I was impressed by the President’s speech Wednesday night – he did stand up for the public option, presented the facts about what the health care legislation is proposing, and called out the Republican obstructionist tactics for what they were. Many of the Republicans seemed to be at a Town Hall (one of the kind they stage manage these days) and it wasn’t just the “You lie!” guy, Joe Wilson (who did wonders in fundraising for his Democratic opposition candidate, Rob Miller, with that infamous outburst).
President Obama laid out the case:
Our collective failure to meet this challenge — year after year, decade after decade — has led us to the breaking point. Everyone understands the extraordinary hardships that are placed on the uninsured, who live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare. These are middle-class Americans. Some can’t get insurance on the job. Others are self-employed, and can’t afford it, since buying insurance on your own costs you three times as much as the coverage you get from your employer. Many other Americans who are willing and able to pay are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or too expensive to cover.
Indeed, why is America, of all countries, so backward?:
We are the only democracy — the only advanced democracy on Earth — the only wealthy nation — that allows such hardship for millions of its people. There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage. In just a two-year period, one in every three Americans goes without health care coverage at some point. And every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. In other words, it can happen to anyone.
He told of some of the horrors:
One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn’t reported gallstones that he didn’t even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it. Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer had more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.
Our healthcare is expensive and inefficient:
Then there’s the problem of rising cost. We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. It’s why so many employers — especially small businesses — are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely. It’s why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally — like our automakers — are at a huge disadvantage. And it’s why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it — about $1,000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care.
Then he dismisses the single-payer way too easily. Which is what we should have, and which is why it cracks me up when the teabaggers claim Obama and the other Democrats are flaming socialists. We wish they were socialists, like Bernie Sanders.
I like when he said “The time for games has passed.” Unfortunately, the Republicans would prove him wrong before the night was over.
Then the President starts addressing the fear mongering:
Here are the details that every American needs to know about this plan. First, if you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. (Applause.) Let me repeat this: Nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
Then he brings up what the legislation will do, like not allowing insurance companies to deny you coverage based on a pre-existing condition, drop your coverage when your sick, or have a lifetime cap. Making sure the insurance covers routine checkups and preventative care.
Then the idea of having health insurance for those who don’t have it now. The insurance exchange, using the high number of customers to keep costs down, as large businesses and the government do, as Congress does for themselves. Here’s a thought – if those Republican congess people are so willing to let their constituents do without affordable insurance as they try to derail health care, would they be willing to do without it? It is a government program. Maybe they should show how much they’re against government programs by their families doing without.
Then the President says it will take awhile to get it off the ground and proposes offering low cost coverage now for those who can’t due to pre-existing conditions. A proposal by Senator John McCain (and it was good to see he was willing to work with President Obama on it). This is the McCain who existed before the Presidential election, when he veered off into the Republican nastiness because it was required of him. I may disagree with him on a lot of issues, but Senator McCain used to, and maybe now is again, be principled and reasonable.
Requiring everyone to carry insurance (and there is mention previously of help in the form of subsidies for those who need it). Fair enough, unless we end up compromising everything away until it’s just welfare for the insurance companies.
Then he calls the right wing talk show hosts and Congress people out on their obstructionism:
Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but by prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Now, such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.
There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
Ahh, here’s where Joe Wilson came in with the “You lie!” Now, while I happen to disagree with the President and think we should, in fact, provide health care for all, alas, that is not true, as has been noted by PolitiFact, the President is telling the truth.
Here is is from the legislation:
H.R. 3200: Sec 246 NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.
So, where did Congressman Wilson get his “facts” from? Well, PolitiFact notes there was a chain e-mail claiming “that page 50 of the House bill gives free health care to illegal immigrants.”
That page didn’t say that. Rather, it included a generic nondiscrimination clause that said insurers may not discriminate with regard to “personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services.”
So it isn’t there, but Rep. Wilson and others are reading it into the bill. Let’s think about this in a moment.
As the President points out, “consumers do better with choice and competition.” Competition that doesn’t exist now in many areas. Then he makes the case for public option:
But an additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange. Now, let me be clear. Let me be clear. It would only be an option for those who don’t have insurance. No one would be forced to choose it, and it would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would sign up.
Despite all this, the insurance companies and their allies don’t like this idea. They argue that these private companies can’t fairly compete with the government. And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public insurance option. But they won’t be. I’ve insisted that like any private insurance company, the public insurance option would have to be self-sufficient and rely on the premiums it collects. But by avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits and excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers, and would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities.
So President Obama does makes the case for a public option, but he leaves wiggle room (which does make me nervous, given that he was previously willing to back down). He says that “the public option is only a means to that end — and we should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal. “
Then he talks about Medicare and the fear mongering going around that when his suggestion is eliminating waste, calling out the Republicans on their hypocrisy:
So don’t pay attention to those scary stories about how your benefits will be cut, especially since some of the same folks who are spreading these tall tales have fought against Medicare in the past and just this year supported a budget that would essentially have turned Medicare into a privatized voucher program. That will not happen on my watch. I will protect Medicare.
Our President sounds like he’s willing to fight:
But know this: I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than to improve it. I won’t stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out. And I will not — and I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.
Wow, he remembered he won the election! Now will his Democratic friends in Congress, especially the “Blue Dogs” remember they won theirs? The American people really need them to take a stand for the people, for health care for all.
Now back to the Republican Town Hall side show. It really wasn’t just Joe Wilson, even though many of his Republican colleagues said they were appalled as well. All though the President’s speech, Republicans were waving their copies of the legislation. What was that all about? Well, we all know the wing-nuts (and the Congress members and talk show hosts egging them on), say “Read the legislation!”, implying none of the rest of us, especially congressional Democrats, have read it.
What they really seem to be asking though, is “read into the legislation.” Note the innocuous passage above that Joe Wilson and the sender of those e-mail use to claim that illegal aliens are covered with this legislation. The “death panel” for grannies and Trig claim from including counseling on end of life options such as hospice care, something that former Governor Palin actually signed into action, before she was against “death panels”
So, read (into) the legislation. Read into it whatever the fear mongers want you to believe. Do away with meaningful health care reform that would guarantee your family affordable coverage and make sure you don’t face life threatening choices for your grannies and children because of the unwillingness of your insurance care to cover it. One suggestion though – ask your Republican congress people to give up their government provided health insurance that guarantees their families will be secure. Insist they join you in your war against the federal government (which is, by the way, all of us – liberal, conservative or whatever politics) by refusing their government paid for, and very good, health insurance. Let’s see how fast they stick to the principal of letting them and their loved ones fall through the health care cracks that they’re trying to sell you.
So, it turns out that while Sarah Palin is now claiming the section of proposed health care providing for counseling patients in end of life care means there will be “death panels” deciding whether Trig or your grandma lives or die, as Governor she signed a proclamation supporting the same kind of services be available to Alaskans (two days before Trig was born, as someone pointed out).
So was then Governor Palin for “death panels” and she’s now against them? Or – is she lying to terrify her far right supporters into opposing real health reform?
However, on April 16th 2008, then Gov. Sarah Palin endorsed some of the same end of life counseling she now decries as a form of euthanasia. In a proclamation announcing “Healthcare Decisions Day,” Palin urged public facilities to provide better information about advance directives, and made it clear that it is critical for seniors to be informed of such options:
WHEREAS, Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions, related to end of life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions. [...]
WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of Healthcare Decisions Day is to encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives, as well as to encourage medical professionals and lawyers to volunteer their time and efforts to improve public knowledge and increase the number of Alaska’s citizens with advance directives.
Of course, former Governor Palin isn’t the only conservative apparently for “death panels” before they were against them. As Think Progress points out “At a conference in April of this year, Gingrich said advance directives can ‘save money’ while also helping to ‘decrease the stress felt by caregivers.’”
According to the Huffington Post, Sen Chuck Grassely, who is also now railing against “death panels” voted for counseling for end-of-life issues in the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill. He wasn’t the only one. “Reps. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.), who both claimed end-of-life consultations could result in “government encouraged euthanasia,” also voted for similar policy in 2003.”
So either Republicans were for death panels in 2003 before turning against them now–or they’re lying about end-of-life counseling in order to frighten the bejeezus out of their fellow citizens and defeat health reform by any means necessary. Which is it, Mr. Grassley (“Yea,” 2003)?
As Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer notes in article in Crosscut, the most disturbing part of this is the outright lying. Apparently, with the Republicans, no good deed goes unpunished. It was Blumenauer’s amendment made to help make sure dying patients’ wishes would be respected that some of the far right Republicans have been making dire “death panels” warnings about.
Blumenauer, who joined the powerful Ways and Means Committee only in 2007, placed his amendment in HR 3200 as it passed the committee. His intent, which he says was shared by Republicans on the committee, is to improve patient-doctor communication when the end of life nears, to be sure patients understand all the options. Specifically, the language authorizes Medicare to pay doctors for counseling patients about end-of-life care, if the patient wishes. The Blumenauer language prohibits payment for counseling that involves physician-assisted suicide, which has been legalized by popular vote in Oregon and Washington.
So, physician-assisted suicide, the right-to-die legislation we passed in both Oregon and Washington (I voted for it both times), will not be covered. It’s a non-issue as far as national health care (and if it’s something you’d never consider, it’s a non-issue for residents of Oregon or Washington; it’s there for those of us who would consider it if the pain is bad enough and there’s no hope and our choice, not yours).
Claims by Betsy McCaughey that “the elderly would be required to have counseling on assisted suicide” were “quickly debunked by the Pulitzer-Prize-winning independent fact checker, PolitiFact.com.” Palin’s claims “envisioning ‘death panels’ for the disabled and elderly” were quickly proven false by fact-checkers for the Associated Press. That wasn’t enough to stop Palin, though.
Palin on Thursday refused to retreat, causing Blumenauer to say he was “astounded” that Palin had not withdrawn her comments. “If she wasn’t deliberately lying at the beginning, she is deliberately allowing a terrible falsehood to be spread with her name.”
What is happening here?
This willingness to spread outright false statements, the Oregon Democrat told Crosscut, is one of the most disturbing aspects of the new political climate. “This would never have happened in the politics of our youth,” he observed. “This is not just a philosophical or policy dispute,” he continued; “it’s outright lying and then refusing to admit it when caught. They are fighting to stop the conversation [with disruptive acts at some healthcare forums].”
This is a disturbing continuation of the type of lies that started during the election. McCain deliberately misunderstanding Obama’s use of the common “lipstick on a pig” expression as being a personal attack on Palin instead of directed at McCain’s policies. Ads claiming Obama wanted to teach in depth sexual education to kindergarten students.
On the one hand, the lies are so blatant that it’s tempting to just laugh at the lies and discredited liars. Given the amount of screaming and shouting and threats of violence these lies are stirring up, I can’t help but find the lies of Palin and others a bit more sinister, though. I recall other big lies that worked - Nazi Germany, Rwanda.
Yes, it’s ironic because some of these right wing nuts are bringing signs with Obama as Hitler (and other, more obviously racist signs). That’s the idea, though – to demonize those you oppose, to make them less than human. Instead of trying to get fair and equal health care for everyone including and especially children and the elderly, those of us on the left are allegedly really pushing for “death panels,” even though people are really dying under the current system.
There’s still the underlying racism, too, that these lies are appealing to. Just witness the “birthers”. Obama isn’t one of us. No matter that a birth certificate, closely examined by FactCheck.org had been produced. No matter that there are copies of newspaper announcements from Honolulu papers at the time. Some how, these must all be fake and the President was, what, secretly born in Kenya or maybe Mars?
True, the birthers are the right wing fringe and we still have those on the left who claim Trig isn’t Sarah Palin’s son. Some of the “death panels” claims are coming from elected and formerly elected Republican officials, though, including former Governor Palin. Many of whom, including Palin, obviously know they are telling lies, yet willing to stir up hatred and anger anyways.
So, even though the polls show it’s actually losing them votes,McCain, Palinand their allies continue with their vicious attacks. Meanwhile, Barack continues to take the high ground, even though there’s plenty of mud he could sling back, and talks about the issues.
Oddly enough (at least to the Republican nominees), the issues do seem to be what the American people want to hear about. Witness this crowd that the police estimated to be 100,000 Saturday in St. Louis, Missouri.
The latest has been the “Joe the Plumber” strategy, of claiming Obama is a socialist bent on radically redistributing wealth. Interestingly enough, the good people of St. Louis seem to like the idea of a tax cut for those 95 % of American workers (and 98% of small businesses) making less than a quarter million a year. People who make up most of the crowd, and I’m sure aren’t happy with their characterization by McCain of not paying their taxes (which the IRS most certainly asks them for each April 15, although less so if Obama gets in).
Meanwhile, I guess Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will want all these people investigated, claiming in this surreal MSNBC video that Obama’s friends and liberals in general are “anti-American” and the press should do a McCarthy era type investigation of anyone to the left in congress.
OK, I know the McCain/Palin campaign has brought out a lot nuts, but this woman is a U.S. Congresswoman? The United States still being a democracy, the last time I checked?
I’ve got news for Rep. Bachmann. All those people in St. Louis, and around the country, who are coming to hear Obama; and all of us who are going to be voting for him on November – We Are the American People, too.
One of the things that really impresses me about Barack Obama is how he just ignores the vicious attacks from the Republicans and continues talking about the issues that matter instead of responding in kind.
Once again, I feel absolute despair if I focus on McCain and Palin’s thinly disguised racist and undisguised anti-liberal attacks, whipping up this time charges of treason. On the other hand, I feel genuine hope for America when I look at Barack’s rallies. I hear him talking about substantive plans for issues like the economy, education, and health care. I see positive, engaged crowds; ready to help Obama put his vision for a positive future for them and their families in action.
If I focus my energies on the fear and hatred being sown for the minority of the Republican base, I miss the fact that rallies are still going on around the country like this one in Philadelphia (photos courtesy of Barack Obama’s Flickr page):
One of four “mini-rallies” in different neighborhoods in Philly this Saturday!
I’d miss the crowd reactions, the hope he brings in places like Philadelphia:
The enthusiasm in places like Toledo:
More importantly, I’d miss hearing details of his economic plan. Details from the Toledo Blade (full speech below):
Highlights of his plan include:
* A temporary tax credit of $3,000 for firms that create new jobs in the United States over the next two years.
* New legislation that would allow families to withdraw 15% of their retirement savings — up to a maximum of $10,000 — without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.
A 90-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith.
* Calling on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work to establish a facility to lend to state and municipal governments.
Mr. Obama’s plan also calls for temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment insurance benefits; keeping all options on the table to help automakers deal with the financial crisis; having the Fed and Treasury prepare for guaranteeing a broader range of liabilities of the banking system; and instructing Treasury to help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, loans for multi-family dwellings and credit card loans.
Notice two other important things from the video. First, that he immediately silences any booing of McCain and Palin, insisting on civility (something sorely missing from McCain, Palin and their supporters these days). Second, that, just like with education and calling for students and parents to make learning a priority, along with training more teachers and education improvements; he also calls for Americans to look at their own tendency to live beyond their means on credit, while also calling for accountability from the banks, credit card companies and others responsible for the economic crisis.
Definitely guilty here, and have learned the hard way.
So, they’re not just suppressing the poor and black vote this time. Since Barack appeals to students, the Republicans are trying to stop them from voting with lies, too.
Late last month, as a voter-registration drive by supporters of Senator Barack Obama was signing up thousands of students at Virginia Tech, the local registrar of elections issued two releases incorrectly suggesting a range of dire possibilities for students who registered to vote at their college.
The releases warned that such students could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns, a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.
As I mentioned in my last post (just a few minutes ago), I think it’s really important for everyone to register and vote (and get everyone they know to register and vote) for Barack in this election. It’s also important that we fight this “caging” and voter suppression by Republicans.
It says a lot about the Republicans that they apparently only think they can win by lies, sarcasm and deceit. Currently we have the McCain/Palin camp acting like they’ve never heard the expression “You can put lipstick on a pig – it’s still a pig.” in their lives (even though it’s older than McCain, and he himself used it against Hillary). Instead, we have Republicans like former Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift (who started this round of “swift boating”) claim the expression, which Barack used referring to McCain, was meant as a sexist insult to Sarah.
Please!!! Really, the expression does really apply to Senator McCain and Governor Palin. No, I’m not referring to their appearances, which are very photogenic (poor Abe couldn’t run these days, though he’d even recognize that expression). I’m referring to their record, their ethics, their vicious attacks; all meant to cover up the lack of any real plan to deal with the issues that concern the American public and affect real working class people. Barack has a plan to deal with issues like the economy, education, health care, women’s rights, veteran’s concerns, ending the war in Iraq. . . Where’s McCain’s?
It does appear McCain and Palin would prefer to roll in the mud, rather than discuss the issues.
Who do you want in office for the next four years?
Register. Vote. Fight voter suppression.
Fight the spin. It seems like the whole point of this “lipstick on a pig”, of pretending Barack’s using that old expression against McCain was meant as an insult to Sarah, was meant to plant the seed that a black, elite, man was insulting a white, working class, woman.
I find that Republican spin very insulting to me – as a white, working class woman. Like we’re supposed to be such bimbos we’ll vote on identity and not realize the McCain/Palin platform is neither supportive of the working class or women.
We’re not that dumb. Guess you’re going to have to try to suppress the white, working class women vote, too!
Ever since the conventions I’ve been torn between the images of hope and unity from the Democrats (and especially of Obama’s acceptance speech detailing a better future to a multi-cultural crowd of over 84,000), and the meanness and cynicism of the mostly white and rich Republicans (especially Sarah’s nastiness toward Obama, and McCain’s speech offering nothing but trickle down economics, lies and playing on people’s fears).
I have to go with Hope, though, and I do believe Hope is going to win. If there is a silver lining to Sarah’s speech, it is this – that thousands of Democrats (more than 130,000 by the next afternoon) donated an estimated $10 million to Barack before McCain even took the stage.
Grassroots organizing is still going on as well. I attended a salon for Obama at a friends’ house Sunday with about 20 others to help plan how we’re going to win this election. Thousands of similar events, vote drives, house parties and more are going on around the country. Yes, We Can!
Meanwhile, the ethics of Alaska’s supposed ethics reformer and VP Candidate Sarah Palin seem murkier and murkier. According to Robert Perry of the Consortium News (reprinted in Truthout):
Moreover, on Tuesday, just one day before giving her widely acclaimed speech to the Republican National Convention, Palin took the unusual step of filing an ethics complaint against herself – to move the investigation to the state personnel board whose three members are appointed by the governor.
This was known by the mainstream news media before Palin’s speech, yet it “was rarely, if ever, mentioned by TV pundits filling hours of air time with chatter about her charisma, her moose hunting and her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy.”
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a “per diem” allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
And this is Alaska’s ethics reformer!
Meanwhile, as Michelle Obama mentioned at a Women for Obama event in Albuquerque last week, time is getting short, especially for voter registration, which has to be done by the end of this month or early next month, depending on where you live.
This is an important election. Register, and if you’re already registered, make sure all your address is up to date, then make sure your friends and family are registered (convincing any fence sitters to vote for Barack).
One slight inaccuracy on the website’s Washington state information. They say Pierce is the only county still voting at the polls. Actually, while we were supposed to be switched over to all mail voting by this year here in King County, they delayed it until after this election. Most people are voting by mail even here, but there are a few of us hold outs going to the polling booth on November 4.
When I vote, I always remember going in the polling booth (which looked huge to me at 4) with Mama back in Apalachin, New York when she voted for Robert Kennedy for New York State Senator in 1964. Seems kind of appropriate that I’ll be casting what will probably be my last vote in an actual polling booth (soon to go into a museum?) for Barack Obama.
This moment has been a long time coming in so many ways. If you’re thinking of not voting, listen to what some people had to risk to vote in 1964 in Mississippi.
Should this not convince you, check the Truthout article on vote “caging” by the Republican party in Ohio (then make sure your voter registration address is up to date). It’s the 21st century and this is still going on.
Sarah Palin is known as the Barracuda for the way she’s played politics since her days of Mayor of Wasilla. So her rhetoric against Obama was no surprise, and no stretch for her, even if it was written by McCain’s people, as rumored.
In speech after speech, Republicans didn’t so much as tell the Big Lie as they deployed Wholesale Lies.
The Associated Press, which mostly had been recycling the Republican spin about the supposedly “maverick” ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, was so struck by the litany of distortions that the AP produced a special fact-checking article describing how Republicans had “stretched the truth.”
For instance, Palin said about Obama, “it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform – not even in the state senate.”
However, as the AP noted, Obama “worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year.”
Plus, the AP reported, “In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.”
As for the “Bridge to Nowhere” Palin says she opposed?
As the AP noted. Palin, as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, hired a lobbyist and made annual treks to Washington seeking earmarked spending that totaled $27 million, and then as Alaska’s governor for less than two years, she sought nearly $750 million in special federal spending, “by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.”
And as for that $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents, the truth is that Palin enthusiastically supported the project before she reluctantly opposed it, rejecting the “Bridge to Nowhere” only after it had become politically indefensible.
Not only that:
The Los Angeles Times discovered that Sen. McCain had specifically cited several of Palin’s earmarks on his annual list of wasteful pork-barrel spending.
In 2001, for instance, McCain’s list included a $500,000 earmark for a public transportation project in Wasilla, and in 2002, he criticized $1 million targeted for an emergency communications center that Palin sought but local law enforcement said was redundant and a source of confusion.
Meanwhile, Pataki, Giuliani and Palin all mockedObama’s work as a community organizer at the Republican Convention, admitting they were clueless as to what a community organizer does. While this has brought a lot of (justifiable) wrath from people who do the hard work of community organizing, personally, I think it’s a good thing that Republicans are clueless. It is, in fact, by the grassroots techniques of community organizing (on a nationwide level) that Barack won the Democratic nomination, in spite of the fact in the beginning most of the party insiders were for Hillary.
That Republicans are clueless about the connection between “community” and “organizing” is a good thing. Shhh! Let them thing $5000 a plate dinners with the country club set are the way to go. . .
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin’s choice by McCain is being touted as a Feminist turn by the Republican party (there’s something I never thought I’d see in my life; admittedly this is a breakthrough of the right-wingers glass ceiling), and anyone who questions that is just sexist. What do longer standing Feminists think?
Gloria Steinemsums up the cynicism of the Republican’s choice and it’s alleged appeal to Hillary’s supporters in the LA Times:
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, “Somebody stole my shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs.”
I disagree that anything was stolen. Obama won by organizing community support around the country from people like me. Still, no matter what they want to believe about that, do they really want McCain and Palin in the White House instead of Barack? Hoping everything they believe in won’t be totally ruined by the end of four more years and then Hillary will be able to win and turn it all around (and remember, Supreme Court appointments are for life)?
As Steinem points out, Sarah doesn’t have much knowledge of world affairs, while she does support all the most extreme conservative positions.
So let’s be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can’t tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
Palin’s value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women’s wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves “abstinence-only” programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers’ millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn’t spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
OK, but what do Republican women think of McCain’s choice? Check out the New York Times blog and the YouTube clip below to hear what Peggy Noonan of the Reagan administration and other Republican pundits are saying off air (or so they think) in an accidental live mic discussion on MSNBC.
Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and columnist, interjects: “It’s over.”
Asked whether Ms. Palin is really the most qualified woman Mr. McCain could have picked, Ms. Noonan responds rather incredulously, “The most qualified? No. I think they went for the — excuse me — political (expletive) about narratives. … Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and that’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.”
Even Republican women would prefer a woman with some real experience and world knowledge on the ticket. How dumb do McCain and his cronies think women are?
What does it say about how things are framed by the real elite when Barack Obama the candidate raised by a single mother who made it through Harvard through hard work and student loans, and supports economic policies that would help the poor through middle class is labeled the elitist? Meanwhile John McCain, born into privilege, who got ahead event though graduating in the “bottom 5” of Annapolis because his father was an Admiral, not to mention abandoning his first wife to marry into wealth, and who is supporting the typical Republican policy giving most of the tax breaks to the wealthy is presented as the man of the people. How does this work?
Harry C. Alford did an excellent two part series that ran in the Seattle Medium that I cited some of the information above from on the realities of McCain’s privilege and poor judgment over the last couple weeks. Meanwhile, Real Change ran an article last week about how the tax platforms of McCain and Obama would affect different classes of people, and an article on the vanishing middle class as well.
In the article Candidates’ tax platforms reward different groups, Michael Beer points out President George W. Bush cut “$477 billion to the richest 1 percent over this decade.” Then he compares the tax plans of our current presidential candidates:
So what values are revealed by each presidential candidate’s current tax proposals? On the website of the nonpartisan group United for a Fair Economy I found a useful list of questions to ask candidates about their tax policy. The first question is “Who benefits and who loses under your tax proposal?” I applied their list of questions to the Tax Policy Center’s recent analysis of Senator McCain’s and Senator Obama’s tax plans.
The bottom line is that the ultra-rich, the top 0.1 percent whose annual incomes range from almost $3 million to hundreds of millions a year, would pay an average of $1 million less in taxes in 2009 under President McCain than under President Obama, if their current proposals became law. President McCain would give them a big tax cut, and President Obama would give them a tax increase. Almost a quarter of the lost revenue in the McCain plan would be due to giveaways to the ultra-rich.
For the middle class, President Obama would give back $1,000 on average to families making between $37,000 and $66,000 a year, while President McCain would give them $319.
Poor families making less than $19,000 a year would get an extra $19 a year from President McCain — not even enough for five gallons of gas. They’d get an extra $567 from President Obama, as well as a $500 per person increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit. That’s enough to defray the rising cost of food and gasoline.
President Obama would repeal all of President Bush’s tax cuts to families making more than $250,000 a year, while President McCain would make them permanent. President Obama’s plan would also increase taxes on investments to bring them closer to the levels of taxes on income from paychecks.
That’s a considerable difference, and Barack is also talking about things like giving tax breaks to businesses that create jobs in America (and eliminating them for businesses that ship the jobs overseas) and expanding opportunities for young people to go to college, in exchange for public service of some kind.
In her article, The vanishing middle class, Jennifer Ware interviews Nan Mooney, author of (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class. Mooney herself had to leave New York City move back to Seattle and in with her parents as a journalist in her 30s raising a child. What she found was that there are a lot of people out there, with a college education and one or more jobs, like her, who were struggling. “People had these middle-class jobs where the wages really haven’t gone up very much, if at all, in the past 10-20 years, but fixed costs have kept inching higher.”
The self-definition of who considers themselves middle class is interesting:
You found people making $100,000 a year who called themselves middle class?
Yes. Actually, most people think they’re middle class. And I find interesting a poll done by the New York Times when I was writing the book where they interviewed people with huge incomes, and everybody who’d gone to college considered themselves middle class. It didn’t matter what amount of money they were making. They could be making $20,000 and they would still be middle class because they’d gone to college.
College is really important in this culture, and in our country there is the rhetoric that if you go to college, you will be okay because you’ve followed all the rules. I think it’s particularly frustrating to those people to still be struggling so much. They don’t understand how that happens.
I’m the $20k a year person (with college), though I have no self-delusions. I’m poor. I don’t have and will never have the money my working class father had through his union job, even though we had some rough times growing up. It’s ironic that he wanted a better life for me and wanted me to finish college (which I finally did, after he passed away, and to my regret, because all it means is a large student loan I will never get paid off dragging my already low wages down).
But I digress. So the middle class is struggling too.
Is the American Dream a myth?
I think it’s becoming a myth for a lot of people. And even though it’s not your fault that you’re in a tighter financial spot than you expected to be in, it’s very hard to lower your expectations because it feels like failure. Also I think that we place too much emphasis on the individual being able to fix this problem, because it’s really a collective issue.
Speaking of fault, where is that line between personal and governmental responsibility?
That’s a really important point, especially in this country where “personal responsibility” has become such a watchword. We’re supposed to be personally responsible for everything, and it’s supposed to be a freedom that we have to pay for our own retirement, our own health care. Employers used to provide pensions and other savings plans that have all but vanished. The system is out of whack. We need social safety measures in the government to help balance things out.
That is the heart of the issue. People struggle alone, and feel it’s their own fault. If you listened to the Republican spin this week, you’ll realize this is exactly what they want the American people to believe. They say we just want government to get out of the way. Out of the way and what? Give tax breaks and contracts for privatization to the wealthy including your cronies? Send jobs overseas, downsize, replace people with machines? Or if you have a job, salaries stay the same while costs for housing, clothing, etc. go up, up, up?
Why is it that so many people who self-identify with the middle class consistently vote against their own economic interests? Or do you think they do?
I think that people aren’t aware that they’re voting against their economic interests. I think that if you listen to the news media, the issues can come out awfully garbled. I think an important job of the Democratic Party is to really let people know the differences between Republican policies and Democratic policies. [Democrats] have been afraid to do that, because they’re afraid to lose the big guy.
Another reason why I think people are afraid either to vote this issue or to even address this issue, is that they’re ashamed. They feel like they did something wrong, and they don’t want to admit that they’re in financial trouble and they don’t talk to each other about it. There was a huge amount of relief in the people I talked to when I told them that others were feeling the pinch as well. They would ask me how others were getting by and the answer to that was twofold: people are getting help from their families, or they are getting into a lot of debt. Basically, they’re not getting by.
Which party and candidates are going to serve you better, and who are the real elites?
Just found this response from Barack on the issue of community organizing, which seemed very appropriate to add:
After actually hearing Sarah Palin tonight, I know what Katha Pollit meant when she said in The Nation that Sarah’s candidacy would make a great Lifetime channel movie, but this is real life.
Sure, Palin is cool — she’s pretty and vivacious and athletic, a former beauty queen who runs marathons, hunts , fishes and eats mooseburgers, plus she’s got five kids with unusual names like Willow and Track, including a newborn with Down’s syndrome. I feel tired just thinking of what her daily life must be like, and if she were my neighbor I would probably like her a lot. It shows how deeply feminism has penetrated American culture that even anti-choice, right-wing-Christian women are breaking out of the old sugary-submissive pastel-suited stereotype. And if life were a Lifetime movie, Palin would do just fine running the country should McCain keel over. Girls can do anything! and look great doing it!
But seriously. Vice President? After a stint as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of less than 8000, and barely two years as governor of a state with more grizzly bears than people? She makes Obama’s resume look as thick as Winston Churchill’s.
Sarah made a great case for being Mayor of Wasilla, and, yes, I do give her credit for taking on the corruption in Alaska (though she’s on a little shaky ground herself lately), booting out former Republican Governor Frank Murkowski in the primary and selling his private plane he bought at taxpayer expense (putting it on eBay as one of her first acts in office). I know the party base agrees with many of her extreme positions from abortion to drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; but. . . should something happen to McCain, do they really think she’s ready to lead the United States of America?
There are certainly Republican women who are qualified to lead who McCain could have chosen. Was it that they didn’t pass the far right litmus test of being even more reactionary than McCain on abortion?
Why Mr. McCain would want to pander to right-wing activists — who helped George W. Bush kill off his candidacy in the 2000 primaries in a particularly ugly way — is baffling. Frankly, they have no place to go. Mr. McCain would have a lot more success demonstrating his independence, and his courage, if he stood up to them the way he did in 2000.
Maybe because they are the majority in the room at the convention? Seriously, they all came alive when Sarah was speaking, no matter how far out there the rest of us think she was. I was amazed how bored they were for the earlier speakers, unlike the Democrats at their convention who were energized. Until Giuliani, to some extent, and especially Palin. She’s good with the party base.
It was both laughable and scary to hear both Giuliani and Palin knock and belittle Obama’s considerable experience; then act as if the PTA and being Mayor of Wasilla, and less than two years as Governor of Alaska, were impressive credentials for Vice President and even President, should something happen to McCain.
John Nichols of The Nation has dubbed Sarah as Spiro T. Palin for her attack dog mode tonight:
Sarcastic, bombastic, at times witty, at times savage, Palin ripped and ridiculed Obama with an eye toward challenging the common sense, logic and patriotism of the Democrat.
. . .
Never mind the conflicts between reality and Palin’s over-the-top mischaracterizations of Obama’s record and positions. The governor of Alaska was not about to be constrained by the facts.
So, Barack’s experience as U.S. Senator, in the Illinois legislature, and as a community organizer don’t count; but if we question Sarah’s experience as a small town mayor as qualifying her for vice presidency, we’re being elitist?
Tax breaks to the wealthy while the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears along with American jobs (and cynically telling people they need to lift themselves up by their bootstraps), now that’s real elitism.
How dumb do they think we are, or maybe the question should be, how dumb are they? Sarah Palin, who is the darling of Christian conservatives, is also supposed to appeal to women voters (beyond the far right)? They evidently expect Hillary’s supporters and the rest of us who enthusiastically watched Barack’s speech last Thursday to vote strictly on gender, and not pay any attention to Palin’s policies and positions, or her lack of experience.
I imagine by now you know the basics. Here they are from Move On:
Today is John McCain’s 72nd birthday. If elected, he’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for “inexperience,” here’s who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people.
Huh?
Who is Sarah Palin? Here’s some basic background:
She was elected Alaska’s governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage.1
Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2
She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3
Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4
She’s doesn’t think humans are the cause of climate change.5
She’s solidly in line with John McCain’s “Big Oil first” energy policy. She’s pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won’t be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as a threatened species-she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6
Her lack of experience? Apparently John McCain doesn’t think so, from his interview on NBC yesterday. Who knew being on the PTA prepared you to be the leader of the free world?
NBC’s Brian Williams asked John McCain on Nightly News tonight if Palin was the best choice given that he’s a 72-year-old cancer survivor.
McCain defended the choice, citing Palin’s experience, including being a governor, mayor and even working on the PTA.
“Facts are funny things,” McCain said, adding that she’s “been in office longer than” Obama.
He added, in fact, it’s “almost ludicrous to compare her experience with his — it’s no contest.”
Williams followed up and asked, though, if she was the best choice.
“Oh sure,” McCain said, “in every way.” He went on to again cite her “executive experience.”
“Frankly, it inspires me,” he said.
Note: This really is from the MSNBC website, not The Onion (and I really did turn on my tv yesterday morning just in time to hear him say that). Get your McCain/Palin for PTA buttons now from Cafe Press.
What are the Republicans smoking? Some of the right wing Christians supporting her actually think she’s going to appeal to Hillary’s voters (who knew they secretly supported Hillary?) They do realize one of the things Hillary’s supporters had against Barack was that they didn’t think he was strong enough on a women’s right to choose? Meanwhile, at the same time they’re courting Hillary’s supporters, the right wingers are bashing Bill for his past statements about keeping abortion “Safe, legal and rare.” Sounds like a good idea to me.
I’m not making this up. Check out the clip The Nation found:
As The Nation article notes, Sarah Palin’s candidacy was vetted by “the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy. “ Sarah even won approval of James Dobson, who had “once said he could ‘never’ vote for McCain”.
Here’s another great quote from the interview with Tom Minnery above:
Minnery added that his boss, Dobson, has yearned for a conservative female leader like Margaret Thatcher to emerge on the American scene. And while Palin is no Thatcher, “she has not rejected the feminine side of who she is, so for that reason, she will be attractive to conservative voters.”
Umm, I’m totally confused about what religious conservatives want from a woman leader now. Margaret Thatcher, or a former beauty queen could work, too. As long as she’s anti-abortion. PTA experience is a plus!
Oh yeah, and that VP candidate glass ceiling Sarah thinks she’s breaking? The Democrats broke it 24 years ago with Geraldine Ferraro!
In a weird way, it is encouraging that even far right religious conservatives are now ready for a woman to lead. . . I just don’t want to be led in the direction they’re going. . .
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