Jon Stewart Pulls a Glenn

Jon Stewart rocks a Glenn Beck impersonation. This is just awesome:

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Bad for Obama?

Were the round of elections on Tuesday a referendum on the Obama administration? Well, I don't know (I'm guessing possibly for those people who cared enough to vote for their governor in NJ and VA and yet showed up not knowing anything about the difference between their choices besides the "R" and "D" next to the names of their choices and that Obama also has a "D" next to his name on occasion). I do know one thing though--no one in the news media know either, and they certainly won't care to find out.

Jon Stewart can say it better than me:

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Taking the Option Out of the "Public Option"

If you're anything like me, your immediate reaction to this question is, who the hell is Jonathan Cohn? Well, to be honest it doesn't matter a whole lot, since he is not a significant player in the political realities on Capital Hill when it comes to hammering out the details of our coming health care reform. And also I am unfairly picking on him (mostly). Mr. Cohn has been praised by the Washington Post and the New York Times as one of the preeminent writers on health care in this country. You would be surprised by this information if your only knowledge of him was his recent appearance on Countdown with Keith Olbermann (video provided at end).

Apparently, the shape of the public option in the House and, now the Senate as well, is not quite what was expected. Conservatives have been droning on for a while about how the public option will not be optional at all, and it looks like they might be right, though not in the way they would have had us believe. Instead of being forced into it, most people might be forced out of it. A major concern of Oregon's Senator Ron Wyden (D) is that the public option is turning into an expanded Medicaid for small businesses and people who cannot afford their own health care. It seems that many in the House envision the public option as a social safety net and, on a related note, none of these people have any business being in Congress much less affecting health care policy.

It is difficult to express how badly this misses the point. The genius behind the public option is that, by allowing the government run insurance program to compete with the private market, it will thereby prove its merit by its ability to attract customers over the private sector and at the same time force the private industry to adapt. It will be successful when it offers a better product at a lesser cost, forcing the private industry to respond by ending their predatory business practices which have caused so many who believed they were covered to go through hell and back, as well as ceasing the forced inflation of health care costs that these companies employ in order to expand their rates.

This idea of the option not being open to those who are currently in the system, and providing what is essentially a charity for individuals and companies who would not be making payments to HMO's anyway, was clearly thought up by the insurance industry. First of all it robs them of about zero customers, which would be a disaster in terms of getting our costs down and preventing abuses, two of the principle goals behind reform. Second of all it let's HMO's be the good guys without changing at all, because all of the damage they do would get cleaned up with taxpayer money, so it becomes even easier to deny coverage in the hope that when someone gets really sick they move on to the public option when their cost-benefit analysis makes them no longer profitable. It also means that the public option will be paying out but not taking money in, which would translate to an extremely expensive social program that would have to be bankrolled by taxes instead of just using the old consumer model to pay for it.

I was, once again, finding myself giving up on Keith Oblermann's ability to cover the news with any journalistic instincts what-so-ever when, lo and behold, he asks the obvious question, "If people who have private insurance cannot then get the public option, how are they in competition and why should private insurers wind up lowering their rates at all?" Cohn's answer to this question amounted to propping his finger longwise between his lips and moving said finger up and down whilst blowing out hot air. At some point he actually suggested that competition would exist for all those people who can't afford private insurance, and I think it was around this point that he realized he had no business being on television. Watching him come around to Wyden's position in an on-air moment of "What the hell am I saying?!" begs the question, why aren't more people listening to Senator Wyden?

Certainly Harry Reid isn't. While liberals rejoice at a long overdue promise to deliver a public option from Senator Reid, they seem to have lost interest in taking a critical look at what they are celebrating. It seems that the Democrats in Congress are simply pleased to think there might soon be headlines that read, "Democrats successful in passing public option," when calling this plan an option is ludicrous. Over the long run this plan offers no potential for expansion, no help for a great deal of Americans, no ability to counter the abuses of private insurers, and will cost the federal government a significant amount of money.

Why isn't this Wyden character the Majority Leader in the Senate again?

How We Get Back at Those We Respect

This is the thing that really pisses me off. The more I hear about the health care debate, the more it occurs to me--why is this country proactively torturing our veterans and seniors?

If one things is evident, it is this: no one wants the government to pay for their health care. That's why single-payer isn't even on the table at this point. I mean, I'm scared just to have a public insurance option from the government. If my private company can screw me over left and right just for profit, then imagine what the government would do since it's clearly out to get me. The fact that my participation in this program would be optional is only a nominal difference. Even Glenn Beck will be powerless to deny himself the fantastic savings.

But the most well kept secret in Washington is that the government has been forcing retirees and veterans into government run health care for years! Yes, that's right, as we speak the brave defenders of our country and our wise elderly population is enduring the nightmare of socialized health care under our very noses in one of the most vicious double standards of all time. I mean, basically what I'm describing is apartheid, except this time it isn't about race, but about tearing down those we respect the most!

Though the socialized health care the congress makes sort of makes sense to me.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

A little reworking for the "Times" :

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And see that hungry

Around you still groan
And the rich just get richer

Off of your subprime loan.
And for the status

We keep on fightin'.
Well you best not get sick

Or they'll come for your home
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen.
Keep your mouths shut
Or you'll be done in
Even if those in control
Are shrouded in money and sin.

No sources means

No workn'.
And the winner now

Will stay where they've been
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call.
There's no cash that's too dirty

No lie that's too tall.

Forget the children that's starvin'

There's progress to stall

And don't dare vote

On your soul
Or they'll shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
You failed in your time

But now you understand
That your sons and your daughters

Will shop on command.

The 60's are too

Long ago.

So stay in your jobs

Whilst the bank takes your land

For the times they are a-changin'.

Obama is runnin'

And our ballots are cast
But our mistake was thinking

That change would come fast

So we can't believe that the present
Will be just like the past.
Seems the order is

Written in stone.
And if you're in need

You can expect to be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

What Gives with the Polls?

You might have noticed, like I have, some very interesting poll numbers on the Public Option. To many on the left, the Public Option is the least that the Democrats could include in any reform that might begin to vindicate the groundswell that brought them into office. We find ourselves with no option but to support what can only be called a half-way measure. What we need is to see the end of private insurance all together, and even the most progressive proposals backed by the White House smell more like deals with the devil then true change. But we sucked it up, for the most part, and threw our lot behind Obama anyway. This may have been an error; when the White House hinted at dropping it last weekend, the liberal beehive went a little crazy. (Secretly, I suspect that this was the point. Unfortunately, we on the left have mistakenly come to believe that our work is done, that what we fought for during the election is now a sure bet. Sitting on our hands has allowed the fringe Right to be the only ones organizing and engaging with the general public, and perhaps the threat was meant to kick our collective asses in gear.) Liberals were not the only ones upset, either—well, depending on the pollster you believe.

If you were to review the recent polling data, perhaps you would conclude that Americans had become totally schizophrenic. Here's a snapshot. On the 5^th, a poll that was otherwise very negative towards health care reform was conducted by Quinnipiac University. They found support for the option of a government insurance plan to be 62% for, 32% against. On the 18^th, NBC reported that Americans opposed the Public Option 47% to 43%. On the following day, a Rasmussen Reports poll found that, while support for reform was below 50%, it dropped significantly if it was suggested that the Public Option was not included. And then on the 20th, SuveyUSA reported that 77% of Americans supported the choice of a Public Option.

What exactly explains these differences? Well, superficially, it can probably be chalked up to the way the poll questions are asked, which as we all know can have a significant impact on the numbers. For example, the NBC poll mentioned above drew a great deal of wrath for a number of reasons. One, because for some reason this is considered the important poll and most of the others arn't. Second, because one of the men who authored the poll, Bill McInturff, is well aligned with health insurance giants. And third, for no apparent reason the word “choice,” which appeared in the same poll last month and rendered a figure of 76% in support of the plan, was dropped. Did this account for the whole drop? Probably not, but it certainly isn't insignificant. The Huffington Post's article on this included a quote by Wendell Potter, a former vice president of a huge insurance company:

I think it's a very big deal to drop the word. This has been a strategy the industry has had for many years. They ask questions in many ways, knowing the way they are asking the questions will skew the result. Dropping the word choice is very important. It plays into some of the fears some of the people have been hearing lately, that the government would leave them without an option.

This strategy is no great surprise, and the GOP's attempts to distort the issue is not a surprise either. All this talk about death panels, government takeovers, and socialism is part of an attempt to terrify the public and, more importantly, redefine the Public Option into something ominous and harmful when that couldn't be farther from the truth. The fact that a recent vice-presidential candidate could publicly claim that the Democrats' reforms would include death panels is so outrageous that you would expect a huge backlash.

But you didn't see a blacklash, did you.

And this leads us to the real culprits, and the true explanation for these sporadic poll numbers. The Democrats and the Obama White House have allowed the GOP to completely drown out the facts with outright lies. They have allowed total and shameful untruths to not only be admitted into a very serious conversation, but have allowed them to define what is meant by a “Public Option.” And so when pollers fail to describe the proposed plan, the majority of people who don't follow the knew enough to hear the 2% of the time when the media is covering what is actually being proposed. On the other hand, when a poll makes certain details clear about the Public Option—like, for instance, that its optional—then there's a lot more support. This is because the American people would love the actual proposal. It's time for Obama and congressional Democrats to TELL THEM WHAT THAT IS, and do it loudly and constantly. For every time that a conservative gets on TV and says the words “government takeover” there needs to be a Democrat making it clear that that's a lie and repeating over and over again: “They are trying to take away your choices.”

“They are trying to take away your choices.”

“They are trying to take away your choices.”

“They are trying to take away your choices.”

“Why, oh why are they trying to take away your choices?!”

And it's not all their fault, either. Every single one of us on the Left needs to continue the activism and advocacy that sold Obama's policies during the election. For some reason we believed that Obama's election meant that the world had changed, that the Left had prevailed and all of his policies were a sure thing. But it turns out that the Republicans have plenty of fight left in them and we need to stop being lazy, or else we'll ensure that healthcare reform is decided by wing nuts screaming at town halls while we sit on our hands.

And now, here's Melissa Harris-Lacewell because we love Melissa Harris-Lacewell:

Dear Dems, Please Attack

Dear Obama White House and Congressional Democrats,

My advice for the coming health care battle: do not just defend. When you have made the GOP admit that the health care system needs amending, you have won.

May I suggest something along the line of, "Well, if the GOP cares as much for unborn children as they claim they do, then it seems odd that they are comfortable with having one of the worst infant mortality rates in the first world. Is that what health care looks like when it doesn't need changing?"

Shove it down their throats. Please.

Conditionally Yours,
Zack

P.S. Looking forward to the next couple of months!

Huckabee Defends the Idea of a Welfare State on the Daily Show

Well, perhaps not intentionally.

Last night Mike Huckabee returned to the Daily Show (videos at bottom) where host Jon Stewart kept his promise—Mike Huckabee would get to decide the topic of conversation this time, since last time it became dominated with a particularly uninteresting debate over gay marriage. Predictably, Huckabee began a self-righteous lecture about the lives of fetuses, framing the debate this way: we believe that every human life has intrinsic value. We also believe that human life starts at conception. Therefore abortion is murder.

I'm not going to get into the disagreement about when human life starts. I'm more interested in the conclusions he makes, not the premises. Huckabee would have you believe that there is a horrific double standard that separates the born and the prenatal, and that it is this double standard that allows liberals to kill babies on a daily basis when they would never dream of murdering people that had been born already. This, I think, is the most interesting comment in the interview:

"If we train a generation coming up after us that it is okay to take a human life because that life represents to us an interference or an interruption to our lives, either economically or socially or whatever the reason is..."

He sort of just trails off there into a boogeyman story about adults so callous and so selfish that they begin aborting their parents when they become so elderly that they are too expensive to take care of and are cutting into their children's party life.

This line of reasoning is extremely fascination to me, considering that I been advocating on behalf of very nearly the same principle in the hope of significantly reshaping society. The only difference is that I believe this about people that have already been born.


There is NO current situation in the United States where a conservative would dare presume that anyone ought to make a sacrifice, how ever small it might be, for the well being of someone else. Do they really believe in the sanctity of human life when they so strongly oppose providing healthcare to American citizens as a human right? When they talk so much trash about Welfare and Social Security? When they go after minimum wage laws and unions benefits? Asking a rich people to pay 3% more in taxes caused conservatives to call Obama a socialist, and that seems like a very tiny “economic interference” to me. And this all doesn't even touch the biggest gaping hole in the conservative ideology, which is that Americans are special and we have the right to go after our personal interests in the world at the bereavement of others. American consumerism is the cause of sweatshops across the globe. Our selfish foreign policies for the last 60 years has caused unbelievable amounts of strife and unrest but has been consistently justified as being “in the interests of Americans.” And Huckabee is going to sit there on TV and tell me that a baby has so much inherent value that a mother shouldn't be allowed to get an abortion?

All of these conservative endorsed practices are based upon the argument that no one is obligated to endure economic inconvenience so that others might retain their lives and dignity. And when you ask (or force) a woman to bring a baby to term, you're not asking her to simply let it live. You are demanding a very high level of danger to her health, a huge social and career inconvenience, financial burden, and emotional distress, among many other things. I'd love to see someone hook Huckabee up to a homeless person so we can all shout at Huckabee to stop complaining about the minor “inconvenience.” And I would also love to see Huckabee propose that greater society also pitch in for the dignity of that embryo should it fall ill and the mother not have health insurance, or should it be born and she not have a job and thus rely on welfare, or it need a good education to support a family one day but it can't afford college etc, etc, etc. I want anyone to tell me one other thing that conservatives are in favor of that entails the sacrifice of some for the lives of other people, but you're not going to find it, because that's not really what the Anti-Choice movement is about. It's about telling women what to do. Otherwise, they would have seen this contradiction long ago.

And as a side note, since when does Jon Stewart identify as “Pro-Life” and allow a patriarchal wing nut like Huckabee to get away with comparing killing your elderly parents with abortion?

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UPDATE: Apeywoo went me this great video with Noam Chomsky and Peter Singer touching on some of the issues that I have in this post.