Saturday, March 27, 2010

Who is the Republican Party now?

Who is the Republican Party now? That is a very real question. Some would say it has been completely captured by the extreme right wing, best exemplified by the Tea Party Crowd.

Campaigning in Arizona with John McCain for his tough senatorial reelection, Sarah Palin commented that his crowd were all Tea Partiers. He seemed happy for her to bestow that on him.

Mitt Romney, in order to stay relevant as a GOP candidate, has had to denounce the health care reform bill as "government takeover" that must be repealed, even though it bears striking resemblance to the bill he defended and signed into law in 2006 as governor of Massachusetts.

New Gingrich, always quick to jump in front of a parade and pretend to be leading it, has tried to capture the outrage factor by declaring that the health care bill is "the biggest threat to the American way of life since the 1850s."

Newt used to be a history professor, so he must know. But whose "American way of life" was threatened in 1850? Slaves? or Slave-owning plantation owners? I presume in 2010 the slaves and the uninsured are the insurance companies are the slave owners. Still want to stick with that analogy, Newt?

And then there was House Minority Leader John Boehner, in his final comments before voting against the bill, shouting "Hell, NO!!" and calling it "Armageddon."

There literally seems to be no one even remotely on the scene who might become a standard bearer for the more moderate Republicans that we used to disagree with, but still respect. They are either silent, out of politics altogether, or they have sold their souls.

Look what happened to David Frum when he criticized the Republican Party. Fired by the American Enterprise Institute, denounced and demeanded by his former colleagues.

They seem to be putting all their energy on continuing to mislead the American people into thinking this is a very bad thing for them. They keep citing polls that show "the American people don't want this." But they mistake what the "this" is. The "this" that no one wants is the lies that they have told us of what the bill actually says.

As Obama keeps saying, he wouldn't want it either if all he know about it was what the Republicans say about it. But when people are polled about the actual parts of the package, they do favor it.

Of course, in politics, it's all in how you spin it and who controls the spin. And Republicans know how to do spin. Our only hope is that truth trumps spin. So we have to make sure the truth doesn't get shouted down by the very loud opposition spin machine.

Ralph

News for Gen. Conway

On the same day that the Department of Defense announced a modification of DADT criteria under which service members could be discharged while the process for it's elimination is being studied, the Marine Commander let his opposition to the repeal of DADT be known.

Gen. James Conway, is the latest pushback by a small but vocal faction of senior military leaders opposed to a repeal of the 1993 law known as "don't ask, don't tell."

Conway, a known opponent of repealing the law, suggested in an interview published Friday by Military.com that he already knows it would be a logistical hurdle. On base, Marines typically bunk two-to-a-room.

"I would not ask our Marines to live with someone who is homosexual if we can possibly avoid it," he said.

I have news for you, Gen. Conway, Sir. After seeing your picture and reading your comments, there's no way I would room with you either. My "unit morale and cohesion" would suffer terribly if I had to be your roommate.

You see, Sir, I have a bias against prejudice and contempt for someone you don't even know. It's true, you might find me looking at you in the shower -- but it would not be with lust. I might stand over your bed when you were sleeping, but I wouldn't be thinking of jumping in to cuddle up with you. No, Sir. That you don't have to worry about. I don't find you even minimally attractive. I have absolutely no desire to gaze on your naked body or to touch you. In fact, you give me the creeps.

All in all, I just don't think we'd be a very good match -- unless you were willing for us to get to know each other a bit before we judge. You might find that I'm a good soldier; I might find that you have a bit of humanity after all under that gruff macho facade. We might find we like the same sports teams or share an interest in opera. By the way, that doesn't make you gay.

And I can promise you one thing: Being gay is not catching. You don't have to fret about that.

Ralph, former Capt.(USAF-MC).

Friday, March 26, 2010

Priests, celebacy, and pedophilia

David Pasinski, a former Roman Catholic priest and now the married father of two, wrote in a letter to the New York Times:
Celibacy does not cause pedophilia. But what the exclusively male, celibate culture has bred in Roman Catholicism is the obvious lack of awareness that a mother or a father would bring to such a problem or discussion. . . . the nearly complete lack of parents involved in such evaluations of exploitative priests left the "clerical culture" to become a hot-house of self-protective and myopic values."
This is an important insight. He is not saying that all priests have to be fathers or even husbands. But when not only women, but any men who are fathers, are systematically excluded from its decisions about priests who abuse children, the culture is badly skewed away from the child to the fellow priest.

Another factor that should be considered in the cover-up of these scandals is the observation that abusers are much more likely than average to have been abused themselves. One has to wonder: how many of the priests and cardinals making decisions about how seriously to take these claims, and whether to allow accused priests to work around children again, were themselves abused a generation ago by a priest? How many of them may be abusers themselves and covering up their own guilt? And where are the confessors of these abusive priests? I know the confessional is confidential, as is psychotherapy -- but sexual abuse of a minor is a rare exception that is required by law (in the U.S., anyway) to be reported. Allowing the Church to skirt that law is a serious mistake.

The implications are growing stronger, in large part from investigative reporting in the New York Times, that Pope Benedict is indirectly implicated in cover-ups. In reporting by Nicholas Kulish and Katrin Bennhold on March 26:
The future Pope Benedict XVI was kept more closely apprised of a sexual abuse case in Germany than previous church statements have suggested, raising fresh questions about his handling of a scandal unfolding under his direct supervision before he rose to the top of the church’s hierarchy.
As Cardinal Ratzinger, he had approved sending a priest, who had molested multiple boys in a previous job, for psychiatric treatment. Ratzinger was copied on a memo shortly thereafter that the priest would be returned to pastoral work within days of beginning treatment, apparently without restrictions. However, I have read in a different article that the psychiatrist had strongly advised in writing that the priest must not be allowed to work around children. He was later convicted of molesting boys in another parish.
The case . . . has acquired fresh relevance because it unfolded at a time when Cardinal Ratzinger, who was later put in charge of handling thousands of abuse cases on behalf of the Vatican was in a position to refer the priest for prosecution, or at least to stop him from coming into contact with children. The German Archdiocese has acknowledged that “bad mistakes” were made in the handling of Father Hullermann, though it attributed those mistakes to people reporting to Cardinal Ratzinger rather than to the cardinal himself. . . .

In that short span [Dec 1979 to Feb 1980], a review of letters, meeting minutes and documents from personnel files shows, Father Hullermann went from disgrace and suspension from his duties in Essen to working without restrictions as a priest in Munich, despite the fact that he was described in the letter requesting his transfer as a potential “danger.”
The Pope's role is even more disturbing because of another case from Wisconsin reported in another Times article by Laurie Goodstein on March 24th:
Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI -- did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. . . .

In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.

But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.

Does Ratzinger/Benedict just not get it? The Church and its priests are not above the law. Repentance does not excuse you from the consequences of crime? How many people have been executed despite the fact that, during their long wait on death row, they have become devoutly religious and repented over and over again?

As to Pope Benedict's recent letter addressing the scandal that has finally erupted in Ireland, I suggest reading Mickey Nardo's blog of March 22, "Maybe it's time . . ."

What a mess. Is the Catholic hierarchy -- in its all-male, non-father group of "fathers" -- capable of realizing its huge blind spot? Probably not. The latest comments from the Vatican are accusations of a concerted attack against the Pope, especially from the New York Times.

Ralph


Thursday, March 25, 2010

We have health care reform !!

The end game came quickly.

About 100 years after Teddy Roosevelt first talked about making health care available to all, and more than 50 years after Harry Truman first tried to actually accomplish it, and even Richard Nixon got into the act --
We finally have, not a perfect plan, but a major step toward universal health care.
Once the House managed to pass the Senate bill, things went into high gear. This afternoon, the Senate finished voting down all the Republican attempts to derail it, and passed the reconciliation bill by 56-43.

Then, with uncharacteristic speed, the House voted this evening to approve the minor changes that were needed to fix flaws in the bill by a vote of 220-207.

So now the legislation is signed, sealed, and delivered. But it's only a beginning.

Ryan Grim wrote on Huffington Post:
Progressive Democrats will continue to push, meanwhile, for substantial advances. "It is a beginning," Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told HuffPost. "Remember, there was a 1957 Civil Rights Act; then there was a 1960 Civil Rights Act; then a 1964 Civil Rights Act' then a 1965 Voting Rights Act; and there have been subsequent voting and civil rights bills."

Thursday's victory was a step forward in the health care fight, he said, but far from the last step. "I'm solidly in favor of the public option. I'm a single-payer backer and I think that's what we're ultimately going to end up with. I hope it doesn't take too long," he said. "You know, if there was no '57 act, maybe there would never have been a '64 act. So this is an important prelude. It's a good day."

Ralph

Interesting development

Republicans tried to introduce amendments to the reconciliation bill that were designed to be hard for Democrats to vote against, reasoning that ANY change in the bill would force it to be returned for another vote in the House.

All those blatant political maneuvers seem to have failed, because the Democrats stuck together and voted against them, no matter how 'mom and apple pie' they were. However, they also identified a couple of minor technical flaws in the bill that have to be changed. They don't affect the substance at all, but do technically change the bill, so it will have to go back to the House.

As Ryan Grim points out on Huffington Post, this opens the possibility of now adding in a public plan option. Since it has to go back anyway, why not put in the pubic option, which would now need only 50 senate votes instead of 60? If the senate passes it -- and they might have the 50 votes necessary -- then it could sneak back in and be passed by the House, as well.

This would be an ironic outcome of the Republicans' attempt to kill the bill -- only to open the door to including the public plan.

This could be a golden opportunity. Will Obama push for it? Or will he play it safe? Will the senate do it anyway?

Ralph

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The ACORN tragedy

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), once the nation's largest community organizing group for the poor and powerless, has been forced to shut down.

Plagued by charges of voter registration fraud (later proved to be only simple greed of a few voter registration workers who padded their small income by "registering" fake names -- none of whom tried to vote) and then by the more sensational scam, secretly videotaped and then edited creatively, of workers giving bad advice about illegal activities -- all led the media and Congress to over-react in the heat of the crisis, creating a sensational faux scandal.

The result: Congress passed a resolution canceling all government associations and contracts with ACORN. This led to sharp decline in contributions, and the organization can no longer survive.

In the meantime, a federal judge has ruled that Congress' action was unconstitutional, because it passed a measure aimed at a single organization. It's even more unconscionable that an organization of such good works was destroyed for minor flaws, when organizations like Blackwater and other guns for hire, with multimillion dollar government contracts, literally get away with murder and with claiming immunity when female workers try to file claims that they were raped by co-workers -- because their U.S. contracts gave them immunity in the foreign country where this took place. And that doesn't even begin to address what else they got away with -- alleged murders, graft, shoddy work resulting in death of soldiers, and other illegal acts -- all while keeping their lucrative contracts.

In its better days, ACORN had upwards of 400,000 members that could lobby for liberal causes, such as raising the minimum wage or adopting universal health care. But their most successful activity was arguably the registering of hundreds of thousands of low-income voters.

Which is exactly why the conservatives attacked. According to CEO Bertha Lewis, "ACORN has faced a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded right wing attacks that are unprecedented since the McCarthy era. The videos were a manufactured, sensational story that led to rush to judgment and an unconstitutional act by Congress."

It's too late to save ACORN -- at least with that name. Perhaps another organization will rise to take its place.

Maybe it's only the afterglow of the exhilarating passage of health care reform, but it feels like there is a new momentum against this kind of hateful, destructive right-wing action. Let us hope so.

Ralph

Monday, March 22, 2010

A progressive reacts

Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, wrote:
We have just witnessed what could be a turning point in the Obama presidency. In many respects we can thank Scott Brown. For it took the humiliating loss of Ted Kennedy's senate seat, and the even deeper incipient humiliation of lost health reform, for Obama to be reborn as a fighter. It remains to be seen whether he will match the resolve that he finally summoned on health reform with comparable leadership on all of the other challenges he yet faces.

But even those of us who were lukewarm on this bill should savor the moment and honor Obama's odyssey. His Saturday speech was simply the greatest of his presidency. It reminded us of the inspirational figure in whom so many of us invested such hopes last summer and fall. If you have been on Jupiter and somehow missed the speech, you owe it to yourself to watch it. . . .

Until very recently, the press treated this battle as a symmetrical stand-off. Now, with the president at last regaining control of the narrative, the Republicans are revealed as pure obstructionists. As the bill takes effect and citizens actually experience benefits (and as Obama said, "Lo and behold, nobody is pulling the plug on Grandma,") the Republicans will lose both as the party of No, and as a party that tried and failed to block a beneficial reform that citizens will come to value.

It has taken more than fourteen months for Obama to vindicate as president the leadership potential that we saw on the campaign trail; fourteen months to give up on the fantasy of bipartisanship; fourteen months to start truly inspiring ordinary people as he did as a candidate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserves to share this moment. She never gave up on this legislation, and she kept after Obama and his aides to be tougher, smarter, and unapologetically partisan. She as much as Obama did the hard work of pulling together a majority, and kept Obama from caving in to Rahm Emanuel's advice to seek a puny bill that the Republicans might support.

Amen, to all that.

Ralph

Saner Republican voices

David Frum, former speechwriter for George Bush, said this:
Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. [...]


No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?


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


So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.
Too bad no one in Congress could stand up and say something like this from the Republican side. Instead, they were busy encouraging the Tea Party protestors by holding up hand made signs from the Capitol balcony, "Kill The Bill." And John Boehner's final words to the House just before the vote: "Hell, no."

Ralph

Benefits now

Much has been said by opponents of the health care reform that it will not take effect until 2014. While it is true that the full implementation of all aspects will not be complete until then, there are many benefits that will begin this year. Among them, as posted by Rep. John Larson, Chair of the House Democratic Caucus:

  • Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

  • Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

  • Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

  • Lower seniors' prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

  • Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

  • Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

  • Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;

  • Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

  • Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

  • Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

By enacting these provisions right away, and others over time, we will be able to lower costs for everyone and give all Americans and small businesses more control over their health care choices.

Ralph

OBAMA

"This is what change looks like."

President Barack Obama

Sunday, March 21, 2010

THEY DID IT !!!!!!

With even a few votes to spare, the House passed historic health care legislation.

It got ugly, but they got it done. Nancy Pelosi just kept insisting they could do it; she, I think, more than anyone else, convinced Obama to go for it -- and he did. His all-out efforts in the past couple of weeks made the difference, especially his address to the Democratic Caucus yesterday.

It will solidify his presidency and his legacy.

But, more than that, it was the right thing to do.

Ralph

And the other side . . .?

The Democrats just about have it sewn up and will vote later today.

And the other side? What do they have to offer?

Their "plan" is essentially more of the same. It would extend coverage to maybe 3 million instead of the D's 31 million. It's effort to cut cost is mainly through tort reform, which might result in very minor savings. And it still trumpets the discredited Bush plan for medical savings accounts.

And how are they trying to accomplish something for the American people?

By trying to kill this bill, at any cost, including:

A fake memo was circulated from John Boehner's office and read into the record on the House floor -- a fake memo that they claimed was from Democrats, with talking points on how to cover up the "real" cost of the bill. Despite demands from Rep. Weiner to reveal the source of this "memo," none was given. A spokesman for Majority Whip James Clyburn said:
"It's an under-handed and unethical attempt to distract from the health care debate. If opponents of health insurance reform had a credible policy alternative they wouldn't have to resort to nefarious games."
And then . . .

On Saturday, several Republican lawmakers addressed a Tea-Party crowd of protesters outside the Capital, many of whom then flowed inside, filling the halls and shouting at Democratic Congressmen who had to walk through the crowd to their offices.

And the shouting turned into abusive heckling. As reported by Sam Stein of Huffington Post:
A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

There is a lot of frustration and anger out there, with multiple roots and many causes. Right wing ranters and conservative politicians are exploiting it and multiplying it with their lies about "government take-over" and "communism" scare tactics.

At least this particular historic vote will soon be over -- and then they can get busy with their campaign talking points about "repealing" health care reform. That's a fight we should welcome. No longer can they distort what is still uncertain about the bill; it will be a definite bill that Democrats can defend.

Ralph