At Politco, today, Carrie Budoff Brown has written a featured article, titled "The Big Bipartisan Lie." It begins:



These concessions have already been made! The senate and house plans already included the ability for insurers to sell across state lines, and Obama has already said he's willing to consider tort reform in the context of getting a passable bill.

Both the Senate and House bills included the provision for selling across state lines, despite the fact that Obama specifically argued against in when McCain supported it in one of their debates.

More recently, when Obama addressed the Republicans in Baltimore, he said, "from the start, I sought out and supported ideas from Republicans. I even talked about an issue that has been a holy grail for a lot of you, which was tort reform, and said that I'd be willing to work together as part of a comprehensive package to deal with it. I just didn't get a lot of nibbles."

The Democrats have made *exactly* the concessions that the author of this piece says they haven't. Her analysis is either uninformed or disingenuous.

And of course this doesn't even count the concessions made from the outset, like refusing to fight for a public option.

But that's not all. Besides suggesting that Democrats need to do what they have already done in order to show their bipartisanship, what is her suggestion for what the Republicans should do to show theirs?



That's right. In order to be bipartisan, she suggests, Democrats must change positions, while Republicans merely have to agree to stop lying about the Democrats.

Since when has telling the truth been a concession?

As David Zephyr pointed out in this thread, the current heath care bill has a provision allowing people to buy insurance across state lines (as described in the LA Times article here). The problem is that, once insurance can be sold across state lines, insurance companies will gravitate to the states that most favor them and least favor the consumer.

In fact, before the election, this is exactly what McCain wanted, and Obama opposed.

From the second Obama-McCain debate ( transcript here):



Obama's response?



(As an aside... it was kind of funny that he kind of stumbled in the middle of the Delaware credit card analogy, apt as it may have been, probably because he knew to instantly water down the criticism there lest it backfire on his VP candidate!)

Anyway, this point was also made more recently by administration spokesman David Axelrod, seen in this CNN video, where Wolf Blitzer argues for insurance across state lines, and Axelrod says that's not what the administration wants.

And of course, earlier in the campaign, Obama debated Hillary Clinton, who wanted a mandate requiring everyone to buy insurance. Obama's response then?


(full transcript here)

Yeah, everyone's talked about change we can believe in, but the real question is, what does Obama really believe in? I realize no president is going to get everything he wants in a bill, but he hasn't even raised a note of concern about these things which he thought were so important last year. It seems like when Obama talked about the importance of change, he meant that he'd keep changing to what his opponents wanted, giving up so easily. Then there's the Afghan surge, no change in Iraq... and don't get me started on civil liberties and presidential authority... wiretapping, etc.... A little McCain, a little Hillary, a little Bush... Where's last year's Obama?

The government is considering sending a $250 check to every social security recipient. The common case against doing so is well explained here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/business...

But moreover, I think that a stimulus program should not send checks to anyone. Regardless of whether it's Obama's proposed $250 to seniors, or the Bush $300+ that went to everyone.

Instead, if the government wants to give money away to individuals for the express purpose of stimulating the economy, it should send debit cards rather than checks.

Checks will often be deposited and saved. Or used to pay down existing debt. These are both worthwhile things, and can both help individuals who need help... but they do not accomplish the goal, they do not serve the purpose for which the money is being send out in the first place. For it to work as stimulus, the money must be spent. On new consumption. And quickly.

So I would suggest payments in the form of debit cards, with some additional twists:

* the debit cards should expire in a short time... say, 60 days. That way the stimulus happens when needed; and any money not spent within that time would automatically return to the government's coffers, unspent and available for future programs, debt reduction, whatever. There is no stimulus benefit in giving this money away to people who are not going to spend it right away.

* the debit card should have higher value when paid with a physical swipe through a card reader. For example, a $50 debit card purchase might only reduce the card's balance by $25 if physically swiped (essentially turning, say, a $100 debit card into a $200 debit card, if all of its purchases were made through card readers). This would encourage people to spend their stimulus funds locally, to help increase the ability of the stimulus to help all communities and help people where they live. After all, local economies are not helped when stimulus money is spent at amazon.com.

Check out http://www.netflix.com/wizardofoz/ozyourse... /

You can upload any face into the scarecrow's, and watch it sing "If I Only Had a Brain" -- but the funny thing is, if you don't want to upload anything, you can pick from one of their 8 pre-selected faces... one of which is George W. Bush! (As far as I know, the others are all anonymous models, and there is no Obama option.)

It is amusing to watch W sing "If I Only Had a Brain" -- but I'm also surprised that Netflix was willing to be that political. I imagine someone will complain to them about it. Two points for netflix! (At least until someone higher up in the company realizes what some graphic designer did...)

Something is very fishy.

We did not need a secret group to try to find, capture, or kill Bin Laden or others high in his organization. The entire CIA and the entire military apparatus of the country was already authorized to do that. Since there are perfectly legal, legitimate organizations who would have been well within their purview to implement plans to get Al Queda leaders, why would we need a secret group for this purpose?

If Cheney had some ideas of his own, he could have implemented them through existing intelligence and military channels to which he would have had access and authority, even to create Top Secret missions for these groups, whether directly or through Bush. Since these groups were essentially available to Cheney for any legal goal, why would he need a separate secret group?

Secret groups would exist to be able to do what CANNOT be done legally. Since going after Al Queda leaders was a legal and public position of the U.S., there would be no reason to have a secret group charged with doing it. The administration even boasted when it got some of these guys, and would have boasted if it had gotten Bin Laden. You don't need a secret organization to do things you intend to boast about. You need a secret organization to do things you want to be able to deny ever having a hand in.

The only other possibility I can thing of for a secret group would be if the purpose were legitimate but the means and methods were not. But this would not seem to be a reasonable explanation in this case. What means for getting a leader of AQ could be illegal, that they weren't *already* doing through existing channels? I mean, they had already authorized illegal wiretapping and torture, they had already approved rendition and secret prisons, all apart from Cheney's secret group. So clearly, no such secret group was needed to accomplish this legitimate goal by questionable means. The secret group, then, must have had some other purpose.

I don't know what Cheney was trying to do with this secret group, but its purported goal of getting Al Queda leaders doesn't make sense to me.

If you define the success of a war as having met the principal task you set out when you went in, then this clip shows that Powell would consider it a failure.

In his interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC (clip at about 6 minutes, 30 seconds in at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#3000... ), he says:





(Note that the official transcript (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30002070 / ) messes up the punctuation. If you read the transcript, it sounds like he said our principal task was the reconstruction of the country. But if you hear him speak the words in the clip, it is clear that the "principal task" phrase refers to the words that came afterward, not the words that came before. Punctuation can change everything...)

We may not be able to vote for the program itself, but we can vote to at least get Obama to talk about it.

The White House is allowing people to post questions for Obama to answer, and according to CNN, "Obama has promised to answer the most popular questions through a live video stream on WhiteHouse.gov. beginning Thursday at 11:30 a.m. ET."

I've never asked for a K+R before, but if we can all go to

http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions /

and click on the Health Care Reform topic, maybe we can all help make Single Payer the number one question in the category, which, hopefully, will prompt Obama to talk about it.

Currently, you have to scroll down just a little... the most popular Single Payer question is the fifth question down, with 3081 votes. It is perhaps not the best question posted on the topic, but it is the one with the most votes, so it's the one to vote for, the one with the most chance of getting to the top, and therefore, hopefully, getting answered. The current first-place question has 5669 votes to get it to the top... it's a long shot, but if everyone who reads this and cares about it votes, maybe we can help get Single Payer into first place in the category.

As Howard Dean and others have been saying, without a Single Payer (Medicare-like) option in the new health plan, it won't be true reform. Obama knows this... let's make sure he knows we know it too!

This sounds brilliant to me.



* Giving people a major incentive to buy a new car *now* would be a huge economic stimulus.

* Getting all those unsold cars out of inventory would solve the immediate problems of the car companies.

* Tying the program to a restructuring would address the car companies' longer term issues.



http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/...

As I commented elsewhere, Obama has stated his priorities of the economy, Iraq, health care, and education. But right up there has to be addressing the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties and excessive use of secrecy... or someday there may be no democracy left to defend.

Cause for optimism in today's New York Times...




more at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/...

From the New York Times today:



I imagine she hopes the idea works out better for her than it did for Obama.

For those who might have missed it or don't remember, the right called Obama arrogant for the "I have just become a symbol" line... which had been removed from its context. The full Obama quote:



(The removal from context was made more misleading through the reading of the word "just" as to mean "recently" rather than "merely.")

The Times article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/us/polit...

The current mayhem in the financial markets only serves to prove how risky McCain's attempts to privatize social security would be. Let McCain gamble with his own money, not ours.

Here's a link to information about his positions that would cut SS by shifting to privatization:

http://www.aflcio.org/issues/politics/mcca...

I drive a Toyota. Maybe I could be McCain's ambassador to Japan?

Yes, much to the surprise of some of us who took Hillary to task for some of her hawkish and Bush-supporting votes in the past, she voted against the FISA bill, while Obama voted for it.

I know there is a belief here that this forum and its members must support Obama, and some say, must do it enthusiastically. Some DU folks get upset when members talk of supporting Obama only grudgingly after this vote.

But must we, as members here, enthusiastically support the Democratic party and its Presidential candidate no matter what? What if, instead, we are here to support the principles of the party, rather than the party itself or any particular candidate? Isn't that okay? Maybe even admirable?

And then, what do we do if we believe the party or its candidates betrays those principles? Are we supposed to pack up and leave? Does this forum have its own version of the right-wing "love it or leave it" philosophy?

Of course Obama is still better than McCain. And of course no one is going to agree with any candidate 100% of the time, and single-issue voting is something we rightly tend to criticize. And I didn't mind supporting Obama despite disagreeing with him on the death penalty, for example. (I disagreed with Edwards on the same issue, and that's who I intended to vote for until he pulled out just a few days before I had the chance, and I did then choose to vote for Obama over Hillary.) But if civil liberties continue to erode, what else matters? What do we have left? I do not aspire to a day when we can essentially say, "but the trains run on time," regardless of which party is in power.

There has been occasional speculation about an Obama-Bloomberg ticket. One criticism of it was that Obama would get New York regardless, so Bloomberg doesn't help deliver a big state in which Obama could use help. But with all the reporting lately about Obama's difficulties in Florida and in particular with its large Jewish population, maybe Bloomberg could make the difference. Apart from that, Bloomberg does bring strong economic credentials to the ticket, probably stronger than anyone McCain might pick, along with the "executive experience" some people feel Obama should be looking for. And he has mainstream/centrist appeal for those who are worried that Obama may be too liberal. Seems like a potentially good match to me.

&forum&mesgClinton has long been making an argument that she has won "the big states" as if that has any relevance to electability.

(It doesn't, for reasons I've discussed at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... )

But last night, in her victory speech in West Virginia, she said



Unlike her earlier argument, this one at least has some validity, in that, while "who won the big states" is meaningless in terms of electability in November, "who won the swing states" might actually matter.

According to the site http://www.270towin.com , these are the 2008 swing states: Colorodo, Connectcut, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin.

Now let's look at Hillary's claim: Who is winning more swing states?

Colorodo – Obama
Connectcut – Obama
Florida – disputed, candidates didn't campaign
Iowa – Obama
Michigan – disputed, candidates didn't campaign Obama not on the ballot.
Minnesota – Obama
Missouri – Obama
Nevada – Clinton
New Hampshire – Clinton
New Jersey – Clinton
New Mexico – Clinton
North Carolina – Obama
Ohio – Clinton
Pennsylvania – Clinton
Virginia – Obama
Wisconsin – Obama

That's 8 states for Obama, 6 for Clinton, 2 disputed.

Even if you give Clinton the two disputed states, it's only a tie. So no, Clinton is not winning the swing states.

But I come here to analyze the situation, not to bash Hillary by simply pointing out another questionable statement.

So let's look at a different metric. While, technically, Clinton is not winning a greater number of swing states, perhaps she is winning a greater number of swing state electoral votes. It's not what she said, but maybe it's what she meant. And it would be true that, in November, getting more swing state electroral votes is more important than getting more swing states.

Here are the numbers of electrol votes for each of the swing states:

Colorodo – 8
Connectcut – 7
Florida – 27
Iowa – 7
Michigan – 17
Minnesota – 10
Missouri – 11
Nevada – 5
New Hampshire – 4
New Jersey – 15
New Mexico – 5
North Carolina – 15
Ohio – 20
Pennsylvania – 21
Virginia – 15
Wisconsin – 10

Looked at this way, Clinton's claim is… still wrong. She is losing the swing states with only 70 electoral votes to Obama's 83.

Unless of course you count Florida and Michigan, which she claims to have won, which would give her 114. To be fair to Clinton, while the Florida primary is disputed, polls indicate that she'll have a much easier time winning Florida than Obama would. Michigan is less clear.

So the bottom line?

Hillary's statement is wrong if taken literally.

Hillary's statement is wrong if extrapolated to mean electoral votes rather than just number of states.

Hillary's statement is right if extrapolated to electoral votes and you count Florida and Michigan.

The underlying message, that delegates should consider this kind of thing regardless of who would more likely win the nomination otherwise, is a topic I won't even go into, as there has been plenty of discussion about that elsewhere.