The Commentariat -- Nov. 17, 2013
** Joe Stiglitz in the New York Times: "We spend billions every year on farm subsidies, many of which help wealthy commercial operations to plant more crops than we need. The glut depresses world crop prices, harming farmers in developing countries. Meanwhile, millions of Americans live tenuously close to hunger, which is barely kept at bay by a food stamp program that gives most beneficiaries just a little more than $4 a day. So it's almost too absurd to believe that House Republicans are asking for a farm bill that would make all of these problems worse.... The proposal is a perfect example of how growing inequality has been fed by what economists call rent-seeking." ...
... CW: Here's my idea of torture. Force House Republicans into a special session on Thanksgiving Day. Make them stand in the well, one by one, & read Stiglitz's column aloud all day long. At the end of the day, reward these turkeys not with a nice roasted Thanksgiving turkey but with the carcass of one from a District soup kitchens.
Michael Tomasky in the New York Review of Books: "... there are a few reasons to think that Obama and the Democrats can reverse the recent surge of Republican power to some extent and win two modest but important victories. First, they could get the sequester lifted and increase spending in some categories again. Second, it now seems that entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, which Obama has shown a willingness to cut in the past, have a good chance to emerge unscathed." ...
... Sequestered. AFP: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel sounded an alarm bell Saturday about budget cuts he said threaten America's security and global military role, while 'gambling' over the risk of an unexpected threat. The cuts, which amount to nearly $1 trillion for the Department of Defense (DoD) over a decade, were 'too steep, too deep and too abrupt,' Hagel told a defense conference in California. 'This is an irresponsible way to govern, and it forces the department into a very bad set of choices,' he said. Automatic cuts of $52 billion set to take place in fiscal 2014 represent 10 percent of the Pentagon budget."
Only in America. Thankfully. New York Times Editors: "Judges, bound by mandatory sentencing laws that they openly denounce, are sending people away for the rest of their lives for committing nonviolent drug and property crimes. In nearly 20 percent of cases, it was the person's first offense. As of 2012, there were 3,278 prisoners serving sentences of life without parole for such crimes, according to an extensive and astonishing report issued Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. And that number is conservative.... The report estimates that the cost of imprisoning just these 3,278 people for life instead of a more proportionate length of time is $1.78 billion.... If the United States is to call itself a civilized nation, it must end this cruel and ineffective practice."
Frank Bruni speculates on Bill Clinton's motives for goosing President Obama to allow Americans to keep their lousy health insurance policies. ...
... Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The institutional apparatus of the Democratic coalition is shifting gears as party strategists, outside groups and the people who finance campaigns prepare for what they believe is an inevitable 2016 presidential bid by Hillary Rodham Clinton. As President Obama struggles with the debacle of his Affordable Care Act rollout and fights to regain his political standing, his party's machinery is already pivoting to the next campaign. Concrete steps are being taken to wage a general election contest with Clinton as the presumed nominee."
The Diddler. Tennessee Gov. Bill "Haslam [R], who had once promised a decision by summer's end [on whether or not to accept the ACA's Medicaid expansion provisions], is still trying to negotiate a new plan of his own with federal officials, hoping it will satisfy the competing constituencies. It would involve using federal money to place many of the state's poor on the federal health care exchange created by the act, rather than on Medicaid. But so far he has not persuaded federal officials..., and said he expected no quick resolution. Although he is not required to do so, Mr. Haslam has also promised not to enact anything without the approval of the Legislature, whose Republican majority, he said, was dead set against an expansion of Medicaid. Support for his alternative plan seems uncertain at best."
Zeba Siddiqui of Reuters: "UnitedHealth Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The insurer said in October that underfunding of Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly could not be fully offset by the company's other healthcare business. The company also reported spending more healthcare premiums on medical claims in the third quarter, due mainly to government cuts to payments for Medicare Advantage services. CW: So Congress sticks it to their base -- elderly insured people -- & UnitedHealth drops the old folks' doctors. Are we going to see some Congressional outrage for these people losing their doctors? Huh? Huh?
Humor Break. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone: "I almost couldn't believe it when I heard that JP Morgan Chase was going to do a live Twitter Q&A with the public -- you know, all those people around the world they've been bending over and robbing for, oh, the last decade or so. On the all-time list of public relations screw-ups, it's hard to say where this decision by America's most hated commercial bank ... to engage the enraged public on Twitter ranks.... Unsurprisingly, the public barraged him with abusive Tweets, and the bank ultimately had to cancel the Q&A." ...
... Actor Stacy Keach reads some of the tweets "with perfect Inside the Actors' Studio gravitas," Taibbi notes:
Geithner Cashes In. Michael de la Merced & Peter Lattman of the New York Times: "Timothy F. Geithner will join the private equity firm Warburg Pincus as president, the firm announced on Saturday. It would be his first prominent position since leaving office as Treasury secretary this year."
Stan Greenberg in Politico Magazine: "In 2010, a record 10 percent of opposite-sex married couples told America's census takers that they lived in an interracial household -- up from 7.4 percent in 2000.... Race may be a thing of the past for most young Americans, but that is not yet the case for the base of the Republican Party, which is supremely conscious of its dwindling numbers in a country exploding with diversity. In my work for Democratic candidates and causes, my firm's focus groups have found that racial sentiment contributes significantly to the over-the-top hostility to Obamacare, and tea party groups' insistence on doing anything, even shutting down the government and risking a debt default, to stop it...." CW: To protect his gastrointestinal system, Richard Cohen should stay indoors with the curtains closed. Also, take away his pen & keypads. ...
... BTW, Richard Cohen gags a lot. Sarah Hedgecock of Gawker: "As it turns out, Cohen is something worse than a casual racist: he's a blatantly shitty writer who keeps going reflexively back to the same tired metaphor. Diving into the Post's archives, we found that Cohen, and the many real and hypothetical subjects of his columns, have been gagging in print for over 25 years."
Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, in the New York Review of Books: "The Snowden Leaks and the Public."
Ken Starr Stands Up for His Child Molester Buddy. J. K. Trotter of Gawker: "What's Ken Starr up to these days? According to Virginia court documents, the famously pious former Clinton prosecutor recently pleaded with a Fairfax County judge to let a confessed child molester go free. Because he's a family friend.... It was just one of dozens of letters sent by as many Washington, D.C., and New York City power players -- including former ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson, a former aide to Laura Bush, a former GOP congressman, and a powerful partner at the insider law firm Akin Gump -- who wrote in praise of Christopher Kloman, a 74-year-old retired Potomac School teacher who has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting several female students under the age of 14. Kloman received a 43-year prison sentence in October.... the Starrs, in a letter written by Starr's wife Alice but signed by both, felt Kloman shouldn't go to prison despite his crimes because he 'took the time to chat' with their daughter...." CW: Yeah, I'll bet he did.
Michelle Cottle of BuzzFeed reviews Sarah Palin's "Christmas book": "As with pretty much everything the former governor does, this is all about Venting the Spleen of Sarah. And that's what makes it so gosh darn refreshing. Screw those treacly holiday offerings aiming to melt your heart or lift your spirits.... Good Tidings and Great Joy gives the finger to all that, offering instead Palin at her toxic best: snippy, snarky, snide, and thoroughly pissed off." ...
Not hilarious, but only a few steps away from reality:
This Week in God. Steve Benen: "On a Veterans' Day broadcast, Kenneth Copeland, a widely influential televangelist, and David Barton, a Republican pseudo-historian, relied on Scripture to argue that military veterans returning from war can't get PTSD because they're doing Godly work." CW: This is so wrong on so many levels; yet some veterans who need help won't get it because they've listened to these quacks.
Congressional Race
Stephanie Grace of Reuters: "Republican businessman Vance McAllister, a political newcomer who boasts of never having visited Washington, D.C., won a special election in Louisiana on Saturday to fill the congressional seat formerly held by fellow Republican Rodney Alexander." CW: Read the whole article; this guy sounds less bad than the party's preferred candidate, whom he beat. While one off-year Congressional election does not a movement make, it appears that even conservative white Southerners may be sick of some of the most egregious Stupid Republican Tricks. OR, maybe it's just that "Duck Dynasty" rules (see story).
News Ledes
AP: "Dozens of tornadoes and intense thunderstorms swept across the Midwest on Sunday, causing extensive damage in several central Illinois communities, killing at least three people and prompting officials at Chicago's Soldier Field to evacuate the stands and delay the Bears game."
AP: "A Boeing 737 jetliner crashed and burst into flames Sunday night while trying to land at the airport in the Russian city of Kazan, killing all 50 people aboard in the latest in a string of deadly crashes across the country. The Tatarstan Airlines plane was trying to make a second landing attempt when it touched the surface of the runway near the control tower, and was 'destroyed and caught fire,' said Sergei Izvolky, the spokesman for the Russian aviation agency."
Guardian: "Doris Lessing, the Nobel prize-winning author of The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing, among more than 50 other novels ranging from political to science fiction, has died at her London home aged 94." ...
... Update: Lessing's New York Times obituary is here.
Share Article
Reader Comments (11)
@ All: I realize everyone is well-meaning here. But let me remind you again that this is a site about politics.
As I've written before, if anyone wants to get in touch with another commenter & the other person is willing, I can sometimes arrange that. I will not give out e-mail addresses to any other commenter without being absolutely certain I've been authorized to do so. I won't reveal given names in any event.
Marie
I was this close to checking with you, Marie, for a ruling on where you draw the line. Your caution is kindly stated. For my edification, do you have a working definition for "politics" as you envision the site? I don't need to post, really. I can just listen in if you prefer. It all ties together for me, but not in few enough words, much of the time. On or offline is fine, thanks.
For those who would enjoy another review of H&H’s “Double Down,” let me recommend Walter Shapiro’s “‘Double Down’ Was Written for Morning Joe—Not Posterity” in The American Prospect.
A sample:
“So unlike the post-election work of Sasha Issenberg in The MIT Technology Review and Jon Alter’s The Center Holds, Double Down is devoid of any sophisticated discussion of how the Obama and Romney campaigns massaged data. Halperin and Heilemann show little interest in unraveling one of the enduring mysteries of Campaign 2012: Why did the supposedly data-driven Romney lose touch with reality and believe to the end his overly optimistic internal polls and the eager Republican faces at campaign rallies? For all of its in-the-moment hype, Double Down exudes a slightly musty aroma, as if the authors are uncomfortable with how politics has changed with the advent of social media. In fact, Double Down may be remembered as a historical curiosity—the last campaign retrospective that fails to mention Facebook.”
http://prospect.org/article/double-down-was-written-morning-joe—not-posterity
@ Todd K. No, there's no "line." Often people write of how some policy or political process has had an impact on their lives or those of their friends, or how their personal experiences show a need for some political remedy, and comments of that nature are more than appropriate.
Some Reality Chex commenters have professional expertise -- whether they say so or not -- & that expertise of course often informs their commentary on political matters, so I particularly appreciate it.
If you just think about the kinds of topics that make it to, say, the New York Times editorial pages, that can serve as a guide. (Do not, however, be thrown off by MoDo's digressions on Manolo Blancos or chats with movie stars she met during her Hollywood excursions.)
If you write a comment that's mostly about your pet gerbil -- even if you've named the little rodent after a member of Congress -- you're probably on the wrong track.
Marie
From Reuters: "UnitedHealth Group dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks, leaving many elderly patients unsure whether they need to switch plans to continue seeing their doctors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The insurer said in October that underfunding of Medicare Advantage plans for the elderly could not be fully offset by the company's other healthcare business...."
Yikes! I am so glad I took the advice of a friend, a savvy businesswoman, who advised me to drop my United HealthCare MedAdvantage program last year. (Endorsed, BTW, by AARP) She believes that United is the WORST--followed closely by Aetna. I enrolled in Oregon Regence BC/BC MedAdvantage and have been well pleased. My rates went up this year, but they have dropped none of my doctors from their rolls, and they have even agreed to pay for a consultation for my husband at UCLA. Plus, they even paid my sweet dentist (somewhat) to clean and x-ray my teeth. What? I have nevah, evah had insurance that allowed that.
I am aware all this could change overnight; however, Oregon is a bit fussy about insurers, thank you, Jeebus. So far, so good.
My reminder again: please be patient with ACA. Do not pay attention to the whining and biased reporting of the MSM about its rollout. Save your judgment for 2015. And, BTW, I wish Fluffy Gregory would put his head permanently where the sun don't shine! He nauseates me. Ditto Chuckie Todd. Good Night and Good Luck!
Riddle me this, experts. Well meaning meets demeaning, and is required to donate something north of $500 an hour for the privilege, give or take a few pet zeros. What is a person to do who doesn't have "friends in high places?" Curious math, in need of a conscience. Such is the problem with all systems that have no effective answer for the question of the "lesser kind."
What constitutes an effective answer? How about experts to serve all of the people. Last I heard, the medical educators were beginning to realize they had a compassion problem, and the business educators a greed problem, And the politicians had a prostitution problem, and the law schools were getting wrinkles. Shall we talk about the new experts? The ones who run IT? Last I heard, even San Francisco was feeling a little fed up. NSA? Anyone?
And how about those religious leaders? A politics problem? Or is it funding at the root, again.
Honest experts are the go to people for their depth of experience, when you need advice. But there are "unwashed" versions of humanity at both ends of the financial scale.
By the people, of the people, for the people. Who has the sense to do it with love? And humility. Now let's count 'em.
@Todd K. I had a little difficulty following your train of thought, but I think you were writing about credentialed experts vs. non-credentialed opinionators. I have long followed the "rule" Paul Krugman lays out in his short blogpost, "Do You Know Who I Am?" a post I've linked here at least twice before.
As a side note: there are few absolutes, & learning to say, "Hmm. I was wrong about that," is a skill that experts & credible non-experts have all mastered.
Marie
As a contrite first respondent in yesterday's salvo, IMHO Marie is correct, this is not a forum for airing process issues, but rather the politics and economics of pubic policy related to said processes.
So, as a followup to issues raised in the last couple of commentariats by Barbarossa, Marvin Schwalb and Todd K, here (again IMHO) is the Achilles heel of not only the ACA, irrespective of its own problems, but of any approach to the US medical care shipwreck: The economics of enterprise medicine have all but eliminated the pool of primary care providers. Orthopedic surgeon: $$$$$; Cardiologist: $$$$; Internist $$; Pediatrician: $; GP: $. So even when (not if) we finally attain a single payer system, maybe even in my now elderly lifetime, where are we going to get the providers? In the interest of offering a solution rather than just a rant, here is a modest proposal:
There are 132 medical schools in the US graduating about 18,000 physicians per year. The mean tuition & fees (public + private) is just short of $200,000 per graduate. A federal program that would offer any student who agreed to spend five years in a primary care practice (Family, Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, OB/Gyn, General Surgery) before specializing would receive a fully paid scholarship. Any school, public or private. If every student were to accept (not likely), the bill would be about 3.4 g$ per year, chump change in the scale of things. It would address the shortage in primary docs, relieve the tuition debt problem, which drives many to specialize, and yield specialists with much deeper medical education, and a much much deeper sympathy (even empathy?) for the kinds of health problems faced by the vast majority of individuals.
There are other grave problems with the system that drive up cost and drive down quality, but none is going to be cracked if we don't have adequate staffing for primary care, which deals with the overwhelming majority of medical issues for most folks. And costs far less.
If this seems plausible, write your favorite Rep or Senator.
My late father spent 44 years as a solo General Practitioner in a rural Louisiana town. He spent most of those years wringing his hands over the prospect of the dreaded government socializing medicine. He died before witnessing much worse, its commercialization by MBA's, accountants and lawyers.
@Kenneth Copeland and others of that ilk. Don't worry, that PTSD that's not a problem today WILL be a problem down the line . Speaking of alernative medicine, I had a really good friend who contracted cancer. No chemo for her. She was going to go to a practitioner who would help train her body to heal itself. She tried to get me to go see the woman. Sorry, no. My friend went to see the practitioner faithfully every week. Always good progress to report. Unfortunately, the cancer blew up and spread rapidly. The practitioner had to shift from helping her heal to helping her die, which my friend soon did. It was a painful death too.
On to another topic, Our Leader, Nancy Pelosi will be on MTP today.
Boehner is pathetic next to Pelosi. Scratch that--he's pathetic in any case, but doubly so compared to Pelosi.
@Whyte Owen: There is plenty of precedent for your suggestion. Back in the Dark Ages when I lived in Oklahoma (and those were my Dark Ages), the state had a similar program to get doctors to work in small towns. As I recall, the state paid for the students' medical training in exchange for their agreeing to practice in an Oklahoma town for a period of years.
The federal government also used to have a similar program for teachers: a loan program in which the feds forgave 10 percent of the student's college loan for every year of teaching -- up to 5 years.
There is no reason your suggestions couldn't work for advanced medical training, too, in specialties where there are shortages of trained doctors.
These are really just G.I. bills in reverse, with -- one would hope -- better screening. The G.I.'s don't get their benefits till after they have served; the students would get the benefits up front & would have to pay them back in service later -- or in kind, with interest, if they reneged on their agreement.
Marie
The model of education in exchange for a commitment to a job has applications in many professions. I think its an offshoot of the apprenticeships of old in skilled trades. Way back when I was a youngin', my father did body work on Corvettes, which were fiberglass back then. I remember my father always had apprentices who received a small salary until they were competent.
In more recent times, about a decade ago, our county was experiencing a shortage of social workers. In exchange for a 2 year commitment, after graduating with an MSW, the county paid for education and allowed people to attend during working hours with no salary reduction (schooling was completed within a specified time period).
Its a model that can still have applicability in contemporary ways.