Gerson Nails It

Micheal Gerson is one of the good ones on the Right and his latest piece on climate change is brilliant. His second paragraph pretty much nails it.

The intersection of science and policy, of climate and politics, has become a bloody crossroads. Blog-based arguments over ocean temperatures and the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet are as shrill and personal as any Tea Party primary challenge. And the IPCC report — designed to describe areas of scientific consensus — has become an occasion for polarization.

Shrill, indeed. Scientific matters and their validity should not be decided based on fucking blog posts or comments. These sorts of discussions should be looked upon in the same way one views TMZ news on Molly Ray Cyrus.

Gerson astutely points out that the warming hiatus, which has elicited adolescent cries of GOTCHA!, is misleading and quite irrelevant. Climate change is something that occurs over several decades, not one and a half. And this trend doesn't take away from obvious facts.

The IPCC report is used or abused, it represents a consensus and not a conspiracy. “Each of the last three decades,” it concludes, “has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.” The oceans have warmed and grown more acidic. Ice sheets are losing mass. Sea ice and snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere are shrinking. Ocean levels are rising.

This is what is meant be settled science.

The rest of his piece defines the political problems that climate change has caused and, I hope, a solution to solving them.

No Shit

Turning Our Attention To Health Care

Now that Shutdown 2013 is over the political world's attention will turn to Affordable Care Act. The Right are likely kicking themselves for wasting two weeks of being able to hyper-obsessively focus on the three people out there whose rates are (allegedly) going up now that the exchanges are open (see: Hasty Generalization). Yet their bloviating does bring up an interesting puzzle. How does one honestly gauge the effects of the ACA in an unbiased fashion? It is it even possible? If such a site exists, I'd sure like a link.

Obviously the Right is going to blow a bowel if anyone suggests that the president himself is an unbiased source. But he (like myself) finds the problems with the web portal to be more than just glitches and completely unacceptable. Apparently, the primary reason for these issues have to do with last minute changes requested by HHS and a substandard contractor (CGI). Of course, those people that live in states that aren't actively trying to destroy the ACA seem to have few problems using the website. Strange, I know:) Stranger still is that a website rollout with major demand and traffic has significant problems. That NEVER happens in the private sector, only with the government! And who in the fuck wants to sign up via phone (where there are very few problems) in this day and age?

As they do with everything else, we are already beginning to see the strategy that the Right is going to employ to try to prevent this law from working (see: sore losers, can't stand being wrong, fret over irrelevance). Any small problem with the law is going to be blown up to Biblical proportions. It's not a few people whose rates (may or may not) have gone up. It's millions. The people whose rates are going down are lazy, poor people who are spooning off our hard earned money. Anyone who is being helped by the ACA is not what they seem. They are the OTHER. This is generally true for any positive news about the law. Any information that puts the ACA in a positive light. It's all propaganda meant to send us all into government enslavement.

Things sure would be a lot easier if they didn't have such a pathological hatred of the federal government.

Good Grief

The Big Lie Again

The last two weeks of shutdown have seen several mentions of the Big Lie that government spending does not increase economic activity nor is it a jobs program. It would be fine if those in the Tea Party said, instead, "I don't like the fact that government spending increases economic activity and is a jobs program" because that would be more accurate.

I've explained previously exactly how government spending increases economic activity and can create wealth, offering the example of the Grand Coulee Dam. The same hysterical complaints were heard then and were proven completely wrong. Even today, the government spends money in many sectors of our economy and is a partner in increasing economic activity and creating jobs. The defense industry stands as a shining example of how this works. So do the energy industry and the National Institute of Health. The list on return to government investment is quite impressive, actually, and it's very clear that they naysayers are having trouble with their emotions about government. One would think that they Right understands return on investment but I guess they don't.

The next few weeks will show what kind of an economic hit we are going to take as a result of the shutdown. I've talked about this before as well and, honestly, Americans are clearly understanding what life looks like when you aren't rational about the federal government. If the Right wants something to worry about, I think it should be this.

What exactly is sedition?

According to the US Code (18 U.S.C. § 2384 ), seditious conspiracy is a crime under United States law. The law states in part that, “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to… prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States… they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

That's exactly what Ted Cruz and his merry band of moonbats have done in the last few weeks. In fact, they attempted to hinder many laws, not just the Affordable Care Act. No doubt, if people like Darrell Issa were faced with these facts, a committee would have been formed yesterday. I think that the Right should be thankful that the president and the Democrats are much nicer and forgiving people. 

So, moonbats, I wouldn't rock the boat if I were you.

The Rant

Mark has been posting numerous quotes from the Founding Fathers about separation of Church and State, and I haven't commented much on them. There seems to be little point, because it's so obvious that single-party, single-denomination governments and theocracies are inherently evil: modern Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, England under Henry VIII, Italy under the medieval popes, and so on.

But there are still some Americans who still disagree. They are epitomized by the woman who started ranting on the House floor during the vote on reopening the government.

He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. [to someone next to her] Don't touch me. [to the chamber] He will not be mocked. The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under God. It never was. Had it been, it would not have been— no. It would not have been— constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve two masters. Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ.

This poor woman's emotions are clearly being manipulated by self-serving politicians and theocrats with ulterior motives that have nothing to do with god.

How does reopening the government mock him? In any case, why would the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful creator of the universe -- which contains billions of galaxies that each contain billions of stars and billions of planets -- give one whit about a political scuffle between groups of insignificant creatures like us?

What's really at stake here is the pride of the people who shut down the government. They are projecting all their own demands and desires on god, justifying their beliefs by dint of constant repetition that it's what god wants. They endlessly twist the teachings of the bible to rationalize whatever political agenda they have.

The irony is that the man they worship was famous for healing the sick and the poor. Yet they are heartbroken that they have failed to prevent our government from healing the sick and the poor.

They argue that healing is not the government's place. Yet they want the government to be "Christian," which would dictate that it do everything to help the sick and the poor. They only want separation of Church and State when the state is helping the less fortunate.

The men who wrote the Constitution (many of them in fact Freemasons) knew a few things about the history of religion, and that's why they kept Church and State separate. The Founders realized that members of religions endlessly compete for power, and use their own interpretations of scripture to justify why they should be in control. These personal ambitions and power struggles splinter religions from the inside out, over and over and over.

Christianity split off from Judaism, currently fractured into three main sects: Conservative, Reform and Orthodox. Christianity continued to splinter, resulting in countless Christian denominations -- the Catholic Church, the national Orthodox Churches (one per country, including Russia, Greece, Armenia, Romania, etc.), the Lutheran Synod, the Anglican Church, the Calvinist Reformed Tradition, various Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. And then you have the kooks, like the Branch Davidians and Warren Jeffs' FLDS.

And though most Tea Party types don't seem to to understand it, even Islam split off from Christianity. In the 14 centuries since then, it has also broken into numerous sects, including Shiites, Sunnis, Sufis, Alawites, and on and on.


Government cannot be controlled by religion because religion is too unstable. You can't give popes, archbishops and ayatollahs that kind of temporal power. Theistic religions are too autocratic and dictatorial, they cannot brook dissent nor allow heresy to go unpunished.

In short, the Founders knew that religion is incompatible with democracy.

An Excellent Summation of the Last Two Weeks

Ah, Now I Get It

It's because of love that they are so hateful. George Orwell would be proud!

The Final Vote

The Senate passed the legislation to re-open the government and raise the debt ceiling with a final vote of 81-18. The House vote was 285-144 with 87 Republicans supporting the bill. The president is signing the legislation this evening. 

This is a giant win for the president. Clearly, the Tea Party knows they can't fuck with him anymore on the debt ceiling or funding the government. If they threaten to do this again, it will obviously be full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Sort of like their entire ideology. 

Monte Hall Time!

It looks like we have a deal to end the shutdown and increase the debt limit. Ted Cruz (see: fraud) will not block the vote on the Senate Floor and, as of this moment, John Boehner (or, I guess, Eric Cantor who is now the only member of the House that can bring bills to the floor...huh?...so much for following rules) will allow a vote on the floor of the House and rely on Democrats to get the bill passed.

So, WTF, was this all about again? Oh, right...kill Obamacare....meep morp...kill Obamacare...meep.

I wonder how much money all of this cost the taxpayers.

The House of Right Wing Bloggers

Yesterday was Exhibit A in terms of what our government would be like if it was run by the right wing blogsphere. Adolescent, chaotic, emotional outbursts, no cohesion, bloviating with no real defined goals ...that was the House of Representatives yesterday. They tried to come up with a plan to counter the Senate's effort to end the shutdown but couldn't do it. Can they even govern anymore?

John Boehner may very well lose his speakership over this but then again he might not. Who else is going to take his place? The GOP is so fractured and splintered now that any power they may have held onto after the 2012 elections is now gone. Like an obstinate teenager, they have not improved their situation politically. They have not made any inroads with women and Latinos nor have they moderated their message to appeal to independents. In fact, their disapproval among independents is now at 70 percent with their approval ratings split 50-50 within their own party!

So, the lesson for folks like Kevin Baker (who oddly commented here recently after voting me off his own site...huh?) is this: you don't know what the fuck you are doing. You are completely out of your depth. You need to go to therapy and work on your problems with authority and losing. Your juvenile emotions cloud any ability you might have to solve our nation's problems. Time for you and your ilk to be sent to military school while the adults (as they always do) take care of the business of America.

In short, say goodbye to GOP control of the House of Representatives.

Good Words

“The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.” ~Noah Webster, calling for no religious tests to serve in public office, Sketches of American Policy, 1785

Health Care Polls

Take a look at the latest polls on the Affordable Care Act. The first takeaway is that the gap between approve and disapprove is narrowing. The other more important one is that there are more unsure which spells a hot mess for the Right. I think people are going to wait and see what happens in the next few months before rendering a judgement.

Shutdown A Go Go

Quite a bit to talk about today as we enter the last 48 hours before we default on our debt so let's get to it...

It looks as though Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have crafted a deal which re-opens the government and raised the debt ceiling into early next year. The House has just announced that they are going to push their own deal as well. The former doesn't have much about the Affordable Care Act in it but the House bill wants to delay the medical device tax for two years. The House just can't let go of the ACA, can they? Of course, it's part of their overall temper tantrum summed up quite eloquently by another Mark...

Speaking of the House, Pryor told CNN that "some Republicans are, quite honestly, they're acting childish about this. They almost want a shutdown. They almost want to see us break the debt ceiling."

Marks are cool people. I wonder if he has been reading my blog...:)

Here are the basics about the Senate deal which is the one likely to pass.

I must admit that the Right really had me fooled on this one as I thought they were much smarter and had more power than this. What a bunch of fucking idiots. Had they not taken this route, they could have sat back and made much hay out of the problems with the launch of the health care exchanges. Their popularity would have soared and they might have even gotten some changes through in regards to the ACA.

Instead, they had several irrational and incoherent outbursts (see video below) followed by the usual stomp down the hallway, door slam, and adolescent room trashing. The American people now realize exactly how ridiculously immature these people are and have rejected them. It's now more than possible that the Democrats will take back the House in 2014, six years earlier than I predicted. Had the GOP not engaged in this shutdown/debt ceiling folly, they would have solidified their hold on the House and possibly taken the Senate.

But they can't resist the catnip of being moonbats and, man oh man, have they released a full pack of them in the last two weeks. Roger Simon sums it up quite nicely in this piece.

Protesters marched through the streets of Washington on Sunday with a Confederate flag and then a protester lounged against the White House fence with one. Displaying the Confederate flag in front of a home occupied by a black family was meant to send a particular, and particularly repellent, message. There were other signs of our descent. 

Remember Samuel Wurzelbacher? Known as “Joe the Plumber,” he was selected by John McCain as his presidential campaign mascot in 2008 with the same care McCain used to select Sarah Palin. Over the weekend, Wurzelbacher posted an article on his blog titled: “America Needs a White Republican President.” “Admit it,” the article said. “You want a white Republican president again. Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American.” 

At least one can appreciate the fact that they aren't hiding it anymore. Check out this video.



"I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come out with his hands up," Klayman told the crowd.

Wow.

Through all this anger and hatred, though, it was nice to see that the World War Two vets who have been pushing to re-open the memorial gave the middle finger to the dark hart of American populism.

The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message. We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain. The core principle is about all Americans honoring Veterans in a peaceful and apolitical manner. Mr. Cruz, Ms. Palin and some attendees, including political parties may have not been aware of the goals of the marches which took place in over 60+ rallies across the nation.

Double Wow. It looks like they are losing the old white guy crowd now as well.

The next two days are going to be interesting, folks. Check back here often as the news unfolds.

Inhaling Inelastic Demand

The Times had a great piece in yesterday's paper which illustrated yet again how the relative inelasticity of demand in many health care markets leads directly to unfair pricing and erosion of consumer surplus.

Unlike other countries, where the government directly or indirectly sets an allowed national wholesale price for each drug, the United States leaves prices to market competition among pharmaceutical companies, including generic drug makers. But competition is often a mirage in today’s health care arena — a surprising number of lifesaving drugs are made by only one manufacturer — and businesses often successfully blunt market forces.

Exactly right. With only one manufacturer, the sole supplier can set his price way above the natural equilibrium of the market. That's why in cases like this the government needs to step in to improve market efficiency.

Of course, as Stiglitz points out many times in his book, the government doesn't actually do that and, instead, makes the problem worse.

Thanks in part to the $250 million last year spent on lobbying for pharmaceutical and health products — more than even the defense industry — the government allows such practices. Lawmakers in Washington have forbidden Medicare, the largest government purchaser of health care, to negotiate drug prices. Unlike its counterparts in other countries, the United States Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, which evaluates treatments for coverage by federal programs, is not allowed to consider cost comparisons or cost-effectiveness in its recommendations. And importation of prescription medicines from abroad is illegal, even personal purchases from mail-order pharmacies. 

“Our regulatory and approval system seems constructed to achieve high-priced outcomes,” said Dr. Peter Bach, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “We don’t give any reason for drug makers to charge less.” 

And taxpayers and patients bear the consequences.

In trying to find common ground in this day and age of hyperpartisanship, we should look to the very simple solution of government actually doing its job as opposed to succumbing to special interests. This is where critics on the right always misread the left and it has to stop. As a Democrat, I don't want "bigger" government. I simply want better government and that means no more lobbying.

Let's just do that first and then we can worry about the size of government.

A Confederate Flag At The White House

Cranking up the moonbat meter to "More Disturbed," Sarah Palin (not to be left out of all the hubbub in DC) joined Ted Cruz in storming the WWII memorial and protesting...their own behavior? What is it about that place that just brings out the douche? Guilt?

Anyway, the most disturbing part of that story was this image.

A confederate flag at the White House? Really?!??

Good Words

“Congress has no power to make any religious establishments.” ~Roger Sherman, Congress, August 19, 1789

The Kingdom of God

With Nobel prize given to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs for their work in subatomic particles, it seems we are moving closer to the goal that Christ made for us. We are indeed doing his works and greater than these. God's children understand more fully what mechanism gives subatomic particles their mass....amazing...

On many levels, this is a completely stunning thing to consider. Obviously, they have research and mysteries about the particle to unravel (how gravity fits in, for example) but the basic understanding is now there. We know what holds together the atoms that are a part of all matter in the universe. This includes everything from the stars all the way down to us. 

This discovery brings new meaning to Luke 17: 21 in which Christ says that the kingdom of God is in each one of us. Perhaps he was speaking more literally than we thought...