Obama's first test of will.

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Sunday December 05, 2010 · 12:07 AM PST

2010/12/05 · 00:07

There is this one funny fact about Presidential power when it comes to shaping legislation:

The President is nearly powerless to shape legislation (no, stop, don't roll your eyes and go back to the main page, hear me out).

Take everything you've heard from the media and pundits and even our own little bubble of group think -- look at the actual powers given to the President.

Below I will explain why I believe that the Tax Cuts for Millionaires is the first real test of Obama's will.

Poll

37 votes Show Results

Do you agree that this is Obama's first real test of legislative will?

37 votes Vote Now!

Do you agree that this is Obama's first real test of legislative will?

Yes

19 votes

18 votes

I don't like to think too hard.

0 votes

Breitbart won. Tea Bagger Racists? Who?

firant

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Wednesday July 21, 2010 · 10:17 AM PDT

2010/07/21 · 10:17

Two days ago we were discussing how the latent racism in the tea party.

Today, we're arguing whether or not it was fair to brand a lower tier Obama Administration official and NAACP honoree as racist.

By any reasonable measure of spin, Breitbart succeeded in changing the narrative. He has persuaded the media to engage in its favorite story, reporting on he-said-she said media navel gazing.

firant

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Wednesday March 31, 2010 · 9:08 AM PDT

2010/03/31 · 09:08

For a decade now, the Republicans have had a problem . . . Fox News, and it's getting worse.

Fox News is a service of Rupert Murdoch's vast News Corporation empire, a mostly conservative entity that is focused principally outside the United States (he was born in Australia, and took up US citizenship because we do not allow foreign citizens to own TV stations).News Corp. is principally an Australia and British business, most of his newspapers and TV stations are there, and Murdoch focused his attention there before he went global with a chain of satellite TV stations. Rupert Murdoch could give a shit about Republicans, or Democrats, or politics at all really -- he's made it clear that to him news is a business, and he's in the business of making money, not selling ideas.

firant

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Thursday December 17, 2009 · 2:29 PM PST

2009/12/17 · 14:29

It's time to get out there and save HCR.

The public option is gone? Okay, the it's time to cut all of the cost management portions out of the bill -- that includes the Individual Mandate (which is intended to drive down prices by increasing the pool of the healthy insured) and the excise tax on "cadilac" plans.

This would leave us with a bill that moderately reforms the rules by which Insurance companies play, provides subsidies to the poor, and creates some form of state-level exchange.

Not a great bill, but it will not do a great evil.

The current bill, as the Senate has altered it -- has created a preposterous position where folks who are older, or folks with high blood pressure and other pre-existing conditions (hey, I thought those were supposed to go away) end up paying up to three times as much as their peers -- how many of those plans will wind up subject to the excise tax because of their high price-line?

If on the other hand, you are a healthy person, the gov't will give you a stiff tax penalty if you fail to pay for excessively expensive insurance.

Both of those look like taxes that hit people earning less than $200,000 a year.

What's left if the Senate actually strikes the Mandate and the Excise tax from the bill?

firant

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Monday November 30, 2009 · 9:24 PM PST

2009/11/30 · 21:24

I am truly torn on the question of Afghanistan. I want to believe we can move troops in and make life better for the people of Afghanistan. I want to believe we can put our mind and our hands to work for them, and make the world a better and more peaceful place.

I am ladened with a classic case ofwhite man's burden.

Below I'm going to walk through my emotional response to the Afghan war, what I've learned about myself as I untangled those emotional responses from a more pragmatic view, and why I've come to conclude that ultimately we need to leave Afghanistan ASAP.

firant

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Friday October 30, 2009 · 9:46 AM PDT

2009/10/30 · 09:46

I am frustrated.

On issue after issue we hear about Republican filibusters, Republican resistance, Republican efforts to derail health care, Presidential nominations, endless strings of budget issues, etc. Time after time we give them the "well, they're all against us, bastards and fuckers all" then walk away.

That, is stupid.

We need exactly one moderate republican to step over the line on health care, to vote for cloture, and Joe Lieberman can go blow himself in the middle of the Watertown for all I care. Two, and Blanche Lincoln can go join him. We can't give them a pass for sticking together -- that's not governing, its dicking over their constituents.

So, today I'm going to start calling Senator Luger's office to demand that he vote for cloture after debate on the senate floor, and again when the final bill comes back from reconciliation. Party unity is no excuse.

Don't tell me your Republican is too conservative or too much an ass-hat to care, we need to rattle their cages. If we push hard enough to break up their block-headed unity movement once, it will benefit us, and honestly the country, a whole lot.

firant

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Friday September 25, 2009 · 12:07 AM PDT

2009/09/25 · 00:07

AP is reporting (via HuffingtonPost) that Justice Ginsburg was hospitalized this evening.

The 76-year-old justice, who underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer in February, was taken to Washington Hospital Center at 7:45 p.m. EDT as a precaution, a statement from the court said.

Earlier in the day, she had received an iron sucrose infusion to treat an iron deficiency anemia that had been discovered in July.

About an hour later, she "developed lightheadedness and fatigue," the statement said. She was found to have a slightly low blood pressure, which the court said can occur after the type of treatment she received.

Although an examination found her to be in stable health, she was given fluids and taken to the hospital as a precaution, the court said.

While this sounds like another scary story that amounts to nothing, it does remind that two of the strongest liberal voices on the court are dangerously close to leaving, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Justice Stevens.

firant

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Monday September 21, 2009 · 5:45 AM PDT

2009/09/21 · 05:45

Ezra Klein has an interviewwith Senator Rockefeller about healthcare that gives me hope:

Are you optimistic about getting a bill?

Very. The meeting we had last night helps me say that. Max Baucus does need our votes to get the through the Senate Committee. And there was a coalescence of Democrats that hadn't been pre-plotted. Some of these members had been quiet, and suddenly they were speaking, and loudly, about what was wrong. And if those things weren't fixed, they implied they wouldn't vote for it.

Our Senators are hearing from us, and they're speaking out as they sense the pressure. Now is a good time to double down. Write today, thank your pro-reform senator, or rattle the cages of your anti's.

If there are any Indiana residents reading this, make sure you give senator Luger a word or two for healthcare. He's been quiet lately, but he's unusually reasonable for a Republican, comes from an Obama state, and has a history of working with Obama in the Senate.

Poll

18 votes Show Results

I have

18 votes Vote Now!

I have

e-mailed my senators today

5 votes

called my senator today

4 votes

both e-mailed and called my senator today

2 votes

done nothing (boo)

7 votes

Insanity: Glenn Beck and the Pit.

firant

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Sunday September 20, 2009 · 3:01 AM PDT

2009/09/20 · 03:01

I've been thinking a lot about crazy people lately.

More precisely, I've been thinking about why people are going crazy today in response to a mildly liberal president, a slightly more liberal Speaker of the House, and a much more conservative Senate caucus.

Crying on camera? Calling the President of the United States a racist? Demanding your country back? (did you hock it for a case of whiskey or something?)

What ... the ... hell?

I've worked up a theory on why things are as crazy as they are now, with some good news, and some bad news. If I'm right, the crazies on the political right start to make more sense, they seem even reasonable, in light of what they've lost.

firant

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Friday September 18, 2009 · 9:16 PM PDT

2009/09/18 · 21:16

I though Nacy Pelosi made a strong argument yesterday for toning down the outrageous language that gets thrown at Democrats. Today, the ugly respond:

This doesn't look unplanned to me anymore, this is an intentional call for assassination, and now they're priming the pump to put the blame back on us.

firant

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Wednesday September 16, 2009 · 10:27 PM PDT

2009/09/16 · 22:27

I think there are 4 identifiable positive outcomes from the Baucus process, and the emergence of the worst health care bill evar!

The wider public saw Republicans acting at their best.

The process has given cover to Democratic senators to shove health reform through under reconciliation.

Progressives in Congress (now in both houses) are up in arms.

The Public Option got huge amounts of coverage, and is growing ever more popular.

Which makes NOW the time to push as hard as we can.

firant

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Tuesday September 15, 2009 · 11:52 PM PDT

2009/09/15 · 23:52

Let me begin with an anecdote.

My in-law's water heater destroyed itself two weeks ago. In the process of unmaking itself, it broke the seals on all of the radiators throughout the house, split pipes in the wall, and wreaked a great deal of destruction on their home.

Thankfully, all the damage is covered by their insurance. The process of repairing the damage required them to strip out all their carpets, take down the plaster throughout most of the house, strip the floors, pipe hot air into what was left of the walls to prevent mold growth -- and in the process they discovered asbestos floor tiling hidden under plywood in their bedroom -- this too is covered, and it's going.

They are effectively getting a free rehab of their house because their water heater attacked.

Max Baucus is our collective fucked up water heater. He's done a good deal of harm to the health care bill, which will need to be reamed out and repaired -- but there is a lot of good to be found in the process and we should appreciate that.

Poll

19 votes Show Results

Will the progressive hold out long enough to support my assumptions?

19 votes Vote Now!

Will the progressive hold out long enough to support my assumptions?

Yes

17 votes

Yes, but your assumptions are wrong.

1 vote

No, for various reasons.

1 vote

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Obama's first test of will.

Breitbart won. Tea Bagger Racists? Who?

With Friends Like this, Republicans, Fox News, and Rasmussen.

Kill the Mandate; Save the Bill.

Nation Building: Really?

Our Republican Senators - HCR

Justice Ginsburg Hospitalized; Losing the court.

Rockefeller: If it's not fixed, we won't vote for it.

Insanity: Glenn Beck and the Pit.

They're marking us for death.

Capitalizing on the Baucus Debacle

Looking for a Bright Side in the Baucus Debacle: Four Positive Outcomes