The ACA is here to stay

Republicans are so stunned by the news that total ACA enrollment has reached 17.8 million that they seem to have decided to forget all about Obamacare. Most Republicans no longer mention the word “Obamacare”. Instead, in their hope to distract their base from noticing that they were unable to dismantle Obamacare, they are changing the subject to Benghazi. 

The biggest enrollment number is 8,019,863, which is the total number people enrolled in private Marketplace plans through state-based and federal exchange. Insurers say the percentage of people who have activated their coverage by paying their first premium is 80 to 90 percent – and experts believe it will rise when new policyholders hit their first payment deadline.

In the meantime, the numbers via an HHS press release:

“Importantly, 2.2 million (28 percent) of those who selected a Marketplace plan were young adults ages 18 to 34 — a number that grows to 2.7 million when counting ages 0 to 34, the report found. The report also shows, for the first time, the race and ethnicity of the 69 percent of enrollees in the Federally-facilitated Marketplaces who voluntarily reported this information.

“HHS also announced today that more than 4.8 million additional individuals enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP through the end of March 2014, compared to enrollment before the Marketplace opened last October. 

“More than eight million Americans signed up through the Marketplace, exceeding expectations and demonstrating brisk demand for quality, affordable coverage,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “In addition, over 4.8 million more people have been covered by states through Medicaid and CHIP programs, around 3 million more Americans under 26 are covered under their parents’ plans, and recent estimates show that an additional 5 million people have purchased coverage outside of the Marketplace in Affordable Care Act-compliant plans. Together we are ensuring that health coverage is more accessible than ever before, which is important for families, for businesses and for the nation’s health and well being.” 

The states with the largest numbers of people selecting plans through the exchanges during the six-month open enrollment period included California (1.4 million), Florida (983,800), Texas (733,800), New York (370,500), North Carolina (357,600), Pennsylvania (318,100) and Georgia (316,500). California and New York run their own exchanges. The other five use the federal marketplace. According to the HHS report, the majority of ACA enrollees are white (62.3%) and female (54%). Thirty-four percent of those who enrolled are under age 35, and 28% are age 18-34. 

If we exempt the additional 5 million people who have purchased private ACA-compatible coverage directly from health insurance companies (outside of the Marketplace), the total number of people who now have ACA coverage that likely would not have insurance without the ACA is 12.8 million. That number is for this year – just wait until next year, and the next.  The CBO has said that they believe that by 2016 we will be looking at 25 million to 30 million people enrolled in health plans through the American Healthcare Act (Obamacare).

Republicans have reacted to this news by changing the subject to Benghazi. They have to gin up a scandal to beat the Democrats in 2014 and 2016 since they cannot win an election on policy. These days, Speaker Boehner only wants to talk about the Benghazi emails:

“Someone needs to answer why this administration hid these documents – and tell the American people what else is being concealed. The House used its subpoena power to obtain documents, including emails, last year, but these emails didn’t show up until now, after a court ordered their release to an outside watchdog group. This defiance of the House’s subpoena power is the most flagrant example yet of the administration’s contempt for the American people’s right to know the truth about what happened when four Americans died in a fiery terrorist attack. If the White House will not explain it, Secretary Kerry should come to the Capitol to explain why he defied an official congressional subpoena. And the White House needs to understand that this investigation will not end until the entire truth is revealed and justice and accountability are served.” 

There have already been several investigations that have proven there was no wrong doing other than Republicans cutting the budget by millions for the security of embassies. I think we should go back and investigate the 9 embassy attacks that happened under the Bush administration. Better yet, let's investigate why the Bush administration led us into the Iraq War – and why the warnings leading up to the attack on the World Trade Center were ignored.

It is not just John Boehner and the Republican Party; from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh, no one is talking about the ACA (Obamacare) anymore. And since they cannot allow their base to realize that they have failed to destroy Obamacare, they must gin up another bogus scandal as a distraction.  

The ACA is now and forever entrenched into society. We have won the battle. 30 million people have won.

Enough already, part 2: Benghazi

60 Minutes apparently believed in the right wing storyline about Benghazi. As a result, they produced a story that never should have aired – and they ended up with egg on their faces. CBS News is now trying to say they were misled by their source, when the reality is that they had ample opportunity to challenge the story before they aired it. But just like every other Benghazi story told by the mainstream media, Davies’ account lacked evidence. In fact, their source, Dylan Davies, was a liar who was looking for fame and fortune.

Lara Logan of 60 Minutes, CBS, claimed that their source had been properly vetted, but it is clear that they heard what they wanted to hear. They wanted a big Benghazi story that would show the President as having covered up what “really happened.” To make matters worse, CBS never disclosed that Davies’ book, Embassy House – about his supposed participation in fighting terrorists during the Benghazi attack – is being published by a subsidiary of CBS. If 60 Minutes would have done even the most basic of investigations into their source’s ethical background, they would have found a liar who has changed his story numerous times. 

All of this should have given CBS News reason for pause, but it didn’t. It is one thing to get a story wrong, but it is quite another to look the other way and air a partisan story that is full of holes from the beginning. CBS has participated in another right wing attempt to smear President Obama and Hillary Clinton. But the story has crashed and burned – and it took the credibility of 60 Minutes down with them too.

Most of us would agree that any time our diplomats are not protected from a terrorist attack; it is a failure of security measures and intelligence. But after 14 months, we should be able to look at what happened with some rationality. The attack was terrible, but Benghazi was just one of at least 157 attacks on our diplomatic facilities over a 15-year period, 9 of which resulted in U.S. fatalities, which many of you have forgotten because they were not covered hourly for 14 months on Fox News.

There have been several investigations into Benghazi by an independent panel and by congressional committees, none of which have found a scandal or a cover-up. Yet the attack on Benghazi has been politicized by Republicans eager for a second-term Obama scandal or to embarrass Hillary Clinton – and by Fox News to pump up their ratings. 

Apparently the media does not want to believe that there is no administrative cover-up regarding Benghazi. Several times, the mainstream media, eager to show its ‘toughness’ on Obama (and there are so many opportunities to do exactly that, from drones and illegal spying to the botched Obamacare website), have fallen flat on their face. It started with a false story by ABC's Jon Karl, but now "60 Minutes" has been duped to a new low in Benghazi coverage:

NEW YORK -- Security officer Dylan Davies admitted this weekend that he lied to a superior in September 2012 about his whereabouts the night of the Benghazi attack. But Davies says his latest version of events, told on CBS' "60 Minutes" and in a new memoir, are true.

“I am just a little man against some big people here,” Davies told The Daily Beast in an interview published Saturday, suggesting he was the victim of a smear campaign.

Davies’ account of the night four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in a terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi has been challenged since he appeared Oct. 27 on “60 Minutes,” in an interview CBS billed as “the first eyewitness account from a westerner” on the ground that night.

The Washington Post revealed that Davies once provided a different account of the events. The Post reported that Davies previously claimed to have never reached the compound on the night of the attack, saying he only arrived the day after. But in the version he relayed on “60 Minutes,” as well as in a new memoir published under a pseudonym, Davies arrives at the compound as the battle rages on and tangles with a terrorist.

Davies landed a coveted "60 Minutes" interview to promote his book, Embassy House, published by Simon & Shuster, a business partner of CBS under the Viacom umbrella. But other journalists had serious problems with his story. Fox News Channel, believe it or not, had problems with reporting on Davies when he started asking for money, which is a huge no-no.

The real problem here is one that we have seen time and time again. In trying to show that it was "fair and balanced" and could report a story on an issue being pushed by conservatives, CBS twisted things to where it was completely unfair and unbalanced, abandoning the basic journalistic tenet of following the truth, no matter how inconvenient. 

CBS News deserves credit for one thing. Unlike when ABC News pushed a false story on Benghazi that made the President look bad, CBS apologized and retracted their story. The nation is still waiting for Jon Karl and ABC to apologize and retract their story about the Benghazi emails.  When "60 Minutes" got it wrong nine years ago on the details of George W. Bush leaving the Texas Air National Guard, people lost their jobs, including Dan Rather. And, in just the same way, heads need to roll at "60 Minutes" for its completely false Benghazi report – especially since it stirred up another round of Benghazi hearings by the GOP this week so that many Teapublicans could quote the lies from the CBS report.

Damn. Enough already. 

The right wing needs to quit with the false Benghazi stuff. Sadly, Benghazi is one of many embassy attacks through the decades in which Americans lost their lives. (One of the worst was the Lebanon attack during the Reagan years.) The President and Hillary Clinton did what they were supposed to do – which was to call in reinforcements.  But those reinforcements did not get there in time. 
 
Give it up, Righties. There is no smoking gun.

To the GOP: Enough Already

Do you remember the rollout of Medicare Part D? It was a mess.

I have had enough of this Republican gloating about HealthCare.gov. Yes, the website was and is a major and inexcusable fiasco. So they were entitled to a week of “we told ya so” – or even two. But really, it has practically been a month now. Enough already. 

I know that we can expect no decency from the GOP, so this will sound naïve, but truly, what they should be doing is helping their constituents figure it all out. That is what the Democrats did in a similar situation not too long ago. I refer, of course, to the Medicare Part D implementation in late 2005 and early 2006. That was the big prescription drug bill passed in 2003. You remember – it is the one where the Republicans did not have the votes in the House, even though they controlled the House, and Speaker Tom DeLay held the floor open for 15 minutes after the bell rang as his lieutenants went around and badgered and threatened some GOP members until they changed their vote from nay to aye. 

Most Democrats voted against the bill. In the House just 16 of 203 Democratic members voted yes. In the Senate, however, 11 of 48 Democrats voted for the new Bush entitlement. First, let’s just stop right there. Could you imagine 16 and 11 Republicans ever voting for an Obama legislative priority, something that was clearly Obama’s “baby” in the same way that the Part D bill was Bush’s? There would be no end to the slobbering over Republicans for being so reasonable. As I recall, the Democrats were attacked at the time for not supporting the bill enough. 

Two years later, the rollout came. It was a mess. In mid-October 2005, the Bush administration announced a delay. But a month later, as Jon Perr noted recently at Crooks & Liars, the planned comparison-shopping website still wasn’t up and running. Even after it finally was, it was confusing and a mess. Some sample headlines: “Web-based Comparison of Prescription Plans Delayed,” The Washington Post; “Glitches Mar Launch of Medicare Drug Plan,” The Wall Street Journal; “President Tells Insurers to Aid Ailing Medicare Drug Plan,” The New York Times.

Needless to say, some of the same people now trying to put the hex on Obamacare spent 2006 pooh-poohing the glitches – as Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) put it back then. I’m sure they would say the two laws are different things, and it is true that the Affordable Care Act is a bigger undertaking. But they are precisely similar in spirit – big, new government programs that depended largely on citizen interaction via personal computer. And the Obama law corrects what was conspicuously awful about the Bush law – the so-called doughnut hole in prescription drug coverage.

But the biggest difference between the two laws is not how Republicans behaved back then but how Democrats did. Most Democrats voted against the law; but they did not then sue the Bush administration and try to take the thing to the Supreme Court and get it invalidated. And then, when the start-up was a mess, Democrats did not go around saying it was proof the law had to go. They tried to help fix it.   

Hillary Clinton, then a senator, said: “I voted against it, but once it passed I certainly determined that I would try to do everything I could to make sure that New Yorkers understood it, could access it, and make the best of it.”  It is interesting that we have this quote from someone the press has described over the years as one of the most polarizing women in America. Here she was being the exact opposite of polarizing, just doing what was then her job, being a normal and rational human being and public servant. She was deciding, amazingly enough, that the needs of her senior-citizen constituents who might benefit from the law once the kinks were worked out were more important than any grudge or animus she might bear toward the sitting administration. Her husband said it well Sunday, while campaigning with Terry McAuliffe: 

“But our side, we are not so ideological. So instead of bashing them and screaming about how incompetent they were, most of our people just tried to help people understand the law and make it work, and then wait for it to get fixed.”

And yet here was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) on TV on Sunday spouting the same lies and scare-tactics that has been gushing from their mouths for a month. And there was Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), having no earthly idea what she was talking about on CNN. Neither Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell nor Sen. Rand Paul had one kind word to say for Kentucky’s excellent implementation of the law under Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear. About 15,000 Kentuckians had enrolled as of last week. 

This is yet another stomach-turning GOP-induced state of affairs. I am sick and tired of hearing that Obamacare is an existential threat to their idea of America. Grow up and get over it. You lost this political fight. You may someday win, but until the day you do, behave like adults and as if you actually love the democracy you live in.  And you might consider behaving like the Democrats did back in 2006 when you passed the unpaid for Medicare Part D that added millions of dollars to the deficit. 

Edited from: Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, October 29, 2013 Grow Up And Get Over It: Enough Already On HealthCare.Gov, Don’t You Remember Medicare Part D?

Republicans have completely lost it

I cannot write about this subject any better than this author, so I am putting a copy of his essay on my blog and giving you the author’s name and link below:

Republicans Sabotaging, Not Governing. This Is Who They Are Now.

Imagine a political party that keeps government from helping people, because that might lead people to support government. Imagine a political party that hurts parts of the country because those parts tend to not vote the way they want. Imagine a political party that would hurt the public, the economy, and the country so they could say in the next election, “Hey look at how the country is hurting, vote for us instead.” That could never happen here, could it?

At RedState the post entitled, Defund Or Be Challenged calls on Republicans to demand that Obamacare be defunded – killed – or they will shut down the government. It says pass a budget that defunds Obamacare and if the Senate won’t take it up or the President vetoes it, shut down the government rather than pass a reasonable budget.

This is who they are now.

If you say, “So what?” and ask, “Who is RedState” then you are making the same mistake that many in the Democratic establishment have been making for decades. Asking “Who is Rush Limbaugh / Glenn Beck / Sean Hannity / Sarah Palin / Ann Coulter / etc.” or saying that what they say doesn’t matter is a mistake. This is who they are now. This is who the Republican Party is now. It is RedState, Limbaugh, Coulter, Drudge Report, etc. The Republican Party is not Bob Dole or John McCain or even Ronald Reagan. It is not Ronald Reagan playing poker with Tip O’Neill. Ronald Reagan would be primaried out as a “RINO” in today’s Republican Party.

If you don’t get it yet, let this sink in: Mitch McConnell is being primaried for being “a big government guy” and too “progressive” and working with Democrats. Mitch McConnell!

This is who the Republicans are now: RedState, Limbaugh, Coulter … this is who they are now.

Obamacare Helps People – So They Want It Killed.

Obamacare, for all its policy and political flaws, makes our health care system far better than the corrupt and dysfunctional system we have now. (I think Medicare-For-All is the right approach and would have high public support.) People with “preexisting conditions” will finally be able to get insurance. Subsidies will help people afford private insurance. The expansion of Medicaid will help millions receive health care.

The Republicans want it killed, period, and are willing to sabotage everything to get that. They want this because it will help people and therefore will be popular. They offer no alternative plan and do not care about all of these people who will be helped. In fact, they complain that so many new people will have access to health care that it could cause a shortage of doctors! They want the health care act killed because it helps people, which they fear could lead people to support Democrats and government in general.

They mean it. They are willing to shut down the government unless their demands are met. They are about sabotaging the program and sabotaging all of government to make that happen.

Is that a strong statement? Remember that they were willing to refuse to raise the debt limit and destroy the credit rating of the country – and destroy the world’s economy unless their demands were met. Remember that they have actually shut down government to get what they want.

This is who they are now. 

Norm Ornstein has an important piece at The Atlantic, The Unprecedented, Contemptible GOP Quest to Sabotage Obamacare:

“The clear comparison is the Medicare prescription-drug plan. When it passed Congress in 2003, Democrats had many reasons to be furious. The initial partnership between President Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy had resulted in an admirably bipartisan bill – it passed the Senate with 74 votes. Republicans then pulled a bait and switch, taking out all of the provisions that Kennedy had put in to bring along Senate Democrats, jamming the resulting bill through the House in a three-hour late-night vote marathon that blatantly violated House rules and included something close to outright bribery on the House floor, and then passing the bill through the Senate with just 54 votes – while along the way excluding the duly elected conferees, Tom Daschle (the Democratic leader!) and Jay Rockefeller, from the conference-committee deliberations.

“The implementation of that bill was a huge challenge, and had many rocky moments. It required educating millions of seniors, most not computer-literate, about the often complicated choices they had to create or change their prescription coverage. Imagine if Democrats had gone all out to block or disrupt the implementation – using filibusters to deny funding, sending threatening letters to companies or outside interests who mobilized to educate Medicare recipients, putting on major campaigns to convince seniors that this was a plot to deny them Medicare, comparing it to the ill-fated Medicare reform plan that passed in 1989 and, after a revolt by seniors, was repealed the next year.”

Dems could have taken down the Republican Party over this, but instead they let seniors get the prescriptions, at least as far as this program went. Compare to the way Republicans are trying to sabotage the new health care plan.

For three years, Republicans in the Senate refused to confirm anybody to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the post that McClellan had held in 2003-04 – in order to damage the possibility of a smooth rollout of the health reform plan. Guerrilla efforts to cut off funding, dozens of votes to repeal, abusive comments by leaders, attempts to discourage states from participating in Medicaid expansion or crafting exchanges, threatening letters to associations that might publicize the availability of insurance on exchanges, and now to have a government shutdown, or to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, unless the president agrees to stop all funding for implementation of the plan.

This is who they are now. 

For President Obama’s entire first term, Republicans obstructed every effort to boost the economy. They blocked badly-needed additional stimulus. They blocked infrastructure projects because they would employ people. They blocked the Bring Jobs Home Act. They blocked everything. Then they campaigned by saying the economy isn’t better, so vote for them.

Republicans sabotaged the new immigration bill. The reason? They say that Hispanics who get citizenship might vote for Democrats.

Republicans have been opposing statehood for D.C. for the same reason – the people there might vote for Democrats.

Republicans in the old slave states, newly unleashed by the Supreme Court, are working furiously to get minorities, seniors, students, and others who might vote for Democrats off the voting rolls. They are repealing early voting because black churches organize voter drives. They are passing extremely restrictive voter-ID laws that specifically exclude the kinds of ID that minorities are more likely to hold.

This is who they are now.

They have to be held accountable. The answer is not to threaten to withhold your vote when you don’t get everything you want. The answer is for all of us – every single alienated, ignored, disillusioned citizen – to promise to always vote. Then the people you would actually want to vote for will have some assurance they can win, and take the risk of running, even if they can’t raise a poop-load of corporate cash.

From: Republicans Sabotaging, Not Governing. This Is Who They Are Now.

By Dave Johnson, Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/26-2

This shutdown belongs to Boehner and the GOP

By Tuesday morning, the leadership failure of Speaker John Boehner was obvious to all. In encouraging the impossible quest of House Republicans to dismantle healthcare reform, he pushed the country into a government shutdown that will now begin to take a grievous economic toll.

At any point, Mr. Boehner could have stopped it. Had he put on the floor a simple temporary spending resolution to keep the government open, without the outrageous demands to delay or defund the health reform law, it could easily have passed the House with a strong majority – including sizable support from Republican members, many of whom are aware of how badly this collapse will damage their party.

But Mr. Boehner refused.

He stood in the well of the House and repeated the same old tired lies that the Affordable Care Act was killing jobs. He came up with a series of increasingly ridiculous demands: defund the health law, delay it for a year, stop its requirement that employers pay for contraception, block the medical device tax, delay the individual mandate for a year, and remove Congressional employees’ health subsidies. All were instantly rejected by the Senate. “They’ve lost their minds,” Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said of the House Republicans. “They keep trying to do the same thing over and over again” and expect a different result.  

Isn’t that the definition of insanity?

Finally, at the last minute, when there was still time to end the charade with a straightforward spending bill, Mr. Boehner made the most absurd demand of all: an immediate conference committee with the Senate. Suddenly, with less than an hour left, he wanted to set up formal negotiations?

For six months, the Senate has been demanding a conference with the House on the 2014 budget – talks that might have prevented the impasse in the first place. But the Boehner adamantly refused, knowing the GOP would not succeed in getting all the cuts to taxes and spending that it demands. For Mr. Boehner to call for a conference near the witching hour was the height of hypocrisy.

The consequences of Mr. Boehner’s failure was immediate: 800,000 government employees thrown out of work, over a million more working without pay, offices that provide important services closed, and programs on which poor people depend – like the Women, Infants and Children nutrition system – cut off. The longer Republicans refuse to approve a rational spending measure, the more federal agencies will be affected and the greater the damage done to an economy still in recovery.

Having let down the public, Republicans will now, inevitably, scramble to save their reputation. They are desperate to make it appear as if President Obama and the Democrats are the ones being intransigent, hoping voters will think that everyone is at fault and simply blame “Washington.”  Boehner even mocked the president on Monday for refusing to negotiate over health reform, as if he actually expected President Obama to join in wrecking a law that will provide health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans under threat of blackmail.

On Tuesday, Republicans came up with another self-serving offer, proposing to open a few government departments whose closures are likely to produce negative news coverage, such as Veterans Affairs and the national parks. Democrats quickly made it clear that only a full reopening of government would suffice and tabled the bills.

Earlier in his presidency, in 2011, Obama made the catastrophic mistake in the face of just this sort of extortion to believe that Boehner could be reasonable. This time, however, the cynical games of the Republicans are not going to work.

The Republicans’ overwhelming obsession with destroying Obamacare and insane desire to ruin the president has been on full display. And, as the public’s anger grows over this entirely unnecessary crisis, it should be aimed at the Republican Party and its Speaker, not the Democrats, not the President.

The Culpability of John Boehner

There is an inane tendency for reporters on American network news and especially on CNN to adopt a position that "both sides" are equally to blame for the nation's political dysfunction. Sometimes this assessment is correct.  Not this time, however. There is only one party to blame for the first government shutdown in 17 years. The blame lies squarely on the Republican Party and specifically on John Boehner, a weak and cowardly Speaker of the House.

Currently, the debate happening in Washington right now is not so much between Democrats and Republicans, but rather, it is one mostly occurring between Republicans who are trying to find some magic bullet to destroy Obamacare regardless of who is harmed or how much the country's fiscal health is damaged.

In the House of Representatives, every bill passed that would allow the government to continue to operate was amended with provisions defunding Obamacare. This is, for Democrats, a nonstarter – and the Republicans know it. The Affordable Care Act is the president's and the Democrat party’s signature achievement and neither will produce or sign a bill that undoes it.

Obamacare is the law of the land. It was passed by Congress (at which time the Democrats gave the Republicans every opportunity to join in – using many of the Republicans' demands and suggestions to try to get a bi-partisan bill), signed by the president, and upheld by the US Supreme Court. After nearly four years of  Republicans, along with FOX News, trying to derail it by using fear-mongering and lies, the insurance exchanges are up and running. Millions have already applied for their reasonably priced health insurance (more reasonably priced in states running their own exchanges).

Obamacare is now going into full effect. There is no reason for President Obama to be cowed by such legislative extortion. Yet, rather than accept the reality of Obamacare, Republicans are using a government shutdown and threat to default on the nation's debt to try to undo it.

In key respects, this disheartening series of events is the logical conclusion of the Republican Party's descent into insanity. This descent accelerated when President Obama was elected in 2008; and it worsened by a factor of 10 when he was re-elected in 2012. The Republicans just cannot accept that America would elect a black Democrat as President – twice.

The GOP has become a party dominated by a small group of politicians who are fundamentally nihilistic, contemptuous of democracy, bigoted against the President, and willing (even proud) to operate outside the long-accepted norms of the American governmental system. They refuse to accept majority rule.  They refuse to compromise with the Democrats, who are seen as the "enemy."

In the US system of government, compromise is its most essential element. US Democracy cannot work without compromise. Republicans must work with Democrats; the House of Representatives must work with the Senate; and both bodies must find common ground with the president. It is not always smooth, but it has generally worked for over 200 years – until the Tea Party faction got enough seats in the House of Representatives to gum up the works. This faction only represents about 18% of Americans, yet they have Boehner cowering in a corner, scared to stand up to them.

The problem today is that the modern GOP thinks compromise is anathema. That is the only explanation for how members of the party can view the possibility of a government shutdown – or even worse, the catastrophe of  a default on America's debt – as somehow a better option than reconciling themselves to the "abomination" that, bizarrely, they believe Obamacare to be (just like they believe all our social programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, are abominations). Granted, this isn't the view of all Republican office-holders – or even a majority. But it is the view of the party's most extreme rightwing supporters, which happens to be the majority of their base. Today, it is these extreme far right crazies who are controlling the party's leadership.

If the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, were to bring a clean budget bill to the House floor, with no provisions defunding or delaying Obamacare, it would almost certainly pass – with Democrats and Republicans joining together to support it. It would then get majority approval in the Senate and be signed by President Obama. So, why hasn't that happened yet? Because Boehner has pledged  to the Tea Party to only pass legislation that has the support of enough Republican members (unaided by Democrats) to be enacted – the so-called Hastert Rule of the House. They refuse to pass anything that requires the Democrats votes because that would entail compromise.  The result, of course, is that everything they pass and send to the Senate is extremely partisan and therefore Dead on Arrival (DOA).

So, now the government will remain shut down for a few days, probably up until the debt ceiling is imminent.  The US will come perilously close to a debt default. In the end, however, the semi-sane Republican faction will come to their senses, concede defeat, and pass a budget resolution and debt limit extension with Democratic support.

That the US will have come to such a pass – for no reason other than the extremism of the Republican Party and the culpability of John Boehner as Speaker of the House – is an important reminder of who is blame for the government dysfunction that has come to define our current US democracy.

Ted Cruz will never be president

Ted Cruz has been in Washington for less than a year.  His refusal to observe Senate protocol to first sit back and learn, as a freshman is expected to do, has rubbed some of his more senior colleagues the wrong way. He is considered to be inappropriately loud and opinionated – often making statements that are very offensive toward both Democrats and Republicans.  He says he was not elected to the Senate to stay quiet. And his on Tuesday, he took that edict to the Senate floor to prove to his base that he wants to defund Obamacare, saying he would speak "until I am no longer able to stand."  

In upping the ante, Cruz’s latest battle to disrupt Obamacare is tied to funding the government in the new fiscal year that starts on October 1. His refusal to give up the fight – which many say could be the GOP’s undoing in the 2014 election – has rankled many of his fellow Republicans, widening divisions in a splintered party. 

"I find it amusing that those in Washington are puzzled when someone actually does what they said they would do," Cruz told CNN in February. "At the end of the day, I was elected to represent 26 million Texans and to speak the truth. You know, I think a lot of Americans are tired of politicians in Washington in both parties who play games." 

Yet that is just what Cruz is doing – playing games – and taking it to the n^th degree.

Cruz was elected by promising to shrink government – especially the new health care law.  Although that battle has been embraced by most Republicans in Congress, Cruz’s latest tactic has frustrated many of them. New York Rep. Peter King has been an outspoken critic of Cruz' latest crusade – at one point calling him a "fraud."

"Whether it's Custer, whether it's kamikaze, or whether it's Gallipolli or whatever, we are going to lose this," the New York Republican said on CNN's "The Situation Room" last week.  Republicans are frustrated by his insistence at fighting a divisive, losing battle. Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee tweeted that he "didn't go to Harvard or Princeton" but that he "can count" that Democrats outnumber Republicans in the Senate, referring to the fact that Cruz, in studying for his law degree, would only study with Princeton, Yale, or Harvard college grads.

"We are giving Obama the escape out," Republican strategist Ana Navarro said on CNN's 'AC360.' "Instead of now focusing on the problems with Obamacare, everybody's focused on the civil war in the Republican party." Navarro also noted that the numerous polls, including CNN's latest poll, that while the public is concerned with Obamacare, they don't support shutting down the government over it.

"If you want to fix Obamacare or repeal it or fix it or change it, the best way to do it is to elect more Republicans. And the political cost of a government shutdown is really going to affect any – any possibility of electing more Republicans," Navarro added.

Frank Bruni of the New York Times called Cruz's all-nighter "grandstanding" and too said the Republican Party may suffer in 2014 if the Texas senator causes a government shutdown:

"This week he is blithely putting the lawmakers in his party between a rock and a hard place. If they fail to match the anti-Obamacare passion that he flexed anew in a Senate speech Monday, they'll land on the far right's watch list. But if they match it and the government shuts down, there's a good chance that the Republican Party takes the blame..."

"While many others have, no doubt, come to the Senate in the past as a springboard to the presidency, it's hard to recall someone who has created as much controversy within his own party," said CNN political analyst Gloria Borger. Is this about his principles or about presidential aspirations? In questioning Cruz’s motives, Republicans think he is putting his political career above all else.

Cruz’s "filibuster" will not do anything to block Obamacare funding. There is a key procedural vote on the issue scheduled for noon today,Wednesday, that will put an end to Cruz’s "stand in the schoolhouse door." Cruz knows this, but he said his speech was to simply "make D.C. listen." Hardly anyone is listening, though, not even FOX News. They spoke about it for a minute while showing a quick video of Cruz’s filibuster in the background, but there was no sound.

Cruz could alienate his colleagues to a point where he becomes marginalized and completely ineffective in Washington. He has risked being relegated to some of the lowlier Senate committees where his bloviating will do less harm. If he has no support of the Republican Party, he risks being cut off from its resources and financing. The presidential nomination he wants will become his dream only – and that of a small extreme rightwing contingency.

Another one bites the dust

Republicans have a penchant for lying in order to get their way.  One of their biggest lies – that Social Security is going broke – was dealt a blow by the latest Social Security trustees report which found that the program will be able to pay every benefit from tax money coming in until 2033 – and after 2033, if Congress does nothing, there is enough in reserve to pay three-quarters of future benefits for a long time.

The report is basically the same as last year. Social Security is fine for the next twenty years. The report also contained good news for Medicare, as it is now projected to be solvent until 2026. In a statement, Senator Bernie Sanders stressed that these findings confirmed what the reality based political world already knew. Senator Sanders said, “The report from the Social Security trustees confirms what many of us have known, that Social Security is not ‘going broke,’ that it can pay every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 20 years and that after 2033 there is enough in reserve to pay three-quarters of future benefits.”

Republicans have been claiming that Social Security is going broke for years in order to justify the privatization of the program. The right has also argued that Medicare needs to be replaced with a voucher system because it is going broke. It turns out that both of these claims are absurdly false. While this report is bad news for those Republicans who are trying to sell privatization, it is also bad news for President Obama. The president has made the argument in the past that cost of living adjustments need to be cut by moving to a chained CPI. Today’s report illustrates that there is no need for impulsive steps in the name of getting a deal on entitlements.  The program simply needs tweaking, such as raising the ceiling on how much income can be taxed.

Do not get me wrong, Medicare and Social Security both have revenue problems, but these problems are not imminent. There is still a long term systemic problem looming. Some action will have to be taken in order to shore up the two beloved programs. However, there is a huge difference between tweaking the programs and what Republicans want to do, privatize both programs. Contrary to what Republicans have been saying, there is no need to gut and privatize the programs. Social Security is not going broke, and Medicare is not in immediate danger.

There is one simple solution out there that could keep Social Security strong for decades to come. The cap on the payroll tax should be raised or eliminated so that the wealthy are paying more into the Social Security Trust Fund. As long as millionaires and billionaires continue to pay payroll tax only on only the first $113,700 that they earn, Social Security will always be just a decade or two away from crisis.  Let's raise the cap to $250,000.

Senate Democrats are on the record as opposing any cuts to Social Security.  Today’s report should strengthen their resolve. This has not stopped Republicans from trying to spin the report by exaggerating the potential future problems, but their cries of “we must privatize and put the money with Wall Street” have been largely discredited.

Republicans lie, but the numbers do not. Social Security is not going broke.

When you lie down with dogs

The once Grand Old Party is in trouble – as in Tea Party trouble – and it could soon get worse because of three factors:

1) A government default: House Republicans may be in the process of overreaching. Rank-and-file members, many of them elected with Tea Party support last year, seem intent on using the August 2 expiration of the debt ceiling to draw a line in the sand. If the Democrats do not agree to huge cuts without an increase in revenue (my way or the highway), they will refuse to pay our country’s debts. Many Tea Partiers say that there will be little effect on the economy – but they are misinformed. Almost $5 trillion is held by U.S. banks, U.S. pension funds, and individuals like me (such as savings bonds and Treasuries). About that same amount is held by other branches of the U.S. government itself. Only about 1/3 of U.S. debt is held by foreign countries, which includes China’s less than $1 trillion. So, who will get hurt the most if the government defaults? Americans will.

Evidently Speaker Boehner may have no choice but to go along with these ignorant Tea Partiers, since championing a compromise with the White House will inevitably prompt cries of "Treason!" These ‘true believers’ in the GOP conference could easily depose Boehner in favor of Eric Cantor, the Tea Party leader who is known to covet Boehner's post. Thus, for fear of losing his job, the potential exists for Boehner to lead the House GOP into a default on our country’s “full faith and credit” worthiness.

2) The far-right governors: This has been a surprising source of damage to the GOP brand. Newly elected Republican governors in Wisconsin (Scott Walker), Ohio (John Kasich) and Florida (Rick Scott) have all chosen to address their states' budget issues with devout, literal adherence to the Tea Party playbook. In terms of polling, the results have been catastrophic. A poll this week put Scott's approval rating at under 30 percent – and Walker and Kasich are only a few points better in their states.

Their struggles have the potential to spread across state lines. Walker's protracted fight over collective bargaining rights has been one of the biggest national stories of the past few months. Voters in and out of Wisconsin are siding with Democrats and against the Republican governor. For the national GOP, the danger is that voters across the country are seeing Walker, Kasich, and Scott not as individual state governors waging provincial fights but as how the Tea Party governs in America. 

Governors Walker and Scott both won their gubernatorial primaries last year with considerable Tea Party support. Scott, in fact, overcame a fierce effort from the party establishment to deny him the nomination. Without the Tea Party, the national Republican brand would probably not now be burdened with the public relation problems that these governors have caused. 

3) The Tea Party itself: The movement – which is really just a synonym for the Republican Party base – was a source of strength for the GOP last year in that it helped to inspire and activate previously dejected Republicans after the 2008 presidential election. It was also a liability because Tea Party activists propelled utterly unelectable candidates to GOP nominations for several important Senate and gubernatorial contests. On March 31 about 100 of its members gathered in Washington for a rally regardless of the fact that the Tea Party has become a clear liability for the GOP. In the past 12 months, the number of Americans expressing a negative view of the Tea Party movement has increased by 21 points. A CNN/Opinion Research poll found that the Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by half of Americans. This can partly be chalked up to the negative press the movement has received thanks to the often crazy and extreme antics of its supporters. 

You can argue that all three of the above threats to the GOP label should be condensed under the Tea Party label. After all, if a shutdown does happen, it will be because Boehner was unable or unwilling to cut a deal thanks to pressure from House Republicans who were elected last year with Tea Party support or who fear the Tea Party's wrath (or both).
The Republicans made their bed – now they must lie in it. 

When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. In fact, the entire country may end up with fleas due to these Tea Party dogs.

Does this make sense?

Repeat after me:

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

The House Republican budget adds $6 trillion to the debt in the next decade yet the GOP is balking at raising the debt limit.

Got it?

The CBO found that spending cuts in the Republican plan would be outpaced by deficit increasing tax cuts for the rich.  I do NOT understand why the press doesn’t shove this fact in front of every Republican who says the debt limit cannot be raised unless their new spending cuts are put in place. The Republican plan – written by Paul Ryan – contains everything Republicans can think of in terms of spending cuts and would add more debt than we have ever seen over a 10-year period in American history! Yet Ryan and other House GOP leaders continue to make outrageous statements to the contrary – without being embarrassed and without anyone calling them on it. 

In contrast to the Republican budget, the CBO said, "the economic feedback from the President’s proposals would increase their cumulative impact on deficits from 2012 through 2016 – which is estimated to be nearly $1.0 trillion excluding any aggregate economic effects – by between $10 billion and $30 billion. From 2017 to 2021, the effects of the proposals on the economy could further boost the cumulative increase in deficits – estimated to be about $1.8 trillion, excluding any aggregate economic effects – by as much as $217 billion or could reduce it by up to $8 billion" because "projected deficits fall due to the tax base increasing even when gross national product (GNP) decreases."

It is ironic that the Republicans always talk about how the Democrats are always trying to redistribute wealth. Yet you get redistribution of wealth with this plan – except the money is being redistributed from the poor and the middle class to the rich.  They say it is so that the rich will create new jobs for America.  Yeah, right. If you believe that, have a look at George Bush's record of job creation.  We lost millions of jobs to other countries like Mexico and India during his two terms.

Robbing from the poor to pay the rich. It doesn’t make sense, does it?

Under the disguise of deficit reduction

Even though the deficit did not matter to the Republicans when they were in control of the government, now that we have a Democrat as President they say we have to quit spending and adopt austerity, no matter the consequences – no matter that it will greatly hurt the most vulnerable people in our republic. To convince the public that it has to be done, the national budget is compared to a household, business or personal budget. In such circumstances it is true that one can not continue to incur increasing debt without going broke – unless income is increased at the same time. 

But businesses, individuals, and the government can continuously carry debt as long as they keep up the payments. 

The main difference between private debt and public debt is the ability to keep income coming in. Private debt does not necessarily have that ability. If the economy turns sour, a business or individual does not get needed income, they can default – or declare bankruptcy. The government has the ability to keep its income coming in. The United States must pay its debt – defaulting on our debt is out of the question. No matter what the ideology of one party or another, even though they threaten to shut down the government, none of them are really willing to have the government default on its debt.

We are stuck in an economic crisis that was largely the result of "Free Market" classical theory. That ideology failed. We have the proof of that failure – the Great Recession. But even so, the conservatives are unable to accept the facts and wish to continue on the same destructive path of cutting taxes for the rich because they are the ones who provide the jobs – only over the past 12 years those jobs have been provided to other countries, not Americans. Not only history but actual events do not seem to deter them from continuing to avoid taxes while they ship American jobs overseas. They believe what they believe – that their bottom line matter most. So they, through Fox “News” have brainwashed a willing right leaning faction of our pubic. To this particular group of people facts do not matter, only what they believe in their guts matter. And their guts tell them that Reagan’s trickle down theory works despite facts to the contrary.

Here are some facts:

1. The austerity policies of the Hoover administration, especially Andrew Mellon's advice to "liquidate" labor, stocks, farmers, and real estate to "purge the rottenness from the system" made the economy worse during the Depression era. Democrats ran successfully against "Hooverism" for forty years.

2. The budget was balanced as recently as the Clinton administration with Alan Greenspan worrying publicly that a rapidly disappearing national debt might not be good for the economy.

3. Rapidly rising inequality in both income and wealth is one of the most common indicators of a banana republic. Adjusting the progressive tax rate structure (i.e. having the rich pay just 3% more as they did under Clinton and Reagan) is a quick way to address that and reduce the deficit at the same time. 

We know from past experience that cutting government spending in hard times leads to harder times (research the economic policies of Hoover). But classical economic theory says that in order to spend, the government must print money – which devalues the currency and causes inflation. That is what was done in the 1930s to put people to work. As a result, people could not afford to buy more than the basic necessities, with 25% of the population unable to afford that. That tells us that the classical economic theory does not work they way people think it should.

By saying that public debt is the same as private debt, Republicans have managed to convince a large segment of the public that the government is going broke. Of course they did not use that argument when the financing of the disastrous invasion and occupation if Iraq was in question. It is only now because they are suddenly beholden to those economic troglodytes, the Tea Party activists, who have some say in their re-election.

The far right demands that jobs be created while, at the same time, they are putting blocks in the way of any job creation policy. This demagoguery is testimony to their hypocrisy. It certainly makes one wonder if they really believe austerity is in the best interest of the country or are they doing this, as they have stated frequently, to push the Obama into failure? If the conservatives can keep the unemployment rate high, they just might be able to blame it on the President.

Using a constant barrage of FALSE facts and equivocations, scare tactics, and appeals to prejudices, Republicans have been able to convince a substantial sector of the public of their ‘righteousness’ – all to the detriment of good economic activity. It does not seem to matter to the conservative faction that their policies cause unemployment, that ‘trickle down economics’ does cause wealth to trickle down to the middle and lower classes, as long as the wealth continues to accumulate among the already rich and powerful.

That leads me to the conclusion that being in power is the ultimate goal of the right – not helping this country pull out of a recession. It is their mission to convince the American public that austerity and deficit reduction is necessary and proper – while at the same time greatly reducing the taxes for millionaires – even if it destroys the fabric of this country. They seemed to be accomplishing their goal until the public in Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and other states, woke up to the realization that under the disguise of deficit reduction they were being stripped of what little money and rights they had left in order to feed more profits to the Robber Barons’ Machine.

Playing the victim

In her Youtube video put out just after the Tucson shootings, Palin said that we cannot blame her toxic political rhetoric. But then she quite foolishly and voluntarily gave us something we can hang our hats on: In a unfortunate use of the words "blood," "pistols" and "shooting" to accent her points and the use of outrageously offensive timing in terms of releasing it on the same day as the memorial, she showed a shocking lack of empathy, sensitivity, and compassion.

Palin denounced the "manufacture of a blood libel," which adds an extra level of vitriol. Not only did it demonstrate a pathological narcissism on her part, but total ignorance that the phrase “blood libel” has a terrible history. Copy-cat Palin picked up on the term “blood libel” from a right wingnut’s op-ed. Obviously, she liked the way the phrase sounded and never bothered to look it up. It refers to the scurrilous accusation that Jews kidnapped and murdered Christian children to use their blood to prepare Passover matzo. Charges of blood libel have spurred massacres of Jews throughout centuries; the myth was revived by Hitler and persists today from Russia to the Arab world.

The tone of Ms. Palin’s message was not appropriate for a moment of national grief. She could have used the opportunity to try to elevate the discourse, but, instead, she further coarsened it. She is acting true to her character in lashing out at critics and presenting herself as an aggrieved victim.

Reading from a teleprompter, Palin obviously took time to consider and craft her remarks. Yet she missed an opportunity to be seen as a leader. Did she really think that her 8-minute diatribe helps to heal a shocked and grieving nation? It certainly did nothing to repair her image as an incendiary politician. Her behavior, tone, and overall message in her video are beyond comprehension and – to use one of her words – reprehensible.

At a time when the country is looking for words that heal, Palin chose to do what she does best: attack and provoke. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black because Palin does exactly what she accuses the media of doing – and she is one of those who are responsible for the coarsening of our public culture.

Sarah’s video validates once again that Sarah Palin is all about Sarah Palin. Wallowing in her own narcissism, she refuses to shoulder any responsibility for her words and actions. She sees herself as the victim of the Tucson shootings in a profoundly distorted view of reality when the true victims, the six Americans murdered just a few days ago had not yet been buried and the fourteen other victims, with lives forever altered, lay wounded recovering in hospitals.

This week has given politicians and the media an opportunity to reflect on the quality of discussion and debate in this country today – and many have – but not Sarah. Sadly, self-reflection is not one of Sarah Palin’s character traits.

Maybe Palin has finally crashed – and hopefully burned. In a perfect world, she would not politically recover from this faux pas. Although she will always be a national hero to the ignorant right-wing fringe crazies, it is my hope that on a national level, as a serious presidential candidate, she may have just imploded – unless too many in this nation forget her self-serving words about the Tucson shooting. 

Sarah Palin is once again playing the victim.

Words have consequences

Conservative bloggers and pundits have been shocked at the notion that some of their movement’s biggest loudmouths should shoulder some responsibility for the young man accused of killing six people at a political event on Saturday, January 8, in Tucson and nearly succeeding in assassinating Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Rarely have I seen such a desperate attempt to evade reality as has occurred since the shooting rampage in Tucson. It would seem to be a fairly non-controversial notion that when a politician is targeted for assassination, the language that contributes to hostile discord ought to be carefully considered and avoided. However, mentioning that issue has caused politicians and pundits on the right to stiffen, deny, and go on offense. Could this be because they are harboring a latent guilt?

“Me thinks they doth protest too much.” And anyone who has studied Hamlet knows that if someone protests too much, then they are harboring guilt. (You have studied Hamlet haven't you?  It was taught in my high school.)

Republicans and Tea Partiers shouldn’t be surprised or offended that their party and movement are taking criticism in connection with the Tucson killing spree. Beyond the shooter's possible mental illness, the real cause of the Tucson violence would seem to be the fear, ignorance, and anger that have become commonplace in the American public dialogue. Loughner chose as his target a centrist Democratic congresswoman who had criticized Arizona’s draconian immigration law and supported healthcare reform, taking positions in direct opposition to the Tea Party and Republican base.

In effect, he chose political sides by the choice of his target, Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

It really does not matter that the man who finally made good on the thousands of threats received during the last year by American politicians is mentally ill. What matters is that the pundits, the politicians, and the shameless men and women of all political persuasions, who screamed and shouted and distorted the truth in order to raise and sway a mob, showed disdain for our nation – which can push the mentally unbalanced into action. The rancid political climate easily feeds into the despair of the mentally unbalanced. Insane people tend to be driven by obsessions and delusions and a general sense of despair.

It was no surprise that Rush Limbaugh rose to defend himself and other right-wing propagandists against the idea that they bear some responsibility for the shooting tragedy in Arizona. Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and those like them overlook a simple, logical conundrum:    

If, as they frequently like to claim, they are the motivators who brought about the conservative resurgence in November’s elections with their inflammatory and rabble-rousing anti-Democratic rhetoric, then how can they be so sure that they did not have a part in motivating this incident or others of lesser crime against Democrats?  

Some will say such risk is inherent with our right to free speech. But as most appreciate, free speech does not entitle one to shout “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no blaze. It is similarly reckless when Palin, Hannity, Limbaugh, or Beck label any who opposes their politics as traitorous Nazis, Fascists, or Commies who want to take over our nation. They have to be fully aware that the average uninformed person believes them – and that a crazy, schizophrenic person could act on it.

Although it is not yet known whether he had leanings toward any political group, Jared Loughner’s Youtube rhetoric did lean to the right with Glenn Beck (gold for U.S. currency) and Michelle Bachman (the government is using mind control). He also had reading material that leaned about as far left as one could get (Communist Manifesto). But by all accounts, Loughner is an avowed, although incoherent, constitutionalist, using the document as a bludgeon to argue a variety of issues – just like the Tea Partiers. He reportedly accused his community college of violating the Constitution by forcing him to retake a math class – and insisted that a syllabus was unconstitutional. Where had he heard all this “unconstitutional” talk?

All the violent language, all the hatred, made the political climate in America ripe for a violent act. The fact that Loughner was apparently mentally ill does not mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event having nothing to do with the national political climate. Unless he lived in a bubble, he saw and heard it all. In fact, the climate that pervades the United States is one where political violence is glorified – and violent rhetoric exists with particular intensity in Arizona. 

Unbalanced people are emboldened to action by the incendiary rhetoric we hear day in and day out. It gave the perpetrator permission to act. 

It is a fact that many attacks on Democrats in the last year were motivated by such talk, including the vandalizing of Ms. Giffords’ office (and those of a number of other Democratic congressmen) after the health care vote, threatening the bill’s supporters, and using ugly imagery such as the placement of a coffin in the yard of a Democrat who voted for the bill or hanging another Democrat in effigy. Add that to the fact that if you go back to the 2008 campaign, there were large crowds of Republican voters at Palin rallies shouting “Kill him” about Obama – while she, in turn, said that he “palled around with terrorists.” Not to be outdone, Democrat Hillary Clinton brought up the idea that Obama may be a secret Muslim which scared the stuffing out of common folk. Many on the right, such as Limbaugh, picked up that ball and ran with it, charging that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.

When GOP leaders encouraged the falsehood that health care reform would include the creation of death panels; when Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina disrespectfully yelled “You lie!” during President Barack Obama’s address to Congress on health care reform; and when Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas yelled “Baby killer” at Rep. Bart Stupak during the floor debate on the bill, the Republicans all but said that the stakes were so extreme that they warranted extreme measures.

In an MSNBC interview in March 2010, Giffords said that Palin had put the “crosshairs of a gun sight over our district,” adding that “when people do that, they’ve got to realize there’s consequences to that action.” Chuck Todd then asked Giffords if “in fairness, campaign rhetoric and war rhetoric have been interchangeable for years.” She responded that colleagues who had been in the House “20, 30 years” had never seen vitriol this bad. But Todd moved on. Few wanted to see what Giffords saw – that the vandalism and death threats were the latest consequences of a tide of ugly insurrectionism that had been rising since the final weeks of the 2008 campaign and that had threatened to turn violent from the start.

The rhetoric employed by Sarah Palin and those like her is so anti-democratic in its spirit that it should, and it does, leave many conservatives feeling queasy. Her speeches are an incitement to violence – which technically is treason. The statements like the "second amendment solution" put forth by Sharron Angle, “Get on Target for Victory” by Kelly, “Don’t retreat…Reload” by Palin and other violent statements like these turned our nation’s politics into a blood sport. The Palin message on her Facebook page was: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"

Palin’s message is a symptom of the tone in US politics. Palin had published a “target map” on her website using images of gun sights to identify 20 House Democrats, including Giffords, for backing the new health care law. Putting a bull’s eye on Gabrielle Giffords' congressional race – as Sarah Palin did – was an explicit or intentional invitation to violence. Palin took her bull’s eye webpage down after the shooting. And Sarah Palin did call these marks “bull’s eyes” at one time – although she is now trying to deny it.

Jesse Kelly, the Republican (Tea Partier) whom Giffords beat, was another possible reason her assassin went after her. His "Get on Target for Victory" rallies were all about violent language. Here is a copy of the Get on Target for Victory rally – and also a picture of Jesse Kelly, the man who sponsored it while running against Gifford. It says "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office… Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly":

Leaders in the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement have spoken out against Saturday’s violence, but that rings hollow after their failure to condemn the political rhetoric of violence such as "take up your arms/don’t retreat – reload" rhetoric by Sarah Palin or the hatred spewed by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. They are excusing their own horrible culpability by saying that the Democrats did it, too. It is true that Democrats have not been completely innocent of using language that could be construed as violent. But there is no doubt that most of the vitriolic language over the last three years has come from right wing mouths and from right wing pens. The anger has been much more pervasive and more white-hot on the right: "Don't retreat, instead -- reload" or "Second Amendment remedies" "Take our country back" or "Terrorist, Fascist, Nazi…Kill him" and "Obama is a secret Muslim."

What is more disturbing is what Republican and conservative leaders have not said over the last three years. Their continuing silence during simmering violence has been chilling. A few unexpected voices have expressed alarm. After an antigovernment gunman struck at Washington’s Holocaust museum in June 2009, Shepard Smith of Fox News noted the rising vitriol in his e-mail traffic and warned on air that more “amped up” Americans could be “getting the gun out.” But most Republican leaders encouraged violent rhetoric from people who believe "Obama's going to take everyone's guns away" or "Obama's going to put everyone in concentration camps" or the President of the United States "pals around with terrorists" and is a secret Muslim not born in this country.

The hate and disinformation on FOX has also helped to dumb down our democracy, making a serious national discussion about anything important too “elitist”. The FOX media pundits prefer slogans and short, one-sentence made-up “facts” that fit their world view. Framing themselves as taking part in a revolution gives the impression of violent overthrow – and their sheep repeat the “facts” over and over, getting angrier and angrier – and many far right politicians have been complicit through participation.

It is time for the right wing to “man up” and take responsibility for the political tone they set during 2008 and that has continued into this year. But they don’t. Instead, they childishly point their fingers at the Democrats and shout “they did it, too!” If politicians on both the hard right and the far left constantly use violent rhetoric to stir up opposition to their adversaries, then they are responsible for the crazy people who take their urgings seriously. 

Actual violence toward a Democrat was bound to happen at some point. As one blogger wrote: "YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN BEATING THE DRUM FOR YEARS, NOW YOU ACT SUPRISED WHEN SOMEONE GETS UP TO DANCE!?"     

In her “blood libel” video, Palin asked, “When was it less heated — back in those calm days when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols?” She’s right. A large swath of the United States is still the Wild West. The U.S. has about 4 times more guns per capita than any other nation – often with tens of guns in a household. Calls for civility will have no more lasting impact on the “tone” of American discourse now than they did after the J.F.K. assassination or Oklahoma City. But the fact that the United States has a history of violent politics does not make it okay. It has always been wrong. 

Words have consequences, rhetoric shapes reality, and much as we like to believe that we are creatures of reason, there is something about a crazed person’s irrational fantasies that makes him all too easily pushed into deadly action. For the past three years, it is the inflammatory words on the hard right that are stirring up the murderous crazies in our country. 

This shooting presented an opportunity for all on the hard right and far left to reflect on the consequences of the tone of discussion and debate in this country – because in order for democracies to function there must be mutual respect among rivals. Some did just that.  But the hate toward President Obama (by about one-quarter of our country's population) is a festering boil that will once again, very shortly, cause the atmosphere to be highly contentious. 

The words you choose do matter! 


“The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.” - Will Rogers

Repealing healthcare adds billions of dollars to the deficit

House Republicans are in a pickle: Repealing health-care reform would cost hundreds of billions of dollars -- and Eric Cantor knows it. One of the new rules set forth by the House Republican majority says that new legislation must be paid for. But the health-care bill reduces the federal deficit by more than $100 billion over the next 10 years. Luckily, they've figured out an answer to their problem: They've decided to simply exempt the repeal bill from the rules. That means they're beginning the 112th Congress by lifting their own rules in order to take a vote that will increase the deficit. Change we can believe in, and all that. 

Republicans are aware that this looks, well, horrible. So they're trying to explain why their decision to lift the rule requiring fiscal responsibility is actually fiscally responsible. Majority Leader Eric Cantor got asked about this, and he returned the reporter's serve with a volley of nonsense. "About the budget implications, I think most people understand that the CBO did the job it was asked to do by the then-Democrat majority, and it was really comparing apples to oranges,” Cantor said. “It talked about 10 years' worth of tax hikes and six years' worth of benefits. Everyone knows beyond the 10-year window, this bill has the potential to bankrupt this federal government as well as the states."

That's all well and good -- but it's not true. Take Cantor's core point: The health-care reform bill includes "10 years' worth of tax hikes and six years' worth of benefits." There's nothing philosophical about this statement. It can be checked with a simple look at the spending tables the Congressional Budget Office published in their analysis of the bill. And when you look at those tables, Cantor's statement falls apart:

Roughly speaking, new spending is what counts as "benefits." New taxes are the turquoise bar at the bottom. In years one, two, and three, new benefits are larger than new taxes. In year four, that's not true, but the difference is fairly small. And in the six years after that, even Cantor admits the benefits match or overwhelm the taxes.

Mr. "Fiscal Responsibility" Cantor is lying through his teeth.


from an article by Ezra Klein