Nevertheless, A Ray Of Hope Regarding Guns

This map offers some promise of progress toward sensible gun regulations.  As was the case with marriage equality, perhaps a state-by-state approach works more effectively.  Whatever we need to do, let's do it, finally.

Law And Order For Thee, But Not For Me

Conservatives love the rule of law, so long as they're the ones choosing which laws to enforce, and which ones to ignore.  Case in point:  Colorado and gun control.  Every one of these sheriffs should be removed from office and prosecuted--peaceably, or otherwise.  And, if it proved to be otherwise, I will mail Colorado the tear I shed.

Want Photographic Proof That The Right-Wing Media Are Lying Hypocrites?

Here you go.  They went after Obama for this, but not Cameron.  That's all you need to know about how much their "critique" of the President is based on race--nothing else.

Safe Travels Across The Sun's Anvil, El Aurens

 

As much as anyone else, and more than most, you are my acting hero.  Your performance in "Lawrence of Arabia" propelled my interests in show business and history into lifelong passions, both of which have served me well.  I wish we could have met but, as is the case with all screen actors I have seen, your films made that possible to a degree.  In any case, save me a spot at the oasis on the way to Aqaba.

And RIP.  No one I know deserves it more.

In America, The Era Of Human Sacrifices Has Not Ended

That's all that we've learned in the year since Newtown.  The Second Amendment is our God, and, in a year's time, 194 sacrifices have been offered to it.  Take a look.

"Embrace The Suck," Indeed--With The Emphasis On The Latter

The deal reached this past week between Senate Budget Committee chair Patty Murray and her House counterpart, Paul Ryan, is being hailed by all of the supposedly sensible voices in the DC political and press establishment as an example of bipartisan sanity, of the truly great things that can happen when Democrats and Republicans work together.

Well, there's what they say, and then there's the truth.  Turns out that you don't have to think it's wonderful to vote for it or, for that matter, encourage your fellow House members to vote for it.  You can, in fact, vote for it while you're vomiting over it.  Or, in the immortal words of House Minority Leader (and, hopefully, soon-to-be-Speaker-again) Nancy Pelosi, you can "embrace the suck."

True, this budget leaves entitlements untouched, and true, it restores a portion of the sequester cuts.  But it ratifies the GOP's no-new-taxes philosophy, while achieving deficit reduction on the backs of career civil service employees--the latter being supposedly acceptable, because they're so grotesquely "overpaid."

Let's start with the latter "point," and call it what it is.

Wrong.  Wrong.  Wrong.

Public employees are not overpaid.  In fact, in may cases, they are grotesquely underpaid for the responsibilities they are frequently required to face.  The truth of the matter is that they earn the salary and benefits they get.  For that matter, so do the rest of us.  There's more than enough money in our economy to pay everyone the salaries and benefits that public employees can and should get, and everyone would benefit from the spending that would result if everyone were paid that well.  For an excellent summary of why this is true, take a look here.

As for the "revenue raisers" in the deal, they consist of those old Republican standbys:  asset sales and user fee increases.  At this rate, we're going to run out of assets to sell, and run out of users to make the fee increases work.  In fact, those increases could be thousands of times the average annual per-person income of the users, and it still wouldn't even come close to balancing the budget.  Oh, and like it or not, Republicans?  A fee increase is no different from what must people call "taxes."  Here in Maryland, we (briefly, thankfully) had a Republican governor named Bob Ehrlich who tried to play that game, and no one was fooled by it.  Republicans do this because anti-tax politics is the only thing that gives their party a pulse.  But they are running out of time in which to fool people with tactics like that; the rest of us are catching up to them.

And, on top of all of this, they still want to cut unemployment benefits and food stamps.  If Democrats roll over on those issues, they might as well raise the white flag now for 2014.

If it really means deals like this one, then to hell with bipartisanship.  Let the reporters who love it so much take a few of those cuts themselves, and see how swell they think they are when they're on the receiving end of them.  Haven't the many give enough to the few already?  Haven't they given more than enough?  At what point do we stop pretending that splitting the political difference does not mean the same thing as sharing the burdens of making our country work?

Those aren't rhetorical questions.  The answer to each of the first two is "Hell, yes!"  The answer to the third one, as far as I'm concerned, is that we should have reached it by now.  And the fact that we haven't makes me wonder if we'll ever reach it.  Or if we'll reach it in time to save ourselves from our own greed and stupidity.

The Tea Party's "Tipping Point," And What It May Mean For 2014

So, at long last, John Boehner is finally telling off the Tea Party.  After we've all gotten past a hearty chorus of "It's about time," we're left to reflect on what it might mean, both generally and specifically.  It's easier to figure out the former than the latter.

Generally, Boehner, who has at least some understanding that deal-making is necessary to make divided government work, has overruled his better instincts and let the Tea Party do all of the thinking for his caucus ever since it took control of the House in 2010.  There was at least a semi-plausible reason for doing so:  at that point, the TP folks looked like they were the GOP's only hope for votes that could help them peel back the Democratic gains of the previous two elections.  In 2010, they actually did peel back some of those gains and that, combined with the continuing disappearance of moderate Republicans, gave Boehner little choice but to let the inmates run the asylum, and hope that he could eventually find a way to harness their energy into productive channels.

Last week, however, Boehner effectively admitted in public that he had given up on finding a way, and the remains of the Republican establishment followed suit.  Why was they willing to do this, knowing that it would result in a GOP civil war at a time when all they had to do was let Obamacare fall apart, and reap the electoral awards in 2014?

Because they now know that Obamacare isn't going to fall apart.  To be sure, there will be more negative coverage of the health care reform roll-out, because the right-wing press hates Obama and what's left of the MSM feeds on conflict.  But that isn't stopping the ACA, nor its long-term success.  It is even now possible to think that, in 2014, the ACA could be a net plus for Democrats--or, at worst, an issue with neutral impact compared to other, more salient political issues.

So Boehner gambled.  He allowed Paul Ryan to work out a budget agreement with Patty Murray that was, as much as anything, designed to put the political misery of last October's shutdown behind their party.  Then he used that accomplishment to tell off the TP's shadow funders, standing up for the autonomy of his caucus members and otherwise acting more like the political leader he should have been all along and less like the bagman he had most become.

Because what Boehner has always wanted, more than anything else, is to be Speaker of the House.  He was willing to be a TP spokesman for as long as he thought that was what was needed to stay in the Speaker's chair.  But he and his party are getting a different message from the polls right now, one that's telling them to act like grown-ups and find ways to work with Democrats.  Because that's what voters really want him to do--in fact, it's probably what they wanted all along.

If that's the general meaning, what are the specific ones, as they relate to national, and progressive priorities?  Harder to say at this point.  But Boehner's hiring of a former McCain aid to work on immigration reform is a hopeful indication that, at least on that issue, it may yet be possible to make some progress in 2014.

And, speaking about 2014, what about the impact that all of this will have on the elections?

I tend to agree that, given the general trends of mid-term elections and the current mood of the voting public, that a successful tacking to the center by Republicans will likely result in good news for them at the polls.  The bigger question, however, is whether the tea-baggers, and their shadowy deep pockets, will let them do it.

As of the moment, that's a great big question mark.  It's not really good news when a sitting Speaker of the House decides that his electoral future depends on starting a civil war within his own party.  It means that his future, and perhaps the country's, depends upon his taken a leap into a void with an unknown and dangerous bottom.

And that question mark is all the more reason why progressives should organize, contribute and vote next year as though their future, and the country's, depends on it. 

I Find Myself In The Incredibly Awkward Position Of Defending Newt Gingrich

But, in this case, I have a good reason.

Safe travels, Madiba.  May they be easier than the ones you had in this world.  Once you have arrived, I know you will receive the glory you deserve.

One Road To A Carbon Tax.

Raise the gas tax.  It's a tough sell, politically, but it might actually appeal to folks on both sides of the aisle.  Take a look.

Will Seniors Leave Republicans Out To Dry In 2014?

NPR, from your mike to God's ears.  More on 2014 in a later post.

Sorry, Scott Fitzgerald, But There ARE Second Acts In American Lives

In the political life of Jerry Brown.  In the economic and cultural life of California.  And, if California really is the bellwether of American trends, in the progressive life of the United States.  Doubt all of this?  Doubt no longer.

Why We Should Invest More In The Arts And Culture

Because the financial returns, as well as the aesthetic ones, justify it.  Take a look.

If I were President--we should be so lucky--the NEA/NEH budget would run into the billions, not the low millions.  It would easily be the best thing I or anyone else could do for the country.

Aside from getting Wall Street off the people's backs, that is.

And A Story That Should Be Much, MUCH Bigger Than Anything About Obamacare

And that, simply put, is the unwillingness of employers to pay their employees a living wage.  Not their ability, mind you.  Their willingness.  Because, at a time of record performance by the stock market and banks--both of which, you may recall, were bailed out by you and me when they were proven to be less than infallible--even bank employees need help from the federal government.

And what about employees of the number one company on the Fortune 500?  Their employees have to hold food drives.  This company could easily afford to pay its employees a living wage, but chooses not to.  It literally does not care if its employees cannot eat.  Anyone who supports a company like this should have their head examined.  And any company that treats its employees this badly should be treated by the government as criminals, not wards of the state.

Wards of the state, however, is what American captains of industry have become.  For those on the right who feel that they are in some sort of desperate struggle to save traditional capitalism, I have bad news for you:  that struggle ended in 2008, and statism won.  We now have state-sponsored "capitalism," truly the worst of both worlds, in which profits are privatized and losses are publicized.

If this doesn't make you get politically active in 2014, nothing will.  And you will deserve the fate that overtakes you.

And A Few Choice Words For Robert Kuttner

After reading this piece, I may never subscribe or contribute to The American Prospect ever again.

TAP was created as an antidote to the plethora of right-wing journals that have littered the political landscape over the past several decades.  As such, it has mostly done its job well.  But, from time to time, its articles have succumbed to the tendency of liberals to wring their hands and declare defeat for all time every time the political road gets bumpy for one or more of their causes.  Kuttner's assessment of the ACA's prospects in the wake of the Web site problems is, sadly, a prime example.

I'm particularly annoyed by Kuttner's completely bogus assertion of the political landscape for health care reform prior to the enactment of the ACA.  In his view, all Obama had to do was expand Medicare, and he could declare "mission accomplished."  Kuttner even goes so far as to say that this is what "many of us wrote at the time."  Well, my memory on this subject differs rather significantly from Kuttner's, in that I very clearly recall the Medicare-expansion concept as being a last-minute effort to include some kind of "public option" as part of the ACA.  It was never the benchmark for what health care reform could be, in terms of political reality.  Even then, the proposal was limited to individuals 55 and over--hardly the definition of "Medicare for All."  And it was being sponsored by then-Senators Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, two men who, although Democrats, can hardly be defined as liberal heroes.

Kuttner's after-the-fact revisionism seems to be an exercise in finger-pointing.  It is, in part, but it's also a classic example of how the lazy idealism of some liberals sometimes threaten to eat the entire progressive cause alive.  People who allow the perfect to serve as the enemy of the good never have to do any of the heavy lifting to make even the good a reality.  They can pontificate, they can point fingers, they can spill endless prose over the contours and details of a supposedly perfect world--but they never have to get their hands dirty with the ugly political details that are part and parcel of making any kind of progress worthy of the word.

And, when things go wrong (as they always do, from the perspective of these folks), they never have to worry about anyone pointing fingers at them.  Oh, no.  They've been purer than the driven snow all along.  And they can get started looking for the new progressive "hero," the person who will be perfectly perfect from day one--but who will likely never get anything done, or even be elected in the first place.  The word "compromise" is embedded in the word "politics" and, when a political system is set up they way ours is, to discourage massive change that turns on a dime, it stops "perfection" dead in its tracks.

Repent and reconsider, Mr. Kuttner.  Obamacare is far from perfect, from either a liberal or a conservative perspective.  It is, like most compromises, a horse create by a committee.  But it moves us decisively in the right direction, and there's every reason to think that it can be made to work.  We may never get a better chance to begin real health care reform than this one.  Don't throw it away for the sake of a purity that politics can never reflect.

A Few Borrowed Words From Mark Twain About The State Of Obamacare

Simply put, its death has been greatly exaggerated--both by the Republicans, and the MSM allies.

Let's begin with the big story of November--the ACA Web site, and its technical problems.  I'm not an apologist for those problems.  If anything, as an ardent supporter of health care reform, I am furious with the inability of HHS to not have this up and running on time and perfectly.  Secretary Sebelius and her colleagues knew for four years that they were going to have to do this, and have no excuse.  This is not about whether government Web sites can work; anyone who ever uses the IRS web site knows that it is possible for a Federal agency to have a Web presence with a very high degree of functionality.  And, as an attorney, I use the IRS site on a frequent basis.  If the ACA Web site had anything close to the functionality of the IRS site, we'd already be having a very different conversation about Obamacare right now.

But, as it turns out, most of the problems with the site have been, or are well on their way to being fixed.  This is even true of a new one that has cropped up recently--i.e., the transmission of applicant information from the site to insurers.  Again, this does not justify the initial problems, and an investigation as to the nature and source of those problems is fully justified (yes, even if it is led by Republicans).   But it also does not justify a wholesale repeal, or even a scaling-back of the ACA or its provisions, many of which have already gone into effect and are, in fact, quite popular.

And the proof of the success of the site fixes are in the enrollment numbers, which show that more people signed up in the first two days of this month than in all of October.  Those aren't the only numbers showing that Obamacare is working; its estimated cost has actually gone down.  When was the last time anybody said that about any government program?

And, at the local level, it is even easier to see how well the ACA is working, particularly in states where local officials are working with the law and not against it.  As for its critics on the left (including me), who have argued and continue to argue for a single-payer system, take a look at Vermont.  I believe that the ACA will become the political Trojan Horse that brings single-payer health insurance into this country for good.

Perhaps this is why public opinion has turned in a more favorable direction for Obamacare.  And why those on the left, who saw the ACA as a sellout of the single-payer cause, are changing their tune.  And why even some Republicans like this one are changing their tune as well.  Perhaps, in the latter case, it's just as well:  they have no alternative of their own.  And their desperation to stop the law is showing in the nature of the tactics they are now turning to.  Fake Web sites?  Really?  What an irony:  fake Web sites to stop a program dependent upon a gradually improving one.

As Carl Sagan might have put it, health care is no longer a theory, but a fact.  And it's not going to go away.  The GOP would do themselves and the rest of us a favor by canning the games, and serving their country by helping, not hurting, the implementation of a law whose time is long overdue.