Worthy of its own post

Hitler finds out that the Republicans have no ideas of their own.

22 March 2010; they got the job done!

Workout notes I was sore and bloated so I decided to do a rather tame swim: 1000 very slow (18:10), 10 x 25 drill, 25 swim (fins), 5 x (25 fly, 25 free, 25 back, 25 free) on the 2:10 (about 1:50-55), 4 x 50 paddle. I was just “off” and achy.

Injury: it is killing me this morning; then again I am wearing the old shoes again.

Other topics

Yes, the House got it done; it was quite a feat for Speaker Pelosi. Yes, I’ve been furious with some of the Democrats but today I am proud of them; I made my first contribution to the DCCC in a long time.

Of course, I remain a realist: the Representatives who backed the bill were largely those from districts where President Obama had done reasonably well.

Of course this represents the graphs for non-retiring Democrats. For example, in Rep. Schock’s (R, IL-18) district, President Obama got 48 percent of the vote to Senator McCain’s 49 and he was a “no”.

My take Yes, I was one of those who opposed the Senate Bill from the left; this person is about where I am on this issue.

But in the end I am glad that Rep. Peolsi got the job done and got it through; this is an improvement from where we are now and a giant step in the right direction.

One of the biggest ironies is this bill is very similar to the compromise offered by the Republicans in 1993 during the debates with President Clinton and similar to what then Gov. Romney came up with in Massachusetts. In fact, this is really a moderate Republican bill; I am a bit surprised that some savvy moderate Republicans didn’t break away and support it and claim a bit of credit. The bill does have some Republican ideas.

But then again, many were just so sure that the bill was going to fail:

Krauthammer: “If [Brown] wins, health care is dead.” On the January 18 edition of Fox News’ Special Report (accessed via Nexis), Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer stated of Brown, “If he wins, health care is dead.” Krauthammer later stated: “If Brown wins tomorrow the bill as we see it is dead. The only hope is if the House swallows the Senate bill whole, which I think is not going to happen. The only alternative is to delay the swearing in of the Republican in the Senate, and that would be catastrophic for the Democrats.”

Barnes: “The Health Care Bill Is Dead.” In a January 20 Weekly Standard post, Fred Barnes wrote: “The impact of Republican Scott Brown’s capture of the Massachusetts Senate seat held for decades by Teddy Kennedy will be both immediate and powerful. It’s safe to say no single Senate election in recent memory is as important as this one.” Barnes added: “The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection. Brown ran to be the 41st vote for filibuster and now he is just that. Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won’t fly. It’s one thing for ObamaCare to be rejected by the American public in poll after poll. But it becomes a matter of considerably greater political magnitude when ObamaCare causes the loss of a Senate race in the blue state of Massachusetts.”

Barnes: “It’s dead in the House, it’s dead in the Senate.” On the January 21 edition of Special Report (accessed via Nexis), Barnes claimed, after Brown’s victory, “Scaling back Obama care is a non-starter. Look, it is dead. It is dead in the House. It is dead in the Senate. I’m not sure it would have passed even before Brown. Nancy Pelosi was down to 218 votes and some of the more moderate Democrats were queasy. But the whole thing is dead. Republicans aren’t going to help out on this. The Republican position is get that off the table. We will start anew.” [...]

Will: “I don’t see how” health care reform survives Brown’s victory. On the January 19 edition of ABC’s Nightline (accessed via Nexis), during a discussion of Brown’s victory, host Cynthia McFadden asked, “Can the president pull the chestnuts out of the fire on this one? Can health care survive?” ABC News contributor and Washington Post columnist George Will replied, “I don’t see how. There’s no clamor in the country for this. There is a clamor in the country to pay attention to other things.”

Hannity: “Prince Harry has to accept the fact that his health care bill is dead.” On the January 21 edition of his Fox News show (accessed via Nexis), Sean Hannity said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — who Hannity referred to as “Prince Harry” — “has to accept the fact that his health care bill is dead” because of Brown’s victory.

Gingrich predicted Dems “cannot pass a reconciliation bill through the House.” Also during the January 21 edition of Hannity, after Hannity stated that Democrats were “floating the idea” that they would use reconciliation to pass health care reform, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich stated, “OK, let me predict that they cannot pass a reconciliation bill through the House of Representatives. The American people will be so enraged by some kind of a cheap political act by somebody like [Sen. Dick] Durbin who is the Democratic whip.” Gingrich continued, “I think the reaction of the country will be so angry that that bill would never get through the House.”

(surf to the article to see more conservative pundit FAIL)

So, will the plan work? I honestly don’t know; my guess is that it will get tweaked over and over again. But at least we have something to jury rig and tweak; that is easier than starting from scratch. And hey, maybe, just maybe, the Republicans can play a positive role in this process?

But I do know this: though I can’t predict how well it will work, I can see who is cheering it and who is jeering it.

Cheers: here and here and here.

Jeers: Just read.

A bit from Paul Krugman:

The day before Sunday’s health care vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made … And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

And on the other side, here’s what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” by passing civil rights legislation.

Cheers: Barack Obama. Jeers: Newt Gingrich.
Note how they made the appeals: Obama: “do what is right, even if it costs you.” Gingrich: “lets win a political battle”.

The contrast couldn’t be starker. I know which side I’d rather be on. It isn’t even close.

A Rational Republican View

Via David Frum

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure. [...]

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. [...]

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead.

Emphasis mine. Really Republicans: you could have had more say in this bill and you could have driven a bigger wedge between President Obama and his liberal base who wanted him to act like President Bush and just roll over the Republicans. The President really wanted to work with you but you said “no” to everything in hopes that you could stop it.

21 March 2010 (pm)

Swimming workout 5500 yards: I swam in the afternoon after a nap. I did NOT go straight through: 500 yards easy (9:15), 5 x (25 front, free, sfs, free) with fins, then on the 2: 5 x 100 fist, 5 x (25 3g, 75 free) on 2, 5 x (25 catch up, 75 free) 10 x (25 side, 75 free), 5 x (25 free, 25 back, 50 free), 10 x (25 fly, 75 free). Then alternating 100 paddle, 100 free for 500; total time was 1:50.

It wasn’t that hard and not that intense. My endurance is ok though.

Health Care Reform: I am listening to the debate on C-SPAN; most the Republicans who are speaking are real idiots.

I am not quite as confident as Paul Krugman but Intrade is at 95.0.

The Entitlement Mentality of (many) US Conservatives

I’d like to get one thing straight from the start. There is principled opposition to health care reform (example). And yes, what passes might not work; heck, I’ve been wrong before. In fact, count me as one of those who didn’t like the Senate Bill because it didn’t go far enough.

Still, I am supporting it as I think that this is the best that we can do at this time in this political climate. But hey, maybe I AM wrong.

Yes, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: dissent is patriotic. Citizens have every right (duty?) to contact the President and their members of Congress to oppose this bill if they think it is a mistake. For example, though I am on the other side of this issues, efforts like this are perfectly ok.. Rallies and peaceful protests are ok.
In fact, many of the rallies had (mostly) well behaved people (e. g., read this account from Daily Kos). As this blogger said:

Despite reports that members of Congress were spat on, and called n*ggers and f*ggots, I didn’t witness any of this firsthand. For the most part, the Tea Party protesters I encountered were mostly courteous, and gladly moved out the way as I maneuvered my stroller through the crowd. And while I completely disagree with these folks, and find them comically misinformed, reality is, what they’re doing is as American as apple pie.

Lets face it: isn’t it great that we live in a country where folks can be manipulated by millionaire talk hosts to vote against their own economic self-interests? But that’s the way the founding fathers and the slaves who cooked their pancakes would have wanted it. One man’s Tea Party is another man’s anti-war protest, is another man’s pro-immigration rally. It’s all Democracy, whether or not you agree with the intent.

Instead of making fun of these folks, we should be grateful we live in a country where they’re allowed an opposing opinion, no matter how idiotic it might sound.

So, if you don’t like the bill and are lobbying your elected officials to “kill the bill” and if you are showing up at rallies to urge the defeat of this bill and are behaving responsibly, I am NOT talking about you in this post.

As an aside: now you know a bit of how we felt when President Bush decided to invade Iraq. It seems to people like me that you are perfectly happy to wage war on the tax payer dime but unwilling to help people out.

(of course, if your dispute is HOW the resources are being allocated, that is a different story).

So what am I talking about?

Though passage is not certain, passage is looking more and more likely. Of course, those on the losing side of this vote are bitter (which I can understand) but they can’t seem to accept that they are simply on the losing end of a Democratic process. The Senate Bill passed 60-40, which is NOT a close vote, any way you look at it. Note also that most of the no votes come from Senators from states with relatively small populations.

Yet you constantly hear the phrase “rammed through”. Why?

You hear politicians saying that people from certain regions are not “pro-America”. Why?

You hear people crying about “wanting their country back” (about 1:20-1:30 into this video)

You meant that the 69.5 million of us who voted for President Obama are somehow not Americans? (Irony note: the Senate Bill allows for competition across state lines, as the first guy talked about).

Why do these people think that THEY are America instead of merely part of America?

You hear about President Obama NOT being a “full blooded American”.

You have politicians refer to our civil war as a “War of Yankee Aggression”.

We have governors talking about secession.

“Washington thumbing their nose at THE AMERICAN PEOPLE”? Just who are the “American People” anyway?

You have racist and homophobic insults thrown at members of Congress.

I am even seeing this sort of thing from a recent blog visitor:

A few points:

1 – The CBO’s estimate didn’t particularly cover the fact that it is cuts to medicare and tax increases that allow for the near-term savings and that the tax increases will fail if they cause a further economic downturn. Nor could they estimate the post 10-year effects.

2 – Citing illegal behavior is hardly a reccomendation for changing laws. Nor is citing an individual case a good example for a whole class of entities – or shall I use any thug nigger’s behavior as an indicator of what all Blacks, including your precious Obama, will do?

3 – Of course Obama has strong support from Blacks and other non-Whites. He’s one of them and, when it comes down to it, that and a hand-out from the Whites’ wallets is all they really care about.

I think that it is a bit of what this Daily Kos author is talking about.

In short, it appears to me that many conservatives see themselves as the “real Americans”; they haven’t come to grips with the fact that MOST OF AMERICA IS NOT LIKE THEM.

What they love is some fictional place where they are the majority and everyone else has to conform to what THEY think that America should be.

As Jon Stewart said:

As opposed to Republicans, who everyone knows love America—they just hate half the people living in it!

I have a bit of sympathy for these types; as a liberal I’ve long accepted that most of the country is to the right of me (I see Senator Barbara Boxer as a “moderate” )

I still remember walking from my house to the University of Texas in the days prior to the 1988 election between then Vice President Bush and Governor Dukakis. I once counted the yard signs and saw 21 Dukakis signs and only 3 Bush signs and joked to my friends “we are going to win big!” They rolled their eyes (we all had been reading the nation wide polls) and remarked “I don’t think that the US is like the Hyde Park neighborhood in Austin, Texas”.

But I fully understood that, given that I was raised on military bases, served in the Navy (when President Reagan was at the peak of his popularity) and went to the U. S. Naval Academy (a conservative bastion). So I knew that most of America was not like me.

I still know that. But it is a lesson that many U. S. conservatives have yet to learn. They have to learn that they can make their case and to have their case voted on but they are NOT entitled to govern.

21 March 2010 (am-I)

No swim this morning because of the Peoria Indoor Triathlon. Yes, I thought about entering on the spot, but that would have been stupidity; I am finally starting to heal (night pain is fading away) and so I am going to be ultra conservative in my comeback.

I’ll try to swim at 2 pm when there is lap swim at our university.

Boxing:
Wladimir Klitschko defended his IBF and WBO heavyweight crown by knocking out Eddie Chambers late in the 12′th round. You can see the whole fight here.

Here is the start; note that Klitshko hurt Chambers with a big right hand late in round 2:

Note: it doesn’t appear as if these guys rely on body shots the way that the heavyweights of old used to (Foreman, Tyson, Frazier). Klitschko used his stinging jab to set up power punches to the head. But it was mostly jabs.

I’ve watched Chambers before here (against Sam Peter) and here (against Derric Rossy.)

I learned something in the Chambers-Rossy fight: Rossy is a huge, athletic man who was in top notch physical condition. But he was no match for an accomplished boxer (Chambers), who in turn was no match for a champion boxer (Klitschko).

Other topics:

I know that we often have trouble with geography but…

see more Epic Fails

Health Care Reform: still another example of why it is needed:

The existing system is preposterous: we rely on insurance companies whose business model is based on accepting premiums from healthy people and devising ways to exclude from coverage those who most desperately need medical care.

Jan’s stomach was removed, and she underwent extensive chemotherapy. Then in October, her doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to her intestines. She has been hospitalized ever since.

The insurance company is InterGlobal, based in London, and the policy ostensibly covered up to $1.7 million in costs. But, according to Zack, the company said the policy allowed it to cut Jan off because she suffered from a “chronic condition.” It stopped paying her bills in January, Zack says.

I reached Sophie Walker, the group head of claims for InterGlobal. She said she couldn’t talk about an individual case. But she explained in an e-mail message that with a “chronic condition” the policies can have a much lower limit, $85,000, on lifetime claims. That’s the limit that Jan ran into in January, Zack says.

Then Ms. Walker gave me the company’s definition of “chronic” (you couldn’t make this up):

“Chronic means a medical condition which has at least one of the following characteristics: has no known cure; is likely to recur; requires palliative treatment; needs prolonged monitoring/ treatment; is permanent; requires specialist training/rehabilitation; is caused by changes to the body that cannot be reversed.”

That sounds like a spoof from “The Daily Show.” To translate: We’ll pay for care unless you get sick with just about anything that might be expensive. Then we’ll cut you off at the knees.

I asked InterGlobal if this was an accurate translation. I noted that by its definition, cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes, tennis elbow and even athlete’s foot seemed to be “chronic.” I also asked InterGlobal to name any serious disease that it did not consider “chronic.”

The next e-mail message came back from the company’s chief executive, Stephen Hartigan, who sent his “kind regards” but added that because he was “disappointed” at the tone of my inquiries, the company would have no further comment.

Bottom line: businesses make money by taking in as much as they can and delivering as little as they can get away with. This isn’t a great model for health insurance.

Still, they can make money but these companies should be regulated like the utilities are.

Intrade:

Blogroll Updated (20 March 2010)

Yes, I do this for fun: this is a list of my regular reads. I have this on my sidebar.

Humor

Fail Blog

Link Dump

3 Quarks Daily Links to Interesting Articles.

Politics

538.com Politics Analysis via Statistcs
Robert Reich Mostly economic policy issues
Alan Colmes Liberalland
Paul Krugman Mostly economic policy issues
Democratic Convention Watch Democratic Politics
Dick Morris Conservative Republican (populist) politics
Sagacity: personal blog (Democratic)
Peoria Pundit Mostly Peoria area politics and issues
Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub Social issues, general interest
Brother Peacemaker Social issues; often African American issues

History
Edge of the American WestHistory, some politcs, some social issues

Civil Liberties and Security
Legal Satyricon First Amendment Issues and Law
Schneier Securty Blog Security issues, some codes/ciphers

Religion/Atheism

Friendly Atheist
Proud Atheists
Miranda Celest Hale’s blog Rationalism; literature also
Science Avenger Pro-rationalism

Science
(some of these deal with religious issues as well)

Richard Dawkins Science and Reason
Recursivity Mathematics and Rationalism
SandwalkEvolution, science and rationalism
Conservation Report Nature, environment, some politics
Cosmic Variance Physics and Cosmology
Mano Singham Science (physicis), science/rationalism
PharyngulaEvolution, atheism, rationalism
AnthropologyAnthropology, human evolution
Why Evolution is True science, rationalism
Doctor Andy Science and medicine; some social issues, some endurance sports

Anti-Racism/Hate

Nikkie’s Nest Anti Racism
Right Wing Watch

Education

Rate Your Students Where professors blow off steam

Personal (endurance athletes)

Tammy Racewalker, up to marathon
Damon Ultrarunner
Wild Celtic Rose Artist and triathlete (photos)
Ray Racewalker, ultra walker

Poe (satire)
Note: very rough language; not for the sensitive or for the easily offended:

Republican Faith Chat
The Good Kentuckian

Me: March 20, 2010

I’ve spent my training time lifting and swimming. Ok, my strength leaves a good deal to be desired and I am making progress on my swimming.

Today’s workout: weights.
Bench press: 135 x 10, 155 x 5, 175 x 1, 195 x 1, 205 x 1 (better than the 200 I did a week or two ago), 175 x 6.
Military (seated) sets of 9, 7, 7 with 85.
I then went to my variety, mixing it up: 5 sets of pull ups (12, 5, 5, 7, 5), pull downs (3 sets), dumbbell military (10 x 45, 7 x 45), curls (7 x 30, 10 x 25, 7 x 30), leg lifts from vertical (2 sets of 20), yoga leg lifts (2 sets of 25), headstand (5 minutes). That turned me into a sweaty mess.

Then I did some yoga on my own (sun salutes, warrior series, balances, etc.)

Photos

But here I am: 6 feet tall, about 188 pounds and at 50 years old:

Relaxed:

Flexed:

For better or worse, that’s me. Yes, that is Ronald Reagan on my shirt (from a 1997 4 mile race in Eureka, IL).

I much prefer this shirt:

Wisdom From the Comic Strips

Love it.

20 March 2010

Here the President talks about financial reform and the creation of an agency to advocate for consumers.

Here Rep. Anthony Weiner confronts Republicans from reading from a hoax document as if it were a real one.

Intrade: as of this morning has HCR at 82.8.

Health Care Bill Summary: Slate has a good guide:

This is more or less the pattern health care reform has followed. The House passed a bill full of wonderful stuff, the Senate crapped it up (mainly by tossing out the public option), and now the House, with a strong assist from the Obama White House, has restored some of the House’s wonderful stuff (though not, alas, the public option, whose inclusion in this round would doom the bill—not necessarily in the Senate, ironically enough, but in the House, where the Democratic leadership is still short a half-dozen or so votes). What we’re left with falls short of what health care reform could have been—it’s no masterpiece—but it’s better than it almost was, and it lays a workable and long-overdue foundation for health policy in the United States that, I predict, will eventually win support even from the Republican Party. In spite of the dark threats we’ve been hearing. (Fred Barnes: “The Health Care Wars Are Only Beginning.” Booga-booga!) Assuming the damn thing passes.

Cost. All right-thinking people said the Senate-passed bill did a better job at reducing the deficit than the House-passed bill. As is often the case, all right-thinking people were wrong. The Congressional Budget Office scored the House-passed bill as saving $138 billion over 10 years and the Senate-passed bill as saving $132 billion over 10 years, an estimate recently lowered to $118 billion. The House reconciliation bill restores the 10-year savings to $138 billion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has added $20 billion in deficit savings to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bill. [...]

Does it close the doughnut hole? The 2003 Medicare expansion to cover pharmaceuticals left a gap in drug coverage for seniors who spend more than $2,700 annually and less than $6,154. (These amounts change from year to year.) The House-passed bill closed the gap. The Senate-passed bill didn’t. The reconciliation bill does.

Why we need it:

As it happens, Reuters published an investigative report this week that powerfully illustrates the vileness of our current system. The report concerns the insurer Fortis, now part of Assurant Health, which turns out to have had a systematic policy of revoking its clients’ policies when they got sick. In particular, according to the Reuters report, it targeted every single policyholder who contracted H.I.V., looking for any excuse, no matter how flimsy, for cancellation. In the case that brought all this to light, Assurant Health used an obviously misdated handwritten note by a nurse, who wrote “2001” instead of “2002,” to claim that the infection was a pre-existing condition that the client had failed to declare, and revoked his policy.

This was illegal, and the company must have known it: the South Carolina Supreme Court, after upholding a decision granting large damages to the wronged policyholder, concluded that the company had been systematically concealing its actions when withdrawing coverage, not just in this case, but across the board.

But this is much more than a law enforcement issue. For one thing, it’s an example those who castigate President Obama for “demonizing” insurance companies should consider. The truth, widely documented, is that behavior like Assurant Health’s is widespread for a simple reason: it pays. A House committee estimated that Assurant made $150 million in profits between 2003 and 2007 by canceling coverage of people who thought they had insurance, a sum that dwarfs the fine the court imposed in this particular case. It’s not demonizing insurers to describe what they actually do.

Beyond that, this is a story that could happen only in America. In every other advanced nation, insurance coverage is available to everyone regardless of medical history. Our system is unique in its cruelty.

So, how is President Obama doing? Maybe he is faring better than the top Republicans are willing to admit?

First, let’s take his job approval rating. Yes, it slid during the summer, but it stabilized around 50 percent in November and has hovered there ever since.

The empty-headed chattering class began another round of speculation and inane analysis this week when his approval rating dropped to 46 percent, its lowest yet. Silly pundits.

It was a minor tick and overplayed. If I were a Republican strategist (God forbid!), I would actually be very worried that the lower 50s/upper 40s could be Obama’s bottom. He has weathered some of the worst months of his young presidency recently, and his numbers have barely budged.

The second thing to remember is that job approval is only one measure of how well a president connects with the electorate.

At the conclusion of his Wednesday appearance on Fox News, insolent interviewer Bret Baier interrupted the president for the umpteenth time to ask him if he thought that the health care bill would pass. Obama responded with a familiar line: “I do. I’m confident it will pass. And the reason I’m confident that it’s going to pass is because it’s the right thing to do.”

This idea that he wants reform “because it’s the right thing to do” resonates with people. Whether they agree with him or not, they seem to genuinely believe that he has good intentions and that he is, at his base, a good man. This view of him has so penetrated the public that it often goes unspoken.

But, it shows up in the polls, albeit in indirect ways.

For instance, a Pew Research Center poll released on Thursday found that despite Obama’s 46 percent approval rating, 61 percent of Americans still say that he is inspiring. Furthermore, 57 percent describe him as decisive, 54 percent say that he still makes them feel hopeful and 49 percent said that he still makes them feel proud.

Interestingly enough, he reminds me a bit of Ronald Reagan, except that he has a strong intellect. If this seems strange to some of you older people, remember that the USA has changed over the last couple of decades. Check out this chart of approval ratings:

By educational level (Obama’s strongest support comes from those with postgraduate degrees)

(from here)

He is also strongly supported by Blacks and Hispanics

(from here)