Democratic debate wrap-up

This third Democratic presidential debate was substantive and spirited.   All three candidates were winners, and there were no losers. The bottom line is that all three are on a whole different, higher plane than what we hear when the Republicans take to the stage.

Ralph

"Georgians pay high price for stubborn leaders"

Jay Bookman, in his AJC column on Jan 20th said that we Georgians are paying a high price for our stubborn leaders in government.    He was referring to the continued refusal by the legislature and by Gov. Nathan Deal to accept the federal government's help in expanding Medicaid health coverage .

In his State of the State message, Gov. Deal repeated his reasons, saying that it would have added $209 million to this year's budget alone to cover the state's part.   That sounds like a lot of money -- but, it's not in relative terms.   As Bookman explains, $209 million is only 0.88% of the $23.5 Billion budget for 2017.   And it would leverage billions of federal dollars coming to the state, which would create thousands of jobs, help keep rural hospitals open, and improve the health and lives of hundreds of thousands of our citizens.

Other Republican governors who joined Deal in resisting it at first have come around to accepting federal dollars.   Why are our leaders so stubborn?    As Bookman says:

"[T]his is not a case of 'can’t'; it is a case of 'won’t.'   It is a case of Georgia’s leadership feeling trapped into a bad decision by their own rhetoric. It’s bad politics getting in the way of good governance."

And I suspect that even some Republicans regret it, although I'm not sure Gov. Deal would be one of them.   He seems to have a lot of empathy for prisoners, leading some pretty good prison reforms, including a bold plan to help prepare them for taking charge of their lives after release.    Why does he not have the same empathy for the 'working poor,' who would be the target group this would help?


Can the answer lie anywhere else other than the Republicans' stubborn refusal to accept anything that represents a success for President Obama?   I'm open to suggestions.   It's got to be something other than Deal's given explanation that we can't afford it.   Simple math shows the lie in that.

Ralph

Imagine this scenario -- it will probably happen.

Bloomberg Business Week ran Joshua Green's article about Elizabeth Warren and her place in the politics of 2016.   The big question, of course, is whether she will endorse either;  and if so, who and when.    Ideologically, she's seems closer to Bernie Sanders;   but she is also a practical politician -- and she may decide not to take sides, at least not this early.

It was Green's final paragraph that caught my attention:

   "It's an added source of comfort to the party's Warren wing -- and a silver lining to the propsect of a Sanders loss-- that the two most powerful Senate Democrats in a future Clinton presidency would be committed liberals."

He means, of course, Warren and Sanders.  With Sanders now nationally known and with a big following, they would be a formidable pair to push through some good legislation -- especially if the Democrats win back control of the senate.

But let's also imagine a different ending that has President Sanders in the White House.   Warren would be the ideal ally for him to have in the senate, because the anticipated leader of the Democrats will be Chuck Schumer, who tilts more toward Wall Street.  And we need another, more progressive strong voice pushing Sanders' policies.

Ralph

Planned Parenthood fights back with a lawsuit

Planned Parenthood has filed a federal lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress, Biomax Procurement Services, LLCX, David Daleiden, and others for engaging in a "complex criminal enterprise conceived and executed by anti-abortion extremists."   That's the group that made the faked video that falsely slammed Planned Parenthood's integrity.

The suit further alleges that the "express aim of the enterprise -- which stretched over years and involved fake companies, fake identifications, and large-scale illegal taping -- was to demonize Planned Parenthood, harass and intimidate its dedicated staff, and interrupt its operations, all with the ultimate goal of interfering with women's access to legal abortion."

Kathy Kneer, CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California added:  "CMP's reckless and dangerous actions have created a poisonous environment that fuels political attacks on access to reproductive health care and feeds threats against our health centers."

These attacks on PP were similar to the sting operations against the community organizing, voting rights activist group ACORN, which did contribute to its demise.

Ralph

Information for this post came from the blog Crooks and Liars.

Some random weekend thoughts

1.  The Iranian nuclear deal has now been implemented, and the Iranians have thus far lived up to the agreement, according to a U.N. assessment.  This was a triumph for diplomacy.   The prisoner swap was a triumph for diplomacy.   The return of our 10 sailors and two ships in the Persian Gulf was a triumph for diplomacy.    Would the war hawks prefer that we had gone to war instead?

2.  Hillary Clinton is about to lose me.   I think she has a formidable working knowledge of issues, and she is a pragmatic liberal.   I could support her.   But her nasty attacks on Bernie Sanders this week are the wrong way to go.   She's going to lose more votes than she gains by deliberately distorting the positions of her fellow liberal Democrat.  They both want to get to universal health care;  they just differ on how to get there.   Sanders emphasizes the goal and agrees that we can't get there overnight;  Clinton emphasizes the pragmatics of dealing with congress and the necessity of incremental steps.   She should say that instead of bleeting that "Sanders wants to do away with the ACA."

3.   If you haven't yet seen the film "Spotlight," go see it.   Sure, we already know the story of the Roman Catholic Church scandal of priests abusing children and the coverup by the heirarchy.   But this film puts faces on all the stories.   It's very moving, besides being a superbly crafted movie.  A compelling story of the triumph of good journalism exposing the truth against the opposition of an extremely powerful, entrenched institution.

Ralph

Good News #19: solar jobs outpace oil/gas jobs

"A new report on the state of the solar industry out Tuesday from the nonprofit Solar Foundation shows that the number of jobs in the United States in the solar industry outpaced those in the oil and gas industries for the first time ever," according to an article by Shane Ferro on Huffington Business.


In part, this is due to the bottom falling out of the barrel of oil prices, sliding from $100 in spring 2014 to $30 a barrel in recent weeks, causing layoffs.  But it also represents rapid growth in the solar industry as the technology becomes cheaper and number of home installations are rapidly rising.

While this transition to renewable energy is great for the environment, we're not quite there yet in being better for the overall economy.  For example, renewable energy jobs overall pay less than oil/gas industry jobs.  But it's getting close enough to show that we will get there, and maybe soon.

Ralph

So . . . there was another Republican debate

I'll make this brief.  I disagreed with about 90% of what was said on substance.  I thought the moderators and the questions, with a few big exceptions, stuck to real issues with a minimum of silly questions.   For the most part, these seven candidates have sharpened their arguments -- and their attacks on their main rivals on stage -- and on the Democrats.

But it was hard to watch over two hours of Obama-bashing and Clinton-bashing -- distorting the facts shamelessly -- but I guess that's inevitable in this hotly contested race.

Ralph