Names:

Steve Benen started a post with this:

LAMAR ON RECONCILIATION.... Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee was on Fox News yesterday, and weighed in on the possibility of Democrats using reconciliation to pass health care reform.

"Thumbing their nose at the American people by ramming through a partisan bill would be the same thing as going to war without asking Congress' permission," he said. "You might technically be able to do it, but you'd pay a terrible price in the next election."

There was no follow-up on this during the interview -- it's Fox News, after all -- so let's go ahead and note why this is very foolish.

And he continued for 6 paragraphs about reconciliation and the Republicans prior use it. It's as if Benen is taking seriously the notion that Fox News is a real news outfit. But consider the following way of presenting the story:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) of Tennessee was on the Republican Propaganda Network yesterday, and weighed in on the possibility of Democrats using reconciliation to pass health care reform.

"Thumbing their nose at the American people by ramming through a partisan bill would be the same thing as going to war without asking Congress' permission," he said. "You might technically be able to do it, but you'd pay a terrible price in the next election."

There was no follow-up on this during the interview -- it's the Republican Propaganda Network, after all

See? There's no call to get involved and counter what Alexander said because it's obvious what's going on. Alexander was not speaking in a forum where he would be challenged. He might just as well have been speaking at a workshop at the How To Take Back America conference. Nobody cares about those events. Similarly, no one should care about what's said on the Republican Propaganda Network. At least not care about the substance of what's being peddled there.


posted by Quiddity at 9/07/2009 12:46:00 PM

Happy Labor Day!

The 216,000 jobs lost in August is a BLS calculation from payrolls.

The 9.7% unemployment rate is the result of the Household Survey. These comments from a post at the Big Picture are about the Household Survey: (emp add)

What was really key were the details of the Household Survey, which provide a rather alarming picture of what is happening in the labor market.

First, employment in this survey showed a plunge of 392,000, but that number was flattered by a surge in self-employment (whether these newly minted consultants were making any money is another story) as wage & salary workers (the ones that work at companies, big and small) plunged 637,000 – the largest decline since March (when the stock market was testing its lows for the cycle). As an aside, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also publishes a number from the Household survey that is comparable to the nonfarm survey (dubbed the population and payroll-adjusted Household number), and on this basis, employment sank – brace yourself - by over 1 million, which is unprecedented. We shall see if the nattering nabobs of positivity discuss that particularly statistic in their post-payroll assessments; we are not exactly holding our breath.

Wage & salary jobs are generally good jobs (compared to self-employed). Losing 637K of those is serious hurt.

Most of you probably read headlines like US jobless figure rises, but not as rapidly as before, and others to the effect that 216K jobs lost is the best number this year - implying that we're about to get on the road to recovery. Economic "happy talk" has been a prominent feature of economic reporting this year. It may not continue.


posted by Quiddity at 9/07/2009 07:49:00 AM

Cokie Roberts on Sarah Palin:

One year ago:

“The main thing about Sarah Palin,” Roberts said one year ago, “is that she's down to earth. Sold the state jet on eBay. She drives herself. She got rid of the household staff in the governor's mansion and told the children that they were not going to get anything other than their usual macaroni and cheese.”

The "main thing". Being "down to earth" is hardly a mark of distinction.


posted by Quiddity at 9/07/2009 04:22:00 AM

Getting closer ...

Olbermann Declares War on Glenn Beck and Roger Ailes

Take it one rung higher, Keith.


posted by Quiddity at 9/06/2009 09:36:00 PM

Idiots:

American Acclimatization Society

Their impact.


posted by Quiddity at 9/06/2009 02:53:00 PM

Poor David Frum:

From a report about WorldNetDaily:

According to siteanalytics.compete.com, WorldNetDaily had more than 1.9 million visitors in July, the month when the “birther” story peaked. That was the slowest month for the site in more than a year. In June, a more average month, it drew in more than 3.9 million visitors. For comparison, that month Free Republic had around 3.2 million visitors, The Washington Times had roughly 2.9 million, Townhall.com had 2.5 million, HotAir.com had 2.4 million, National Review had roughly 2.2 million, Human Events had 1.4 million, LewRockwell.com had 1.1 million, CNSNews.com had around 532,000, and The American Spectator had around 358,000. Among conservative news sites, only Fox News, with roughly 50 million monthly visitors, and Newsmax, with around 6.2 million in June, regularly beats out WND. It’s tougher sledding for Websites that attempt to carve out a more refined audience of conservatives: in June, David Frum’s New Majority had only 42,000 visitors. (According to Google Analytics, it fared quite a bit better at 72,000 unique visitors.) WND, unlike New Majority, has a permanent link at the Drudge Report; according to Alexa.com, Drudge accounts for 13 percent of WND’s traffic.

Frum is trying to cut back the crazy in the Republican ranks.


posted by Quiddity at 9/04/2009 07:28:00 PM

Go for it, GOP:

Politico headline: David Petraeus, Joe Scarborough eyed for '12

Remember back in 1991 (or there abouts) when Bill Moyers was being mentioned as a possible presidential candidate? This is the same thing.


posted by Quiddity at 9/04/2009 08:38:00 AM

What's David Frum's point here?

His full post:

Bruce Bartlett sends this email:

I’ve been thinking lately that conservative elites are reaching a moment similar to that which confronted liberal elites in the late 1960s. At first they saw the rise of SDS, the Black Panthers and other extreme left groups as cannon fodder that could be used to achieve liberal goals. (Norman Podhoretz goes into detail on this point in Breaking Ranks and Tom Wolfe made fools of them.) But one day liberals realized that the extremists couldn’t be controlled and threatened anarchy. I read somewhere that the seminal event was when student radicals threatened to burn the Harvard library. This sort of thing led to the rise of neoconservatism (not the foreign policy variety, but the original one). I think conservative elites today see the teabaggers, birthers and other kooks as cannon fodder for larger conservative goals the same way liberals originally saw student radicals in the 1960s. I think one day soon something like the Harvard library burning is going to make conservatives realize that these people present more of a threat than a tool for advancing conservative goals. I hope it doesn’t involve an assassination or Oklahoma City-type event. But you can’t pour fuel on the fires of peoples’ emotions the way Glenn Beck does on a daily basis without getting an explosion at some point.

Bartlett’s comparison is thought-provoking, but I think fails for the following reasons:

1) The radical left of the 1960s was not “cannon fodder” for liberal elites. On the contrary, liberal elites were the principal target of the radicals. Student radicals hated Clark Kerr and Robert McNamara as much or more than they hated J. Edgar Hoover or Richard Nixon. The Panthers despised the civil rights leadership at least as much as they hated George Wallace. Today’s angry conservative base by contrast directs its rage across the partisan divide.

2) Liberal elites kept a much greater distance from the radicals than conservative elites do. Can you imagine the Sulzberger or Graham family giving a platform to the left-wing equivalent of Glenn Beck, in the way that Rupert Murdoch has done?

3) Both sets of elites feared their militant base. But while liberal elites feared that the student radicals and black radicals would attack them, today’s conservative elites fear that the angry Republican base will withdraw their support from them.

4) Violence was integral to the 1960s left, and especially to the Black Panthers. On the right, so far there’s plenty of paranoia but thankfully nothing remotely like the cult of revolutionary violence that wrecked so many lives in the years 1965-1975.

Frum seems to be saying that today’s angry conservative base:

• Is not directing its anger at conservative elites.
• Is being cossetted by Murdoch.
• Are "wanted" by conservative elites (for their votes and noise making capacity).
• Not violent (yet).

On the whole it appears that Frum is saying that today's angry conservative phenomenon is worse than the Black Panthers because there's no daylight between them and the conservative elites.

That sounds strange coming from Frum.


posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2009 04:24:00 PM

Mitch McConnell:

"We have very enlightened plantation owners in this country now, treating slaves better and slaves have decided they don’t want to be freed."

No, wait. That's an incorrect quote. What he really said was:

"We have very enlightened management in this country now, treating employees better and employees have decided they don’t want to pay the [union] dues."

McConnell is making the case that absent economic power for labor (through unions), management will be just as generous. It's a perennial Republican claim, that economic power is of no account. McCain (and before him, Bush Jr.) asserted that individuals would be able to "shop around" and get as good a health care package as a large entity, like a major corporation or government agency.


posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2009 02:58:00 PM

Blame Rupert Murdoch:

Joe Klein (excerpted at Political Animal w/comments):

We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal ...

I'm usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country -- even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long -- but I have a sinking feeling about where we're headed now. I hope I'm wrong.

posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2009 02:42:00 PM

Watching traffic:

Have you noticed that more cars are driving around with unfixed dings? You know, crumpled metal that looks bad but the car still drives. Getting a car's cosmetic external damage fixed is definitely a deferrable expense. It can cost, what, $400 in many cases? That's money that anyone unemployed is not interested in spending. Better use the cash for food (or rent).


posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2009 10:18:00 AM

Knives:

Writing in Salon, Gene Lyons says: (emp add)

If President Obama expects Congress to pass a healthcare reform bill worth signing, he'd better grasp that "bipartisanship" is a means, not an end. (...)

The White House ought to have learned from unanimous Republican opposition to the economic stimulus. (...)

Remarkably, Obama failed to get the message. Seemingly preoccupied with the president's image as a transformative figure, the White House keeps trying to negotiate with people who seek his political destruction.

Yup.

Also this:

On healthcare reform, Obama has mainly his own high-minded fecklessness to blame. To alter the cliché, he hasn't just brought a knife to a gunfight, he's brought a cake knife.

More like a butter knife, if you ask me.


posted by Quiddity at 9/03/2009 08:33:00 AM

Good news everybody!

CNBC (where Maria Bartiromo hangs out):

Bailed-Out Banks' Executives Set to Cash In Again

Top executives of bailed-out banks, who were awarded stock options as the sector bottomed out earlier this year, are set to pocket millions of dollars in profits as prices rebound, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The top five executives at 10 financial institutions that took some of the biggest taxpayer bailouts have seen a combined increase in the value of their stock options of nearly $90 million, the report by the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies said.

What Arianna Huffington wrote recently:

Has Obama's Handling of the Bank Bailout Undermined Health Care Reform?

... Take the bank bailouts. The dust is finally beginning to settle on that front, and what we are seeing doesn't bode well for the ongoing health care fight.

... one of the main consequences of the one-sided bailout of Wall Street is the way it has undermined public trust in government.

... Rob Johnson, economist at the Economic Policy Institute, and former Chief Economist of the Senate Banking Committee, blogging on HuffPost, nailed it:

By refusing to stand up to the oligarchs and set proper boundaries in defense of society, they fed the cynics and dissipated the magic that Obama had created for real change. The administration seemed closer to Jamie (Dimon) and Goldman Sachs than to us. The lesson: if you fail to defend society once, people lose faith. The loss of faith carries a high price, and we're paying that price now in the arena of health care reform.

And yet the administration is shocked -- shocked that Americans aren't rallying behind its vague health care plan. They can try to blame it on Fox News or town hall crazies, but I hope they know that much of the health care anger is a proxy for bailout anger.

Americans feel it in their gut that the White House is treating the big business health care establishment the same way it handled the big business Wall Street establishment.

posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2009 09:13:00 AM

Did you know?

Michael Gerson writes:

... Obama could abandon universal coverage and concentrate on health-care access for the poor and working class. A serious expansion of Medicaid -- already included in House and Senate health proposals -- is separable from other reforms and scalable to whatever level Congress deems affordable. And because this option expands an existing federal health-care role instead of creating one, it is less scary.

In order to qualify for Medicaid, you not only can't be earning much money, but you also have to divest yourself of practically all of your (non-house) assets. Even your 401K. You are typically allowed a house and an inexpensive car and less than $2K in your checking account, but that's it.

It's not clear what Gerson means by "expanding" Medicaid. If it's merely to raise the income criteria, it may give some middle class people medical services, but they'll still end up wiped out financially.


posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2009 02:08:00 AM

Crazy Horse memorial:

A nice write-up in the New York Times. Speaking as an engineer, I've always wanted to see that completed.

ALSO: The Crazy Horse webcam.


posted by Quiddity at 9/02/2009 02:06:00 AM

The Huckabee health care plan is already in place!

Huck:

I want to see improvements in health care, too. But I think a better way to honor Ted Kennedy would be to ensure that every American has access to the latest private health care, as good as what senators receive.

Hey, every American has access to the latest private health care. No one is stopping you from seeking out and paying for whatever treatment you want. You have access. (Yglesias commentor JRE makes the same point.)

Can we stop this stupid word game now?


posted by Quiddity at 9/01/2009 06:04:00 PM

That Michal Steele / RNC health care ad:

From the transcript: (emp add)

I'm Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican Party. Join us in supporting a new Seniors' Bill of Rights.

Let's agree in both parties that Congress should only consider health reform proposals that protect senior citizens. (...)

Prevent any government role in end-of-life care.

Got that? Prevent "any" role. Even, say, free brochures that advocate hanging in there to the very end.


posted by Quiddity at 9/01/2009 04:28:00 PM