Month: April 2009

Mickey has an excellent and helpful post on the subject. One point that often gets lost in the shuffle:

Just because rising health care costs have eaten up all of the average American's wage increases, it does not necessarily follow that either this rise was unwarranted or that health care costs need to be controlled. Maybe Americans, like richer people everywhere, want to spend more money on health care (as opposed to, say, newspapers) and advances in health care have given them more valuable services to purchase (or have their employers purchase for them). That's probably not true–and almost certainly not 100% true–but you can't tell it just by looking at Noah's big graph …

If the graph showed that rising expenditures on computer technology had eaten up all the increase in Americans' paychecks, would we immediately declare a "computer cost crisis" and demand that rising laptop expenditures be constrained? Or would we say, "Hey, people are spending a lot more on computers these days"?

Just one more day in the bizarre politics of Alaska. There's a fight over who to appoint to an open state Senate seat. Well, let's just let Mudflats tell the rest:

The Democrats and the Republicans came together for brief and rare Kumbaya moment. They gazed into each others eyes warily, but knowing that this situation was bigger than they were. The captain of this ship had turned some kind of corner and was steering the whole ship toward the rocks. So, they got together and decided on a name together. Beth Kerttula (D) from Juneau, and John Harris (R) both put their APPROVED stamp on former Juneau Mayor Dennis Egan. Here was someone they could both live with. The rest of the Democrats agreed. Surely that would meet with the governor’s approval. Everyone would save face, the ship would be turned back on course, the tantrum would end, and we could all get back to business.

Right? Ahhhh…. surely you didn’t think that would be the end of the story did you? I didn’t think you did. Because you’re still waiting for that part in the beginning where I said “you can’t make this stuff up.” Here goes.

Palin has now submitted ….a list of three names. Yes, folks, it’s backwards day in Juneau! She didn’t like the fact that it was the other side that was supposed to submit a list of names, so she just went ahead and did it herself. And who’s on the list? The first name is Tim Grussendorf. “Hold on a minute,” you may be thinking. “Hasn’t he already been rejected?” Why, yes he has. Soundly. And so has the second nominee, Joe Nelson. And the third name? No, of course it’s not Dennis Egan. That would make sense, and be a brilliant diplomatic move, showing….wisdom and maturity. No, Dennis, like Kerttula fell victim to the big red REJECTED stamp.

Enter Alan Wilson, name #3. Nobody knows much about Alan Wilson. The Division of Elections tells us that Alan Wilson is not a registered Democrat, although Palin’s spokeswoman Sharon Leighow tells us he is too. He converted on March 4. And this means that the third and final candidate has not only been chosen from outside the Democrats’ list, but According to the Division of Elections at the time of his nomination, he is ineligible to hold the seat.

And just for a little added enjoyment, public records tell us that he’s married to one Sydney Mitchell, who owns a little shop in Juneau called Shoefly. Those of you who are Sarah Palin trivia junkies will remember that Shoefly is where Sarah Palin purchased her infamous pair of red Naughty Monkey pumps, that were sold on Ebay for $2025.

Cato put out a video:

Why can we not harness some of the anti-tax energy out there into a coherent campaign for tax simplification: an end to loopholes, shelters and deductions, and a much simpler, more transparent tax code? That is surely a way in which the right can appeal again to the center.

You know you want it.

Glenn Reynolds today pens an op-ed hailing the "tea-party" "movement" as a post-partisan, spontaneous uprising of ordinary folks against the establishment of both parties. He makes no mention of Pajamas Media's heavy investment in the events, nor Fox News' endless touting and endorsement of them, but he does point to FreedomWorks' coordinating website. I'm sure, of course, that it's a mix of both: some grass roots enthusiasm, coopted in some part by Republican party operators. But it seems odd to describe this as anything but a first stab at creating opposition to the Obama administration's spending plans, manned by people who made no serious objections to George W. Bush's. The tea-parties are as post-partisan as Reynolds, one of the most relentlessly partisan bloggers on the web. When you see them holding up effigies of Bush, who was, unlike Obama, supposed to be the fiscal conservative, let me know.

But the substantive critique must remain the primary one. Protesting government spending is meaningless unless you say what you'd cut.

If you favor no bailouts, then say so. If you want to see the banking system collapse, then say so. If you think the recession demands no fiscal stimulus, then say so. If you favor big cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, social security and defense, then say so. I keep waiting for Reynolds to tell us what these protests are for; and he can only spin what they they are against.

All protests against spending that do not tell us how to reduce it are fatuous pieces of theater, not constructive acts of politics. And until the right is able to make a constructive and specific argument about how they intend to reduce spending and debt and borrowing, they deserve to be dismissed as performance artists in a desperate search for coherence in an age that has left them bewilderingly behind.

(Photo: André Karwath aka Aka).

The Palin-Johnston fight deepens:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's father is taking Levi Johnston to task for not financially helping in the care of his great-grandson. In the issue of Us Weekly magazine to be released Friday, Chuck Heath says Johnston is capitalizing on national interviews but not spending money on Tripp, the nearly 4-month-old son of Johnston and Bristol Palin, the governor's 18-year-old daughter.

Heath says the 19-year-old Johnston "has not contributed anything" to Tripp's care.

Heath says he wishes Johnston would "take some of this money he's making and buy some diapers with it."

The unemployed Johnston has said he wasn't paid for appearances on national television last week, when he complained the Palin family was limiting his access to Tripp since the couple broke up. A message left at Johnston's Wasilla home wasn't immediately returned.

One thing we know about the Palins is how they love personal vendettas. Poor Mike Wooten. Now Levi is the target. I have a sneaking feeling this will not end well. But it might provide some way to get at the truth behind the Palin facade. I haven't given up hope yet that we'll see through her smoke and mirrors at some point. Life is long. And family feuds can get interesting.

Some home truths from a soldier sitting on a plane next to a friend of Fallows. Remember this next time you hear the victory bells from the neocon right:

•    Surge has "worked" because Iraqis who just want to start killing one another again are biding their time.  Après nous, le deluge.
•    No one could comprehend the waste of money in US expenditures in Iraq.  
•    IEDs have become infinitely more sophisticated, very high tech now, and can penetrate all but one type of US vehicle.  Suicide bombers can penetrate anything they want.

•    When an IED blows up a vehicle in a convoy, and you are two vehicles away in the same convoy, the force of the explosion is so violent you are thrown against the interior of your vehicle, you are temporarily deafened, etc.
•    Troop morale is high because they sense they are going home, most of them.  But there is no way US can be out in five years or even ten without leaving too much equipment behind.
•    Although troop morale is high, they universally hate George W. Bush now.

The question before the president today is not whether to prosecute his predecessors for war crimes; it is simply whether to release the memos that the Bush administration drew up describing in gruesome detail the torture techniques they authorized – or to cover them up. There are zero national security interests in keeping such information secret. The ICRC report has already detailed what was done to many high value detainees, and the methods are unequivocally war crimes, and known across the world. To directly attach such torture techniques to the specific decisions of the Bush administration merely provides accountability. No more; no less. It provides transparency.

If Obama, for some reason, decides to prevent us from seeing exactly what was done then he will achieve only one thing: he will tell the world that the US has indeed authorized and practised war crimes while simultaneously telling the world that America will not be accountable for it.

He will betray all of us who supported him to restore the rule of law. He will, in fact, merely confirm the worst fears of what was actually done while making himself an accomplice to protecting the war criminals who did it. And please don't even begin to spin us with the following:

"We want to maximize the amount of information available to the American people," said a senior administration official involved in the discussions, adding that such a policy has to be balanced so it "does not damage national security interests."

National security interests would only be damaged if the US were seen to be continuing the cover-up of war crimes begun by Bush and Cheney. If CIA staffers believe that covering up war crimes is integral to maintaining their morale, then we need new CIA staffers. This is not about persecuting the CIA. It is about maintaining basic political accountability for decisions and policies that were illegal, unconstitutional and immoral.

There is no compromise possible here, Mr president. Do the right thing.

Kootenay Lake, British Columbia, 10.41 am