While there are many reasons we enjoy Paul Fell's cartoons - like today's edition with President Obama and the Keystone XL pipeline - the biggest reason is that humor can often take the edge off discussing complex powderkeg issues. Climate change and the Keystone pipeline definitely fall into that category.
We've been hearing rumors for several months now, since the President mentioned climate change in his second inaugural address, that President Obama would indeed be taking on climate change issues in his second term. As Kevin Drum noted, Obama's pick earlier this year of Gina McCarthy to head the EPA - pending Senate confirmation - was a huge clue that those rumors about the President's choice of direction indeed look to be true.
Yesterday, the New York Times published another story that gave even more credence to the idea that President Obama is indeed looking at taking on climate change by taking on big oil, big coal, and big energy in his second term, by preparing to enact new emissions limits on power plants. That story matched the speech Obama gave in Berlin on Wednesday, where he again hit the idea that if Congress would not act to curb climate change, he would.
For those people who support President Obama, and believe he truly does care about the issue of climate change, all of these are good signs that bolster their opinion of him.
There are also, however, plenty of other legitimate sources and rumors that say President Obama may just be ready to jump on board the Keystone bandwagon, and allow the pipeline to go forward - and those signs are worrying, indeed.
According to a report by Juliet Eilperin in the Washington Post last week, at a recent San Francisco area fundraiser, President Obama made some private remarks expressing how politically difficult some of the decisions on climate change may actually be to implement. The President is somewhat hamstrung on all sides right now, with a Congress unwilling or unable to accomplish anything, an economy growing far too slowly, unemployment higher than most would like, and a continually growing need for more energy in America.
You can add to the President's complicated decision on this issue the conduct of companies like Transcanada, who the President would be siding with, if he choses to authorize the pipeline.
It's not just that Transcanada has been acting like a bully lately. They've also been promising the highest safety standards if the new Keystone XL pipeline is built - while at the same time choosing to use a lower grade of oil spill detectors for that pipeline. This is also in the wake of one of North America's largest environmental disasters ever, in Northern Alberta, Canada, by a company that has done a significant amount of business for and with Transcanada.
As Greg Sargent at The Plum Line noted on Wednesday, for now, the approach President Obama appears to be taking is somewhat of a good thing. At least he's talking about climate change, energy policy, and what steps Americans can and should take to make things better. That position alone is more than most politicians of any party are taking, and far more than virtually any CEO of almost any private corporation.
What decision President Obama makes on the pipeline though, is anyone's guess. Some are sure he will allow it. Others are still insisting he won't. We have even heard rumors that should he authorize it, there are those prepared to violently attack the construction of the new pipeline.
For now, we hope this heated battle of words remains just that, words.
We also hope the President makes the right decision on this issue.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The Naked Truth
There are times where being in the media is both exciting and terrifying, as we must keep our attention on an incredibly broad range of rapidly changing - and sometimes shocking - stories in the short term, while we continue to keep our collective focus on stories that take months or even years to see through.
For example, over the last twenty four hours, the big headlines included both the NBA and NHL finals. They also included more discussion about the NSA's spying, and writer Glenn Greenwald. The great majority of that chatter still hasn't focused on the truly important debate on security and privacy - though there have been notable exceptions like the piece in the Washington Post on Tuesday from Katrina Vanden Heuvel. The headlines have also included more wrangling on the immigration reform bill currently working it's way through the U.S. House, including some amazingly good news about the immigration reform bill from the CBO.
There was even a ridiculous story centering on Republican Congressman Michael Burgess from Texas, who appears to have some seriously warped ideas about fetuses. The U.S. House also passed a pointless attempt to limit abortion to twenty weeks or less. We suppose we should be grateful that the Republican-led House didn't generate yet another pointless story by tossing in their 38th ultimately pointless vote to try and retroactively kill President Obama's health care reform law.
Obamacare has been one of those stories that's taken years to see through, and it's still not a finished product yet.
Like a new suit that doesn't quite fit yet, the President's signature legislation of his first term still needs to have a few alterations - though not quite the fantasy redesigns some Republicans would like to see.
For all the promises to unveil a GOP alternative to Obamacare, and the internal party battles over the law, Republicans still have yet to put together any replacement plan for health care. Most have begun to accept it's not going anywhere. As Ezra Klein's Wonktalk with Avik Roy showed on Tuesday, even some of Obamacare's greatest critics have now effectively accepted most of the main points of the law.
Whether or not anyone has truly accepted the reality that the Affordable Care Act is now etched in legal stone, you'll likely begin to see and hear a lot more about it soon. Groups like Enroll America, alongside many private insurance companies, are beginning to step up their grassroots campaigns, It's in the best interest of both the insurance companies and Americans to make sure everyone is registered for and able to take advantage of the new health care benefits available to all next year.
In states like California and Oregon, where Obamacare has been implemented as fully as possible at this stage, premiums and rates are not only dropping. Insurers are competing to drop their rates lower and faster than either the insurance companies or many health care experts expected.
Obamacare will also get another chance to become a campaign issue in 2014, though likely a very positive one. Dr. Donald Berwick, a Democrat, former Obama administration official, and a key figure in the roll out of Obamacare announced on Tuesday the start of his 2014 campaign to become the Governor of Massachusetts.
For a government program that's been in the process of rolling out for more than two years, it may seem a little counterintuitive when we note that the naked truth about Obamacare is that its actually pretty simple to understand.
Obamacare may not fit perfectly at first for you and your family - and there are adjustments that will need to be made, both to individual plans and the system as a whole. That said, when states work WITH the Federal government, Obamacare appears to be better than the tattered old health care system Americans have been using, if and when they could afford to.
Obamacare, as it stands isn't a bad plan - And it's certainly better than the GOP's non-existent plan.
For example, over the last twenty four hours, the big headlines included both the NBA and NHL finals. They also included more discussion about the NSA's spying, and writer Glenn Greenwald. The great majority of that chatter still hasn't focused on the truly important debate on security and privacy - though there have been notable exceptions like the piece in the Washington Post on Tuesday from Katrina Vanden Heuvel. The headlines have also included more wrangling on the immigration reform bill currently working it's way through the U.S. House, including some amazingly good news about the immigration reform bill from the CBO.
There was even a ridiculous story centering on Republican Congressman Michael Burgess from Texas, who appears to have some seriously warped ideas about fetuses. The U.S. House also passed a pointless attempt to limit abortion to twenty weeks or less. We suppose we should be grateful that the Republican-led House didn't generate yet another pointless story by tossing in their 38th ultimately pointless vote to try and retroactively kill President Obama's health care reform law.
Obamacare has been one of those stories that's taken years to see through, and it's still not a finished product yet.
Like a new suit that doesn't quite fit yet, the President's signature legislation of his first term still needs to have a few alterations - though not quite the fantasy redesigns some Republicans would like to see.
For all the promises to unveil a GOP alternative to Obamacare, and the internal party battles over the law, Republicans still have yet to put together any replacement plan for health care. Most have begun to accept it's not going anywhere. As Ezra Klein's Wonktalk with Avik Roy showed on Tuesday, even some of Obamacare's greatest critics have now effectively accepted most of the main points of the law.
Whether or not anyone has truly accepted the reality that the Affordable Care Act is now etched in legal stone, you'll likely begin to see and hear a lot more about it soon. Groups like Enroll America, alongside many private insurance companies, are beginning to step up their grassroots campaigns, It's in the best interest of both the insurance companies and Americans to make sure everyone is registered for and able to take advantage of the new health care benefits available to all next year.
In states like California and Oregon, where Obamacare has been implemented as fully as possible at this stage, premiums and rates are not only dropping. Insurers are competing to drop their rates lower and faster than either the insurance companies or many health care experts expected.
Obamacare will also get another chance to become a campaign issue in 2014, though likely a very positive one. Dr. Donald Berwick, a Democrat, former Obama administration official, and a key figure in the roll out of Obamacare announced on Tuesday the start of his 2014 campaign to become the Governor of Massachusetts.
For a government program that's been in the process of rolling out for more than two years, it may seem a little counterintuitive when we note that the naked truth about Obamacare is that its actually pretty simple to understand.
Obamacare may not fit perfectly at first for you and your family - and there are adjustments that will need to be made, both to individual plans and the system as a whole. That said, when states work WITH the Federal government, Obamacare appears to be better than the tattered old health care system Americans have been using, if and when they could afford to.
Obamacare, as it stands isn't a bad plan - And it's certainly better than the GOP's non-existent plan.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Missing The Boat
In American politics right now, those who are in charge are missing the proverbial boat on a whole host of issues - a fact that appears to be more obvious to a wider cross section of the American people every day.
As we noted Monday, a nascent debate on Syria appeared to be on the horizon as the week began. But with two separate polls from both the Pew Center and Gallup, it's already clear what the opinion of the American people is on Syria - America should stay out of it. Unfortunately, President Obama has already missed the boat on that one, after authorizing a small number of arms to be sent to Syrian rebels. Still, the President may not be sunk yet on his minor Syrian decision, though as Washington Monthly's Ed Kilgore noted yesterday, the hopes of neo-con chicken hawks like Senators McCain and Graham - and their military contractor donors - may be completely underwater with public disapproval of more U.S. war involvement being so high.
On immigration, any sane person looking at the demographic realities facing the GOP might logically believe there's a course that should allow immigration reform to sail through Congress. Not surprisingly to us, however, is the torpedoing by extremist tea party Republicans of any immigration plan that might pass the Senate and be signed by the President. The attempt to tie immigration to Obamacare and the latest plan by Sen. Ted Cruz to override the Supreme Court's Voter ID ruling are both examples of the GOP being effectively dead in the water on the issue of immigration reform.
Of course, if members of Congress were sane, they also wouldn't follow the example of Rep. Eric Cantor, who's been trying to trash the President, as weeks of overblown scandals and fake outrage have caused a dip in Obama's poll numbers. As Steve Benen at Maddowblog pointed out, Cantor - and frankly anyone in Congress - should really keep their political stones in their pockets, since Congress now has its lowest approval ratings EVER. Even with a slight dip in his poll numbers, Americans still like and trust President Obama five times more than they do Congress.
The plunge into stupidity doesn't stop there.
As Jonathan Bernstein noted over at The Plum Line, and as our staffers have said for years, the almost slavish devotion to the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party also now appears to be costing the GOP to lose some of the moderate religious right. Indeed, Bernstein cites a story by Anne Kim and Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly that details how some moderate religious Republicans have been trying to find solutions to their problems with Obamacare. Instead of the GOP supporting and helping out their natural constituents, these religious Republicans looking for a healthcare solution have found two champions in Democratic senators Mark Pryor and Chris Coons.
What Americans really want doesn't take a deep dive into policy or partisanship to understand.
They want more jobs, better pay, healthcare for all, and a government that works efficiently and effectively. They want policies that make sense, like not getting involved in civil wars of other nations - especially in the Middle East - and not having their government spy on them.
They also want an immigration policy that keeps families together and rewards hard-working immigrants, while punishing corporations that try to abuse those immigrants.
That so many people in American politics seem to be missing the boat so often these days makes us wonder exactly what they're really thinking - or if those at some of the highest levels of politics are even capable of floating a cogent thought on their own anymore.
As we noted Monday, a nascent debate on Syria appeared to be on the horizon as the week began. But with two separate polls from both the Pew Center and Gallup, it's already clear what the opinion of the American people is on Syria - America should stay out of it. Unfortunately, President Obama has already missed the boat on that one, after authorizing a small number of arms to be sent to Syrian rebels. Still, the President may not be sunk yet on his minor Syrian decision, though as Washington Monthly's Ed Kilgore noted yesterday, the hopes of neo-con chicken hawks like Senators McCain and Graham - and their military contractor donors - may be completely underwater with public disapproval of more U.S. war involvement being so high.
On immigration, any sane person looking at the demographic realities facing the GOP might logically believe there's a course that should allow immigration reform to sail through Congress. Not surprisingly to us, however, is the torpedoing by extremist tea party Republicans of any immigration plan that might pass the Senate and be signed by the President. The attempt to tie immigration to Obamacare and the latest plan by Sen. Ted Cruz to override the Supreme Court's Voter ID ruling are both examples of the GOP being effectively dead in the water on the issue of immigration reform.
Of course, if members of Congress were sane, they also wouldn't follow the example of Rep. Eric Cantor, who's been trying to trash the President, as weeks of overblown scandals and fake outrage have caused a dip in Obama's poll numbers. As Steve Benen at Maddowblog pointed out, Cantor - and frankly anyone in Congress - should really keep their political stones in their pockets, since Congress now has its lowest approval ratings EVER. Even with a slight dip in his poll numbers, Americans still like and trust President Obama five times more than they do Congress.
The plunge into stupidity doesn't stop there.
As Jonathan Bernstein noted over at The Plum Line, and as our staffers have said for years, the almost slavish devotion to the extreme right-wing of the Republican Party also now appears to be costing the GOP to lose some of the moderate religious right. Indeed, Bernstein cites a story by Anne Kim and Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly that details how some moderate religious Republicans have been trying to find solutions to their problems with Obamacare. Instead of the GOP supporting and helping out their natural constituents, these religious Republicans looking for a healthcare solution have found two champions in Democratic senators Mark Pryor and Chris Coons.
What Americans really want doesn't take a deep dive into policy or partisanship to understand.
They want more jobs, better pay, healthcare for all, and a government that works efficiently and effectively. They want policies that make sense, like not getting involved in civil wars of other nations - especially in the Middle East - and not having their government spy on them.
They also want an immigration policy that keeps families together and rewards hard-working immigrants, while punishing corporations that try to abuse those immigrants.
That so many people in American politics seem to be missing the boat so often these days makes us wonder exactly what they're really thinking - or if those at some of the highest levels of politics are even capable of floating a cogent thought on their own anymore.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)