet have some way to go in that respect.

However, it should be noted that the one thing the Constitution does, first and foremost, is establish a government. I must say that the people who cling tenaciously to the Constitution while hurling invective at the very institution that the document creates have perhaps missed the point.

Don't get me wrong. It's perfectly valid to criticize that institution and its operations. Not only is it valid, but it's necessary for the health of the system in my opinion. However, that's a debate that acknowledges the question of whether or not to have a government at all as settled. We can disagree with specific things that the government does, but that's different than attacking the very notion of government itself.

Now, you could be a bona fide anti-statist. Hey, that's fine. You're entitled to that point of view. However, you can't be an anti-statist and claim allegiance to the Constitution at the same time. It's fundamentally nonsenscial. The Constitution establishes a state government. If you really believe that the state is fundamentally evil, then the Constitution is the bane of your existence.

And this goes for people who make silly claims like it's un-Constitutional to pass a healthcare reform bill. If you're referring to the Constitution that I know and love, then you know that Article I gets the party started by establishing a legislative body and describing how that body will be selected and proceed. Well, that body is using the power vested in it by Article I to pass law. Again, you could be somebody who fundamentally disagrees with this scenario or the power of legislators to legislate, but their doing so is anything but un-Constitutional.

And lest we think that the people who make this argument are just random callers into C-SPAN, I listened to a Republican member of the House again invoke the notion that a healthcare reform bill is un-Constitutional as I typed that last paragraph.

In closing, I would go one further and put it that fundamental hatred of the government is un-American. America is nothing if not a state. Again, you're perfectly entitled to hold the idea of state in question, but debating how that state should function and whether or not there should even be a state are different things. I'm fine with having both debates, but it's either terribly erroneous or perhaps even disingenuous to confuse the two. And that confusion seems to underline a sense of alienation from government rather than ownership of it.

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NPR's Ken Rudin Apologizes for Parroting Karl Rove

DF — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:05:24 +0000

If you were listening to last week's Talk of the Nation on NPR, you heard Ken Rudin twice call the Obama administration's push-back against Fox News "Nixonian" and even compared to Nixon's infamous enemies list. It went a little something like this:

"Well, it's not only aggressive, it's almost Nixonesque. I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew's constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, 'Oh, that's ridiculous. That's an infringement on the freedom of press.' And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing."

The linked article does not mention this, but Rudin again pushed this comparison during an interview with Helen Thomas in the same segment.

NPR and Rudin generally do a decent job of covering this sort of thing, but this characterization was simply divorced from reality. To his credit, and probably also due to people like me who expressed their distaste for his mistake, Rudin has issued an apology:

"Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration --which bugged and intimidated and harassed journalists -- to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately embarrassing to me," wrote Rudin. "I should have known better and, in fact, I do know better. I was around during the Nixon years. I am fully cognizant of what they did and attempted to do."

That Rudin realizes he was off-base and has apologized for his error in judgment illustrates one of the chief differences between an organization like NPR and an organization like Fox News. I guarantee you'll hear no such retraction from Fox and Karl Rove, who happens to know a thing or two about what is and isn't Nixonian.

And that's an interesting point in all of this. Rove, like Fox News high mucky-muck Roger Ailes, is a product of that very Nixon team under the tutelage of Lee Atwater. What's so fascinating to me about all of this is that, as Joe Conason recently pointed out, it's actually Fox News that is Nixonian. And not even just in technique, getting out ahead of your opponents by accusing them of doing what you're doing being a chief example, but in pedigree. This is so astoundingly obvious if you have any sense of who and what Fox News is that to see the mainstream Washington press come to the defense of Fox is utterly surreal.

As Conason reminds us, in Nixon's era the White House was pitted against organizations like the Washington Post. Now, the Nixon boys are running media organizations instead of the White House. All the White House has done is call a spade a spade. Fox News is objectively an opposition organization and not the slightest bit loyal. Surprisingly, even organizations like NPR have fallen into the trap of carrying water for the dirty tricksters in the ensuing fallout. It's an interesting reflection of the how the power dynamic between the press and the White House has changed in the decades since Nixon ruled the roost.

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Fox News Launches Obama Change Index

DF — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:56:26 +0000

No, I'm not making this up:

How will this ingenius piece of Web 2.0 software be used? My guess is however Fox wants. If they want to attack Obama on change, they have two ways to go. On the one hand, they can criticize him for not creating enough change, thus failing in his stated mission. On the other hand, they can criticize him for creating too much change by dragging real Americans into the shadowy, bi-curious world of Islamic socialism. Heads they win, tails they win!

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The Public Option Option Option

DF — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:55:43 +0000

So, perhaps you've heard the buzz about a shiny, new compromise compromise in the battle for healthcare reform reform. First, there was the notion of single-payer. Of course, this proved to be far too unpalatable for anyone to the right of Dennis Kucinich, so then we were given the notion of the public option. This would create a Medicare-style system for anyone who wanted to buy in. It was certainly a compromise, but the merits of the compromise, as well as the general notion, were clear - it's publicly run and anyone can opt in. Public. Option.

Of course, then came the deluge of counter-offers and distortions. It quickly became the "government option" or "government takeover of healthcare" or "Barack Obama wants to kill your grandmother by way of ripping your children to shreds and force-feeding her to death with the pieces like the Sloth guy in Se7en." Oh, and the further compromises. For some, the public option was still not enough of a compromise, so it needed to be sliced up into 50 parts or converted into regional co-ops or hooked up to triggers.

That gave rise to the notion in the House of the "robust" public option, otherwise known as Public Option Original Scent. While Ms. Pelosi has insisted that the People's House will most assuredly go all robust on your ass, the floundering in the Senate, aka the Keeper's House, has taken center stage, which has pretty much looked like deja vu all over again circa 1994, with characters like Max Baucus doing their best to scuttle reform while raking in contributions from the healthcare sector hand over fist.

But, hark, what's this? Rumors abound of Senate Democrats proposing an "opt-out" version of the public option whereby states could individually decide not to participate. Even though the White House and Congressional leadership have little to say about the proposal, the raving, left-wing, liberal blogosphere has already given it the stamp of approval, with everyone from Josh Marshall to Ezra Klein to Nate Silver pretty much giving it the thumbs up, mostly on the basis that it gets us most of the way there and could be a likely pathway to getting all the way there.

They could be right. However, there's one thing about the public option option that is just obvious crap, which is this: It was already an option. What the "opt-out" clause would do is allow states to effectively bar their citizens from participating in the plan. Why should this be done? Ostensibly because their politicians aren't willing to go along with Public Option Original Scent. But the left-intelligentsia has ruminated on this and decided that the hold-outs will have to come along eventually, so it's just a matter of sooner or later.

However, there are several interesting things to note here. One is that the public option gets its power from numbers. The bigger the pool, the more powerfully risk distribution and collective bargaining can be leveraged. When you shrink the pool, you inexorably shrink the effect of these tools. Shrink the pool too much, and the public option becomes powerless. That, after all, is the motivation behind shilling for demonstrably poor systems like regional co-ops. Those who favor co-ops know they won't be very effective.

Furthermore, it's almost certain that the opt-out states will be red states with smaller populations and uncompetitive insurance markets, like Max Baucus' Montana. These are arguably the people who need healthcare reform the most because they literally have as few as one company from which to purchase insurance in some cases. You'd think the Mickey Mouse Club Freemarketeers would have knives out for such markets. Of course, they don't, but this doesn't change that, as a matter of policymaking, leaving the people who need reform the most out in the cold isn't exactly the moral thing to do.

Then again, it's likely that this is less a matter of policymaking and more a matter of positioning, such that the process can move past committee through a floor vote and into conference where a filibuster in the Senate isn't the lynchpin. That might be the case, but it even seems weird as a matter of positioning. Think of it this way: The red staters that won't get on board with a public option, which is intended to give their constituents choice, will supposedly be appeased by being able to deny them choice. Huh? I thought the state's rights issue was all about protecting the little guy from the big, scary federal government, not telling him that he can't have something that most other citizens have been given as a matter of federal law.

Of course, it isn't lost on me that the state's rights mantra has more often been used to deny people their liberties, like civil rights and access to abortion, than it has gone to defending citizens against the trespasses of the federal government. So, this is really in keeping with that tradition, but how do they sell this to their constituents? You can sell denying civil rights to minorities when your constituency is mostly white and at least somewhat racist. You likewise sell denying abortions to women if your constituency is predominantly godfearing. But how do you tell your constituents that you're going to fight to deny them choice?

In that sense, JMM, Klein and Silver might have a point. If this gets the votes and is a political impossibility to sell to people back home then it might end up being a win, at least in the long run.

But by this time, all of this political hokey-pokey has my head spinning. It's started to feel like some sick version of one of Zeno's paradoxes, where we'll somehow be able to achieve our goal by constantly cutting the remaining distance in half. After all, people are seriously talking about a proposal to opt-out of an option. If that doesn't start to get surreal, I don't know what does. Is Joseph Heller pulling the strings somewhere?

Seriously, I'm waiting with marked anticipation for the next compromise compromise. What will the public option option option be like? Anyhow, I'm hungry. For some reason I feel like pizza pizza.

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Shoot the Moon

DF — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:46:24 +0000

Okay, so we're not really bombing the moon, as some of the more sensational headlines have indicated. We're trying to find out more about the water that might be there. However, this did remind me of one of my favorite sketches from Mr. Show. Submitted for your approval:

Also, I highly recommend reading a bit into that link above. There's some good stuff:

What did the moon do to us? Is somebody up there on the moon doing things that only Obama knows about? We're going to bomb the moon. You know why? The stated reason for bombing the moon near the South Pole of the moon, is they want to find out if in the explosion, the plume, if there's water. It's an unending quest for life. 'Cause we're all gonna die, you know. Leafy green vegetables, yesterday, were reported to be the number one cause of death now from Center for Science in the Public Interest so we're all going to have to go somewhere eventually. And maybe the moon's a rest stop on the way to Alpha Centauri. (interruption) Yeah. You would think that Obama would try sanctions first to see if the moon would give us the water.

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Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) Obliterates "Invertebrate Democrat" Theory

DF — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:45:28 +0000

Yes, Virginia, spines exist. And, yes, even some Democrats have them. We know this to be true because Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) went to the House floor this week and said this:

House Republicans immediately demanded that he apologize. So, he did:

But Grayson wasn't done there. No, sir. He still needed to locomote his 6'4" spine-equipped frame into Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room:

The study that Grayson refers to was recently published by Harvard. It updates a study that I cited in a previous post, where I noted that 18,000 Americans die annually because they do not have health insurance. The Harvard study pushes this number up to 45,000, which amounts to a loss of life equivalent to 9/11 every month rather than every two months as I had previously estimated.

I really love watching trite-ass Wolf Blitzer's irony-bereft faux outrage for Grayson's supposedly maligning the Republicans. What a toolbox. After spending all summer entertaining all of the scaremongering of the right, he just can't believe his ears. Blitzer's amazement is simply due to the fact that he can't believe someone is breaking Beltway decorum, hence the attempt to make this somehow analagous to Rep. Joe Wilson's infamous outburst.

One of my favorite things about the Internet is that I can be reminded in short increments exactly why I don't watch cable news. Thanks to Rep. Grayson for taking a fact-based, moral stand and refusing to kowtow to the Washington game.

What the Republicans have been doing is an insult to America.

- Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)

UPDATE: Rep. Grayson is a newcomer, having just joined Congress this year, so I'm not all that familiar with him, but then I remembered seeing him grill the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve:

There's also this pointed grilling of Ben Bernanke:

More recently, during the Acorn kerfuffle, Rep. Grayson also proposed a "corporate death penalty" for organizations that commit fraud, meaning that they would be barred from doing business with the federal government in the future. The list of offending organizations would include pretty much every major defense, pharmaceutical and telecommunications company that the federal government does business with.

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