Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Hubris Under Glass
For our entire staff, and many others we know in the political and media worlds, the many novels of Stephen King have been, if nothing else, great entertainment over the last 30 years. One of Mr. King's more recent books, "Under the Dome," has even been made into a TV series this summer, that Nielsen watchers say has been summer ratings gold - even if the acting is less than stellar.
We honestly think Mr. King might have been able to make his disaster/sci-fi TV mini-series on a smaller budget, had he just filmed a series of documentaries about how Americans are faring under the all-too-real catastrophe of sequestration.
Yes, sequestration - the topic that makes every myopically focused, ratings addicted media executive scream in terror - is back in the news, for those who are done freaking out about the birth of the progeny of the House of Windsor.
From the military to the legal system, and from housing to Head Start, while much of the media has continued to ignore the effects of the sequester, the facts are clear that the sequester is already slamming those Americans who often work hardest and can afford these cuts the least. Meanwhile, Congress - and especially House Republicans - continue to remain safely under their own version of a dome, politically protected from most of the damage their near total incompetence has created.
Real cracks are beginning to show in parts of that dome though, as evidenced by the remarks of former U.S. Senator and current U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Monday, at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Hagel admitted flat-out that the sequester is already destroying America's military readiness - and warned that things will get worse if Congress doesn't get off their asses and do something.
Sadly, as both Greg Sargent and Steve Benen have discussed for months now, this kind of sabotage governing - if it can be called governing at all - is about the only thing the extremist Republicans in the House will allow right now.
What's worse, as Sahil Kapur points out, in House GOP draft legislation for the 2014 budget, House Republicans are bullheadedly insisting that even more austerity cuts be made to nearly every corner of government, from the EPA, to the arts, to parks, fish and wildlife. Every corner, that is, except the ones that touch the fat asses of those who think they're protected under their own political dome.
For all those who still blame President Obama for not single-handedly rescuing the entire American economy, the fact is, President Obama can't do entirely on his own what's needed to get the American economy really humming again. That doesn't mean that he's not doing what he can, using the bully pulpit and the power of the Presidency this week to pivot the economy into the center of public discussion once again.
Congress, however - and especially the House Republican caucus - continues to remain blindingly ignorant of the fact that like Mr. King's summer mini-series, their own dome of political protection isn't going to last forever.
If members of Congress want to have something to show their constituents when they run for re-election in 2014, to prove that they can indeed govern, now would be the time for them to drop their ideological shields, in favor of very real compromise.
Will that happen? Not bloody likely.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Facing Down The Monsters
Americans have a history of cowardice when it comes to facing complex subjects.
On everything from race to health insurance, too often our leaders at all levels seem to avoid these complex subjects like the plague. So it was surprising but gratifying to see President Obama address race personally and directly in unscripted remarks from the White House press room last Friday afternoon.
Of all the complicated issues in America, race is one of the most complex. As Jamelle Bouie noted, "The idea of race was shaped on American soil, and racism — as a system, as an ideology — is part of our national DNA." To know that the President himself, in just the last dozen years, has personally experienced the injustice of being profiled while simply being black in America was both cathartic and - in light of the ongoing discussion of the ruling in the Zimmerman/Martin case - humbling, especially for many white Americans.
As Ed Kilgore wrote, no matter what you think about the President's remarks, you can't pretend the experiences and the history of African-Americans aren't relevant to the discussion of race. Yet many on the right freaked out after the President's comments on race, desperately trying - and failing - to discount the life experiences of black Americans. At the same time, their despicable comments tried to defend the racism and ignorance of some whites as acceptable.
In a similar way, Republicans across America tried and failed to defend their ignorance and classism on the issue of Obamacare over the weekend. Like a monster that keeps trying and failing to scare children, the Obamacare opposition is loud, ugly, and leaves piles of crap in its wake. However, as we noted last Friday, the continuing bluster from that opposition is not stopping the ACA from moving forward.
Even so, over the weekend, House Speaker John Boehner promised even more pointless votes in the House to try and kill Obamacare. Yet three years after passing the Affordable Care Act - also known as 'Obamacare' - Republicans still have no alternative ideas, let alone any viable replacement legislation. What they have is fear and misinformation.
This was obvious on Friday, when - in the wake of the massive amount of factual information about the health insurance system (that we featured in our extended Friday edition) - the state of Indiana published a misleading and flawed announcement about Obamacare rates in their state. Thankfully, by Saturday afternoon, Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post's Wonkblog had already published a debunk and a clarification of Indiana's lies.
Both race and health insurance are complicated issues that are hard to understand. More than any other single group in America today, those on the American political right seem to fear that which they do not understand - and they nearly always react these days with knee-jerk stupidity. Fear-mongering, sadly, has become the GOP's sole method of motivation over the last fifteen years, and it is the primary driver behind most right-wing media today.
Today's young people, however, don't seem to be buying into all the fear. This is reflected not just in the dismal numbers of new voters joining the Republican Party, but also in polls and through the actions of young Americans on complex issues like race. That was a point President Obama made in his remarks on Friday, as Greg Sargent sagely noticed.
The President observed that his kids and their generation are better at handling the complex issue of race than his contemporaries, or any of us are currently doing. Chances are likely the next generation will also be much better about handling issues of public conscience like health care for all Americans.
Kids these days are not afraid of facing complex issues head on. Too bad more of our current leaders aren't willing to learn from their generation.
On everything from race to health insurance, too often our leaders at all levels seem to avoid these complex subjects like the plague. So it was surprising but gratifying to see President Obama address race personally and directly in unscripted remarks from the White House press room last Friday afternoon.
Of all the complicated issues in America, race is one of the most complex. As Jamelle Bouie noted, "The idea of race was shaped on American soil, and racism — as a system, as an ideology — is part of our national DNA." To know that the President himself, in just the last dozen years, has personally experienced the injustice of being profiled while simply being black in America was both cathartic and - in light of the ongoing discussion of the ruling in the Zimmerman/Martin case - humbling, especially for many white Americans.
As Ed Kilgore wrote, no matter what you think about the President's remarks, you can't pretend the experiences and the history of African-Americans aren't relevant to the discussion of race. Yet many on the right freaked out after the President's comments on race, desperately trying - and failing - to discount the life experiences of black Americans. At the same time, their despicable comments tried to defend the racism and ignorance of some whites as acceptable.
In a similar way, Republicans across America tried and failed to defend their ignorance and classism on the issue of Obamacare over the weekend. Like a monster that keeps trying and failing to scare children, the Obamacare opposition is loud, ugly, and leaves piles of crap in its wake. However, as we noted last Friday, the continuing bluster from that opposition is not stopping the ACA from moving forward.
Even so, over the weekend, House Speaker John Boehner promised even more pointless votes in the House to try and kill Obamacare. Yet three years after passing the Affordable Care Act - also known as 'Obamacare' - Republicans still have no alternative ideas, let alone any viable replacement legislation. What they have is fear and misinformation.
This was obvious on Friday, when - in the wake of the massive amount of factual information about the health insurance system (that we featured in our extended Friday edition) - the state of Indiana published a misleading and flawed announcement about Obamacare rates in their state. Thankfully, by Saturday afternoon, Sarah Kliff of the Washington Post's Wonkblog had already published a debunk and a clarification of Indiana's lies.
Both race and health insurance are complicated issues that are hard to understand. More than any other single group in America today, those on the American political right seem to fear that which they do not understand - and they nearly always react these days with knee-jerk stupidity. Fear-mongering, sadly, has become the GOP's sole method of motivation over the last fifteen years, and it is the primary driver behind most right-wing media today.
Today's young people, however, don't seem to be buying into all the fear. This is reflected not just in the dismal numbers of new voters joining the Republican Party, but also in polls and through the actions of young Americans on complex issues like race. That was a point President Obama made in his remarks on Friday, as Greg Sargent sagely noticed.
The President observed that his kids and their generation are better at handling the complex issue of race than his contemporaries, or any of us are currently doing. Chances are likely the next generation will also be much better about handling issues of public conscience like health care for all Americans.
Kids these days are not afraid of facing complex issues head on. Too bad more of our current leaders aren't willing to learn from their generation.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Talking The Talk, With Suprising Results
It's Friday again, thankfully, and to our complete lack of surprise, there are far more topics to talk about fully than we have space for here.
On a positive note, after Mitch McConnell and the Republican extremists in the Senate got their heads nearly handed to them, Congress - specifically the Senate - actually got a few things done this week. Multiple members of President Obama's cabinet were approved by the Senate, and the Senate even managed to put together a student loan deal that might fix the ongoing student loan interest rate problem. Those were both nice surprises this week.
Ezra Klein, Sarah Kliff, and their Wonkblog teammates released an incredibly thorough and detailed breakdown of Obamacare yesterday at the Washington Post, which we recommend you take a look at this weekend. Greg Sargent, also at the WaPo, pointed out the unsurprising fact that no matter how the right wing stamps their feet and tries poorly to obstruct progress, the battle over universal health care coverage is over. Spoiler alert - the anti-Obama folks lost, for good.
In neither good or surprising news, Detroit filed for bankruptcy this week, the largest city in the United States to ever to do so. It also wasn't surprising that the Texas Legislature had their 20 week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Rick "I can't remember the third one" Perry. The Texas Leg also went a bit farther, overreaching as they try to create a six week abortion ban - which will likely end up being blown out as such restrictions are unconstitutional.
We were also sadly unsurprised by the racism and ignorance displayed by so many this week, in the wake of the verdict surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. Like 'The Talk' about race and judgment that nearly every parent of an African-American child must have with their kids, we knew that no matter what the jury decided in the Zimmerman trial, there would be a lot of talk about race, racism, and exactly what kind of people walk around with semi-invisible bull's eyes on them, in modern America.
What we didn't expect this week was to see the ugliness of race and racism infect an event we'd been waiting a whole year to see, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
Two separate incidents riled the inbred redneck portion of the All-Star audience this week: the post-Home Run Derby interview with the winner, Cuban-born Yoenis Céspedes, and the singing of "God Bless America" at the All-Star game by American-born, Grammy-winning bilingual singer Marc Anthony.
We may be a little biased, having a professional linguist on our staff, but the idea that Céspedes spoke mostly Spanish in his post-derby interview didn't really bother us that much. For the ignorant and intolerant in America, however, the idea that the winner of America's national home run contest chose to speak both Spanish and English was a horror nearly as bad as being stalked to death by a neighborhood watchman with a gun, and an itchy trigger finger.
As Gregg Doyle of CBS Sports made blisteringly clear on Thursday, bilingual Americans are indeed America's future. For all the flak Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel got from the right wing about her less-than-perfect English, the fact that Ms Jeantel is fluent in at least three languages is one they constantly overlooked ths week - which didn't surprise us at all.
For all the ugliness we saw and heard this past week, and all the injustice we witnessed, we think it's important to remember what one of our friends of an African-American child told us, when we asked about their reaction to the Zimmerman verdict.
"We had 'The Talk' and he knows how to behave," she said about her young son. "He's a good boy and, God willing, he'll become a good man. All I can do now is count our blessings at the end of the week, and remember those angry ignorant people are the exception, not the rule."
Truthfully, that's all most of us can do in life: Count our blessings, remember the worst people in life are the exception, then get back on the playing field of life and knock the cover off the ball.
Enjoy your weekend.
On a positive note, after Mitch McConnell and the Republican extremists in the Senate got their heads nearly handed to them, Congress - specifically the Senate - actually got a few things done this week. Multiple members of President Obama's cabinet were approved by the Senate, and the Senate even managed to put together a student loan deal that might fix the ongoing student loan interest rate problem. Those were both nice surprises this week.
Ezra Klein, Sarah Kliff, and their Wonkblog teammates released an incredibly thorough and detailed breakdown of Obamacare yesterday at the Washington Post, which we recommend you take a look at this weekend. Greg Sargent, also at the WaPo, pointed out the unsurprising fact that no matter how the right wing stamps their feet and tries poorly to obstruct progress, the battle over universal health care coverage is over. Spoiler alert - the anti-Obama folks lost, for good.
In neither good or surprising news, Detroit filed for bankruptcy this week, the largest city in the United States to ever to do so. It also wasn't surprising that the Texas Legislature had their 20 week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Rick "I can't remember the third one" Perry. The Texas Leg also went a bit farther, overreaching as they try to create a six week abortion ban - which will likely end up being blown out as such restrictions are unconstitutional.
We were also sadly unsurprised by the racism and ignorance displayed by so many this week, in the wake of the verdict surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman. Like 'The Talk' about race and judgment that nearly every parent of an African-American child must have with their kids, we knew that no matter what the jury decided in the Zimmerman trial, there would be a lot of talk about race, racism, and exactly what kind of people walk around with semi-invisible bull's eyes on them, in modern America.
What we didn't expect this week was to see the ugliness of race and racism infect an event we'd been waiting a whole year to see, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.
Two separate incidents riled the inbred redneck portion of the All-Star audience this week: the post-Home Run Derby interview with the winner, Cuban-born Yoenis Céspedes, and the singing of "God Bless America" at the All-Star game by American-born, Grammy-winning bilingual singer Marc Anthony.
We may be a little biased, having a professional linguist on our staff, but the idea that Céspedes spoke mostly Spanish in his post-derby interview didn't really bother us that much. For the ignorant and intolerant in America, however, the idea that the winner of America's national home run contest chose to speak both Spanish and English was a horror nearly as bad as being stalked to death by a neighborhood watchman with a gun, and an itchy trigger finger.
As Gregg Doyle of CBS Sports made blisteringly clear on Thursday, bilingual Americans are indeed America's future. For all the flak Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel got from the right wing about her less-than-perfect English, the fact that Ms Jeantel is fluent in at least three languages is one they constantly overlooked ths week - which didn't surprise us at all.
For all the ugliness we saw and heard this past week, and all the injustice we witnessed, we think it's important to remember what one of our friends of an African-American child told us, when we asked about their reaction to the Zimmerman verdict.
"We had 'The Talk' and he knows how to behave," she said about her young son. "He's a good boy and, God willing, he'll become a good man. All I can do now is count our blessings at the end of the week, and remember those angry ignorant people are the exception, not the rule."
Truthfully, that's all most of us can do in life: Count our blessings, remember the worst people in life are the exception, then get back on the playing field of life and knock the cover off the ball.
Enjoy your weekend.
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