Gone Fishin'

Fair and Unbalanced will be on hiatus for a bit.  As long as you're here, why don't you scroll down and read some of the posts you might have missed or click on some of the links on the right  -- the list of jazz greats, the indie radio playlists, popular posts, and the excellent stuff from the blog roll.  See you soon.

Fair And Unbalanced Radio 9

Here is the ninth edition of Fair and Unbalanced Radio, consisting of ten previously posted songs:



1.   Neil Young and Crazy Horse:  Oh Susannah
2.   Wilco, Nick Lowe and Mavis Staples:  The Weight
3.   Jack White:  Love Interruption
4.   Real Estate:  Easy
5.   Cloud Nothings:  Stay Useless
6.   The Walkmen:  Heaven
7.   Alabama Shakes:  Hold On
8.   The Shins:  September
9.   The Kills:  Baby Says
10.  Bettye Lavette:  I'm Not The One

You can always click the radio icon on the right of the blog for the latest playlist.

[Here are the previous playlists:  Fair and Unbalanced Radio, Volume 1; Volume 2; Volume 3; Volume 4; Volume 5; Volume 6; Volume 7; Volume 8]

The Lackluster Jobs Report And GOP Sabotage

In the wake of a dismal jobs report, in which "employers created almost enough jobs to keep up with population growth in June, but not nearly enough to reduce the backlog of nearly 13 million unemployed workers," Republicans are doing two things:  Blaming Obama and trying to repeal health care.  As Steve Benen puts it:  "Eliminating health care benefits, as a practical matter, is the GOP jobs plan."

While the tepid job numbers are generally accepted as "absolute, concrete, incontrovertible proof that the president's jobs agenda isn't working," Benen points out, "we aren't trying Obama's jobs agenda."

Perhaps now would be a good time for a reality check. Last fall, Obama said the job market wasn't nearly strong enough, and he proposed an ambitious jobs plan called the American Jobs Act. Independent estimates showed that the policy, if implemented, would create as many as 1.9 million U.S. jobs in 2012 alone. Congressional Republicans, however, killed it.

ThinkProgress has a helpful list of the five key ways Republicans have sabotaged the economic recovery:

1. Filibustering the American Jobs Act. Last October, Senate Republicans killed a jobs bill proposed by President Obama that would have pumped $447 billion into the economy. Multiple economic analysts predicted the bill would add around two million jobs and hailed it as defense against a double-dip recession. The Congressional Budget Office also scored it as a net deficit reducer over ten years, and the American public supported the bill.

2. Stonewalling monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve can do enormous good for a depressed economy through more aggressive monetary stimulus, and by tolerating a temporarily higher level of inflation. But with everything from Ron Paul’s anti-inflationary crusade to Rick Perry threatening to lynch Chairman Ben Bernanke, Republicans have browbeaten the Fed into not going down this path. Most damagingly, the GOP repeatedly held up President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board during the critical months of the recession, leaving the board without the institutional clout it needed to help the economy.

3. Threatening a debt default. Even though the country didn’t actually hit its debt ceiling last summer, the Republican threat to default on the United States’ outstanding obligations was sufficient to spook financial markets and do real damage to the economy.

4. Cutting discretionary spending in the debt ceiling deal. The deal the GOP extracted as the price for avoiding default imposed around $900 billion in cuts over ten years. It included $30.5 billion in discretionary cuts in 2012 alone, costing the country 0.3 percent in economic growth and 323,000 jobs, according to estimates from the Economic Policy Institute. Starting in 2013, the deal will trigger another $1.2 trillion in cuts over ten years.

5. Cutting discretionary spending in the budget deal. While not as cataclysmic as the debt ceiling brinksmanship, Republicans also threatened a shutdown of the government in early 2011 if cuts were not made to that year’s budget. The deal they struck with the White House cut $38 billion from food stamps, health, education, law enforcement, and low-income programs among others, while sparing defense almost entirely.

ACA Is A Law Of Social Change: Cue The Outrage

By Tina Dupuy, cross-posted from her website

We can all stop pretending continued Republican anger about the Affordable Care Act is news. Some figured a Supreme Court ruling would settle things. And since the GOP said it was unconstitutional with the same fervor as people who’ve read the Constitution—it was easy to assume a decision from the nine justices in the highest court in the land—regardless of the outcome—would chill them out.

They would say things like “We are a nation of laws.” Things they say when they agree with the law—however unjust it may be (i.e. immigration).

No instead there are calls for revolt. The perennially reasonable Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) said in a written statement: “Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so.” And then added, “The whole thing remains unconstitutional.” Which is akin to saying just because something is a law doesn’t make it legal. Or just because they have hair on their face doesn’t make them mammals. The court, not some junior senator from a small state, ultimately decides what is or what is not constitutional. But unconstitutional is the word conservatives use for illegitimate. In chess this move is called flipping the board over and stomping away.

But it also feeds into the right-wing narrative that they are history’s most frequent victims. To them, the more egalitarian the country becomes the more persecuted conservatives are. The sentiment can be traced back to 1845 and the founding of the Know Nothings a nativist group concerned the country was being overrun with German and Irish immigrants. The current tea party finds its sympathies much more inline with the Know Nothings than anyone who ever threw tea in the Boston Harbor. They’re each backlash movements sparked by “change.”

The Know Nothings became split on the issue of slavery and in the southern states morphed into what we identify as the Confederacy. Here you have a region of the country that quite literally fired the first shots of what was to be the bloodiest war in American history and to hear them tell it, it was the “war of Northern aggression.”

The Civil War for many didn’t settle things so why would we assume a 5-4 decision could?

Conservatives are still mad about the New Deal, even though it worked to pull the country out of the Great Depression. They’re still miffed about women suffrage, the Civil Rights bill and Roe v. Wade. In fact any movement forward giving more people more rights and greater acceptance is a point of contention with conservatives. Gay rights is framed as Christians losing their rights to vilify whomever they want. Women not being forced to pay for birth control out-of-pocket is the government restricting the freedom of religion institutions to dictate policy to the government.

Conservatives in the current incarnation of the Republican Party think rights are a zero sum game. If one group gains acceptance, it means another falls out of favor. The cornerstone of trickle down economics is that a rising tide raises all boats—but not when it comes to social change in the right-wing mindset. Then there are winners and there are losers. And conservatives on some level have to lose to prove their preexisting condition: They’re not bullies but martyrs—always hanged in the public square for their belief that only they should benefit from the Bill of Rights.

The Affordable Care Act is a law of social change. It insists on greater equality for women in health care. It stands up for the sick over the bottom line. It’s a step forward for human rights (finally) in our medical system. And it mandates personal responsibility (as with most laws). It’s far from perfect, and as with anything it can stand improvement—but does that make it an affront to Republicans?

In a word: Yes.

It’s health care reform policy, Republicans, going all the way back to Nixon, have touted as a way to avoid socialized medicine in America. So naturally its implementation is a major loss for their team.

Now more Americans can get private medical insurance and insurance companies have to spend a higher percentage of premiums on actual health care—but most importantly conservatives get to be the victims of “a communist plot to kill our freedom.”

Scalia Watch

DonkeyHotey

There has long been a consensus in mainstream circles, if not necessarily in the legal community, that whether you agreed with him or not, Justice Scalia possesses a great legal mind.  Indeed, the conventional wisdom for decades, as Jeremy Leaming writes, "has held that Justice Antonin Scalia is the high court’s most brilliant, disciplined, albeit ideological, member."

It may be that exposure through the internet "has altered the narrative by giving forums to an array of writers who have been quick to poke holes in an increasingly tiresome and shoddy line of reporting" or simply that Scalia's over-the-top rants and overt partisanship have finally reached a critical mass.

But as the country becomes more politically polarized, Scalia, as Dana Milbank wrote a while back, has had more difficulty containing his rabid partisanship.  He noted that “Scalia’s tart tongue has been a fixture on the bench for years, but as the justices venture this year into highly political areas such as health-care reform and immigration, the divisive and pugilistic style of the senior associate justice is very much defining the public image of the Roberts Court.”

Leaming is absolutely correct that "with each passing high court term, Scalia seems to be coming wackier, more out-of-touch, increasingly shrill. And he’s being called out for his nuttiness with growing frequency." 

"The Madness of Justice Scalia," Leaming's piece, cites various legal scholars and reporters, including law professor Paul Campos, who observed that Scalia “has in his old age become an increasingly intolerant and intolerable blowhard: a pompous celebrant of his own virtue and rectitude, a purveyor of intemperate jeremiads against the degeneracy of the age, and now an author of hysterical diatribes against foreign invaders, who threaten all that is holy.”

Perhaps Scalia has finally gone too far.  In a column last Wednesday (before the ACA decision), E.J. Dionne called for Scalia to resign:

So often, Scalia has chosen to ignore the obligation of a Supreme Court justice to be, and appear to be, impartial. He’s turned “judicial restraint” into an oxymoronic phrase. But what he did this week, when the court announced its decision on the Arizona immigration law, should be the end of the line.

Not content with issuing a fiery written dissent, Scalia offered a bench statement questioning President Obama’s decision to allow some immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay. Obama’s move had nothing to do with the case in question. Scalia just wanted you to know where he stood.

After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the secretary of homeland security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants,” Scalia said. “The president has said that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s failure to pass the administration’s proposed revision of the immigration laws. Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind.

What boggles the mind is that Scalia thought it proper to jump into this political argument. And when he went on to a broader denunciation of federal policies, he sounded just like an Arizona Senate candidate.

Dionne takes Scalia to task for being a "blatantly political actor" and justice at the same time:  "Unaccountable power can lead to arrogance. That’s why justices typically feel bound by rules and conventions that Scalia seems to take joy in ignoring."

Recall, as Dionne reminds us, 2004, when "three weeks after the Supreme Court announced it would hear a case over whether the White House needed to turn over documents from an energy task force that Dick Cheney had headed, Scalia went off on Air Force Two for a duck-hunting trip with the vice president."

Then there was the speech Scalia gave at Switzerland’s University of Fribourg a few weeks before the court was to hear a case involving the rights of Guantanamo detainees:  "I am astounded at the world reaction to Guantanamo,” he declared in response to a question. “We are in a war. We are capturing these people on the battlefield. We never gave a trial in civil courts to people captured in a war. War is war and it has never been the case that when you capture a combatant, you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts. It’s a crazy idea to me.”

Dionne does not even mention how Scalia (as well as his fellow conservative justices Thomas and Alito) regularly attend right-wing events and political fundraisers.  (Indeed, Clarence Thomas, in particular, is far quieter, but similarly nakedly partisan and ethically challenged.  See, e.g., here and here.)

Scalia is 76 years old but despite the urging of E.J. Dionne does not appear to be leaving the bench any time soon.  What is of far greater concern is that Justice Ginsburg turns 80 next year and Justice Breyer turns 75.  When you throw in Justice Kennedy (75), you have what the New York Times points out is "among the oldest courts since the New Deal era."  As a result, "the winner of the race for president will inherit a group of justices who frequently split 5 to 4 along ideological lines," suggesting "the next president could have a powerful impact if he gets to replace a justice of the opposing side."

And while it is true that Chief Justice Roberts showed some modicum of sanity in voting to uphold the Affordable Care Act, he has not been magically transformed into the new swing justice.  It should be noted that while the outcome was welcome, his legal reasoning was, as Justice Ginsburg put it, "stunningly retrogressive."  (See 10 Ways John Roberts Is Still A Conservative's Best Friend.)

What shouldn't be lost in all the hoopla over the validation of Obamacare is that the Scalia and the other three dissenters (Thomas, Alito and Kennedy), as Paul Krugman points out, "did so in extreme terms, proclaiming not just the much-disputed individual mandate but the whole act unconstitutional. Given prevailing legal opinion, it’s hard to see that position as anything but naked partisanship."

As I have previously written, Romney's choice of Robert Bork as co-chair of his Justice Advisory Committee is a disturbing sign of the kind of radical jurists Romney would nominate.  (See Romney Gets Borked.)  In the wake of Roberts' "defection," there will be even more pressure on Romney to choose right wing extremists in the Scalia-Thomas mold, a fact he is essentially admitting on the campaign trail.  Dionne is right that Scalia should resign but that isn't going to happen.  But there remains an even more disturbing prospect than Scalia staying put.  It is that a President Romney will  add more right-wing ideologues to the Supreme Court (and throughout the federal judiciary), forming a solid block of partisan operatives.

Drew Brees, Union Power And The Big Payback

By Dave Zirin, cross-posted from Edge of Sports

Quarterback/demigod Drew Brees is the reigning NFL Offensive Player of the Year. He also, for some curious reason, can’t get a solid contract offer from his team, the New Orleans Saints. The sports radio talking heads are yipping about whether the 33-year-old Brees is asking for too much. But this story is not about the pay. It’s the payback.

In fall 2010, it was Brees who led a procession onto the field in full view of the Sunday Night Football cameras with one finger in the air, a symbol that both teams—the Saints and Vikings—were actually one team united against ownership. The voice of the NFL establishment, Al Michaels, a proud political conservative, condemned it from the NBC booth, saying—with an eye roll, “There’s nothing like a labor statement to start the season.” As for the NFL owners, like the elephant who symbolizes their political affection, they don’t forget. But Brees proceeded without concern for any kind of payback. After all, he brought a Super Bowl victory to New Orleans. He was untouchable. As the team’s union representative and member of the NFLPA executive board, Brees remained outspoken and was one of the lead plaintiffs in the lockout lawsuits against the NFL. His former teammate Scott Fujita said to me, “In recent years Drew has taken some strong positions against league management. He doesn’t have to do this, but he chooses to because he knows it’s the right thing to do, and because he’s a natural leader who all players look to and respect. That’s quite rare for someone of his stature. He has great conviction.”

But conviction comes with a price, even for—as one union official described him to me—“the Captain America of quarterbacks.” The NFLPA has now formally requested the league to investigate whether the Saints are openly trying to punish Brees for his trade unionism. The union is citing CBA provision, Article 49, Section 1 which reads, “ No Discrimination: There shall be no discrimination in any form against any player by the NFL, the Management Council, any Club or by the NFLPA because of race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or activity or lack of activity on behalf of the NFLPA.”

Brees’s other apostasy has been to defend current and former teammates Will Smith, Anthony Hargrove, Jonathan Vilma and Fujita on charges that they were part of a pay-to-injure program, otherwise known as “bountygate.” Brees is leveraging his fame to argue that he and his team are being targeted for the crime of being loud and proud union leaders during last year’s NFL lockout.

Last week, Brees tweeted, “If NFL fans were told there were ’weapons of mass destruction‘ enough times, they’d believe it. But what happens when you don’t find any????”

There was a media backlash against Brees for invoking the war in Iraq (or the lies that brought us into the war in Iraq, to be more exact). Brees apologized for this tweet, but this mini-backlash didn’t slow him down and actually seemed to embolden him.

On The Late Show With David Letterman, Brees said, “I mean, just the whole process itself and the investigation I feel like has been extremely unfair. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s been more of a media campaign than it is actually finding the truth to the matter. Put forth the facts, the truth, and if indeed there was a pay-to-injure scheme, then people will get punished, and if there’s not, then let’s exonerate these men because, at this point, it seems like it’s a smear campaign. We’re dragging them through the mud. We’re ruining their reputations and careers with no true evidence.”

There are those who will scoff about Brees, the millionaire quarterback, being any kind of trade union martyr. They are already saying that the NFLPA has no place in this “negotiation.” The scoffers will have television programs, radio shows and nationally read columns. They are the creators of conventional wisdom. They are also wrong.

There is no higher cultural platform in the country than the National Football League. NBC’s Sunday Night Football is the highest-rated program of the fall season. The Super Bowl is the most watched program in the history of this country. Drew Brees has been one of the faces of this league since the Saints won the Super Bowl in 2010. If he can be spanked like an unruly child for the crime of standing with his union, what does that portend for the public sector worker in Ohio, the Chicago teacher who just voted to go on strike or the Starbucks barista trying to start a union? I’m not saying that Drew Brees is some kind of Joe Hill with a tight spiral, but this is about ensuring that anyone who wants a union or is in a union can speak out in defense of their livelihood.

The AFL-CIO, of which the NFLPA is a member, should put out a statement in support of Brees. They should hold his case up as an example of what NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith means when he says, “The minute that any sports player believes for whatever reason that they are outside the management-labor paradigm, you lose ground.” This country’s trade union movement has been in free fall for decades, from a high of 35 percent in the mid 1950s, to a seventy-year low in 2010 of fewer than 12 percent. If the message from the NFL is that being an active unionist is grounds for intimidation and punishment, then the AFL-CIO needs to make it plain: an injury to one is an injury to all. Even quarterbacks.

Romney's Quiet Rooms: Where All The Money's Hidden?

By Mike Lux, cross-posted from Crooks and Liars

DonkeyHotey

The incredible new Vanity Fair piece on Romney’s secretive off shore tax accounts and business practices at Bain immediately made me think of one of my favorite video clips of 2012, this one where Romney is talking about how issues related to the concentration of wealth should only be discussed in “quiet rooms”:



Mitt Romney undeniably likes his secrets, especially when it comes to money, and I have to admit that the revelations in Vanity Fair gave me a different take on the Quiet Rooms quote. I had always assumed it was just Mitt being Mitt, doing his classic Thurston Howell III imitation, another in a long line of Mitticisms (I like being able to fire people, I know a couple of Nascar team owners, did I tell you the funny story about how my dad laid off a bunch of people, etc) reminding us how cluelessly out of touch Mitt was. It was also the ultimate in big money Republicanism: we don’t talk about these issues in public because we don’t want people to get mad and start a class war. But now it occurs to me what Mitt was really trying to guard in his quiet rooms: all the millions he has secretly stashed away.

What Mitt, with his offshore accounts and his secretive business practices and his endorsement of the Ryan budget which gives even more advantages to Wall Street tycoons like himself, is trying to preserve is the ability to play by a different set of rules than the rest of us. He wants a world where the wealthy have all these advantages and loopholes and secret deals and lower tax rates, precisely because that was his entire business model at Bain Capital. He wants a world where he doesn’t have to pay taxes on his accounts in Bermuda and the Caymans and Luxembourg and Switzerland. He wants a world where he can recruit any sleazebag overseas investor to invest in Bain. As Alex Seitz-Wald at Salon.com puts it: “This pattern of elusiveness is hardly confined to Romney’s finances, but rather defines his public life.”

Mitt’s entire career is defined by the secrets he has, and the fact that he didn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else except for a few other well-connected Wall Street guys. The way Mitt made his money is exactly the kind of thing we should be talking about in this Presidential campaign- and not only because it relates directly to Romney’s character, experience, and values. We should be talking about this because we should be debating as a country whether we want a country whose economic system is structured primarily to benefit a small number of wealthy, well-connected insiders operating behind closed doors, manipulating the tax code and financial markets to become more and more wealthy; or whether we want a country where businesses make money the old-fashioned way, by manufacturing and selling quality products, and playing by the same rules everyone else has to play by. By and large, with only occasional exceptions where Bain actually created real new jobs, the way Romney became wealthy was to make other people poorer- manipulating the financial markets and tax code, off-shoring jobs, cutting wages and benefits, laying off people, driving companies into bankruptcy while still getting huge fees from them. He also ripped off the rest of us taxpayers through the outrageous carried interest loophole, though writing off the debt he loaded companies up with and then writing it off, and through taking advantage of the taxpayer-backed Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation’s obligation to pay off pensions when Bain’s companies went bankrupt. I guess it is not surprising that having made most of his money that way, he decided to keep so much of that money invested in secret overseas accounts.

No wonder Mitt Romney wants to keep this discussion confined strictly to “quiet rooms”. I would too if I had stashed so many of the millions I made from off-shoring jobs and all these other revolting business practices into secret off-shore accounts. But it is time for America to have this discussion- and not just in quiet rooms.

Questions For Opponents Of Health Care Reform: Where Are Your Facts?

By Amanda Marcotte, cross-posted from RH Reality Check

The Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on Thursday has caused a rush of panic from the opponents of universal health care. Lots and lots of claims about what the law does are being tossed around, and many of these claims are what you might call puzzling to those of us who actually know what’s in the ACA. Now, I don’t want to accuse anyone of intentionally lying without gathering more evidence, but without a deeper understanding of what various conservatives mean by their claims, it’s hard to suppress the sense that they may perhaps just be lying. So, I’ve made a list of questions I want opponents of health care reform to answer so I can better understand how their seemingly outrageous claims about the ACA make sense outside of the most obvious “lying” angle.

How does one “go on” Obamacare? Paul Ryan, denouncing the bill: “Millions of people who are otherwise going to go on Medicaid, are now going to go on Obamacare which costs a whole lot more money.” What is this “Obamacare” that people can go onto? I looked around to see if I could get an insurance plan through the “Obamacare” that Ryan and other conservatives are talking about Americans going on to and all I can find are the same old private insurance companies that existed before. The way Ryan & Co. talk about “Obamacare,” it sounds an awful lot like they think there’s a public option people can buy if they don’t want private insurance and aren’t eligible for Medicaid. But those of us who recall the big political fight over the ACA can tell you that there was originally a public option in the bill, but it was removed in order to get more votes from conservative Democrats. So what is this “Obamacare” conservatives keep insisting you can buy into and where do I find it?

How does the ACA remove your choice or get between you and your doctor? Various claims are being tossed around about health care reform “getting between you and your doctor” or taking away people’s choices in what medical treatments to pursue. In his remarks after the ACA ruling, Romney repeated this claim by saying the government is getting “more and more intrusive in your life” and “separating you and your doctor.”

So my question is: How? What medical decisions will the government now be making for you under the ACA? (Obviously, under conservative-supported legislation, the government has a lot of power to make decisions for women seeking abortion or contraception, but those laws aren’t part of ACA.) If you’re referring to the fact that insurance companies will retain the right to deny coverage for certain procedures they deem unnecessary, well, insurance companies already do that. If anything, the ACA has limited the ability of insurance companies to deny you the ability to pursue medical treatments you and your doctor choose, because the ACA has removed spending limits and banned insurance companies from denying you coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

How is the ACA going to force you to pay for abortion? A typical example of this claim from CNS News, saying the ACA requires that “Americans buy health insurance plans that pay for contraceptives and abortion.” The problem is that the executive order Obama tied to the ACA actually does the opposite on abortion, and requires that every state exchange have insurance options that don’t cover abortion, for those who actually consider that a priority, aka almost no one. If people making this claim are referring to the insurance plans they already have through their employers which often cover abortion, again, that’s a pre-ACA reality that didn’t seem to bother conservatives until they could use it to raise the public’s ire over health care reform.

Where are the parts of the bill requiring “rationing”? There’s no such requirement in the ACA. If people making this claim are referring to the insurance company practice of denying certain coverage they deem too expensive or medically unnecessary, I refer you to the above passage that points out that this was the policy before the ACA, and the ACA has restricted the right of insurance companies to deny coverage.

How is everyone in the country going to pay more in taxes? Paul Ryan and the folks at Fox News were making this claim, that this is a tax that will “hit everyone.”  How will “everyone” be hit with this tax penalty? The bill couldn’t be more clear that you don’t pay this penalty if you have insurance. The majority of Americans actually have insurance, and more will buy it under this plan, with the hope being that eventually all Americans will have it. So if the majority are already not in a position of having to pay this and even more people will not be paying this, how does this hit “everyone?” Are conservatives stretching the definition of “paying” a tax to include taxes that you don’t pay, but maybe could have in an alternate reality where no one has health insurance?

What’s the game plan for the “replace” part of “repeal and replace”? In his remarks about the ruling, Romney claimed he wanted to “repeal and replace” the ACA with a bunch of provisions Jon Stewart pointed out are, uh, actually in the ACA. I have no problem believing that Romney, if he were President with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, would be able to repeal the ACA. But replace it with what amounts to a nearly-identical bill? The first bill was barely able to pass with Democratic majorities in both houses. How would he get a nearly-identical bill past congressmen who have been clear from the get-go that they hate the very idea of health care reform? Why does he think that “repeal and replace” makes more sense than simply passing bills modifying the original legislation to take out the parts he doesn’t like as much, but leaving the parts---i.e., most of the bill---he claims to like intact?

These are but a few of many important questions I need opponents of the ACA to answer in depth to believe that they’re arguing in good faith. Because right now, it seems instead what’s going on is that opponents just hate health care reform, period, and are coming up with a lot of dishonest rhetorical dodges because they know the public at large wants a better health care system than we have now.

Ray Charles: "America The Beautiful"

(More on Ray Charles here.)

Robert Reich: Patriotism July 4, 2012

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website

In the last two weeks, the Supreme Court has allowed police in Arizona to demand proof of citizenship from people they stop on other grounds (while throwing out the rest of Arizona’s immigration law), and has allowed the federal government to require everyone buy health insurance — even younger and healthier people — or pay a penalty.

What do these decisions — and the national conversations they’ve engendered — have to do with patriotism? A great deal. Because underlying them are two different versions of American patriotism.

The Arizona law is aimed at securing the nation from outsiders. The purpose of the health care law is to join together to provide affordable health care for all.

The first version of patriotism is protecting America from people beyond our borders who might otherwise overrun us — whether immigrants coming here illegally or foreign powers threatening us with aggression.

The second version of patriotism is joining together for the common good. That might mean contributing to a bake sale to raise money for a local school or volunteering in a homeless shelter. It also means paying our fair share of taxes so our community or nation has enough resources to meet all our needs, and preserving and protecting our system of government.

This second meaning of patriotism recognizes our responsibilities to one another as citizens of the same society. It requires collaboration, teamwork, tolerance, and selflessness.

The Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect, but in requiring younger and healthier people to buy insurance that will help pay for the healthcare needs of older and sicker people, it summons the second version of patriotism.

Too often these days we don’t recognize and don’t practice this second version. We’re shouting at each other rather than coming together — conservative versus liberal, Democrat versus Republican, native-born versus foreign born, non-unionized versus unionized, religious versus secular.

Our politics has grown nastier and meaner. Negative advertising is filling the airwaves this election year. We’re learning more about why we shouldn’t vote for someone than why we should.

As I’ve said before, some elected officials have substituted partisanship for patriotism, placing party loyalty above loyalty to America. Just after the 2010 election, the Senate minority leader was asked about his party’s highest priority for the next two years. You might have expected him to say it was to get the economy going and reduce unemployment, or control the budge deficit, or achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. But he said the highest priority would be to make sure the President did not get a second term of office.

Our system of government is America’s most precious and fragile possession, the means we have of joining together as a nation for the common good. It requires not only our loyalty but ongoing vigilance to keep it working well. Yet some of our elected representatives act as if they don’t care what happens to it as long as they achieve their partisan aims.

The filibuster used to be rarely used. But over the last decade the threat of a filibuster has become standard operating procedure, virtually shutting down the Senate for periods of time.

Meanwhile, some members of the House have been willing to shut down the entire government in order to get their way. Last summer they were even willing to risk the full faith and credit of the United States in order to achieve their goals.

In 2010 the Supreme Court opened the floodgates to unlimited money from billionaires and corporations overwhelming our democracy, on the bizarre theory that corporations are people under the First Amendment. Congress won’t even pass legislation requiring their names be disclosed.

Some members of Congress have signed a pledge — not of allegiance to the United States but of allegiance to a man named Grover Norquist, who has never been elected by anyone. Norquist’s “no-tax” pledge is interpreted only by Norquist, who says closing a tax loophole is tantamount to raising taxes and therefore violates the pledge.

True patriots don’t hate the government of the United States. They’re proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve and protect it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry then special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.

But these days some Americans loathe the government, and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it’s no longer capable of doing much of anything. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be “drowned in a bathtub.”

When arguing against paying their fair share of taxes, some wealthy Americans claim “it’s my money.” They forget it’s their nation, too. And unless they pay their fair share of taxes, American can’t meet the basic needs of our people. True patriotism means paying for America.

So when you hear people talk about patriotism, be warned. They may mean securing the nation’s borders, not securing our society. Within those borders, each of us is on our own. These people don’t want a government that actively works for all our citizens.

Yet true patriotism isn’t mainly about excluding outsiders seen as our common adversaries. It’s about coming together for the common good.

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  He writes a blog at www.robertreich.org.  His most recent book is Beyond Outrage

All Star Outrage

I have always revered the All Star game.  When I was growing up, it meant seeing Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente in the same outfield.  It also meant getting to see how some of my favorite Met players measured up to the greats.  True, the Mets did not usually populate the team, but at least Tom Seaver could be counted on to dominate American League hitters, and occasionally Bud Harrelson at short, Jerry Grote behind the plate, Jerry Koosman or Jon Matlack on the mound were worthy additions. 

Beginning in 1969, fans have been given the privilege of voting for All Star starters.  I used to fill out two ballots as a kid.  I would diligently scour statistics and choose players based purely on merit.  Then I did a second one which included Met players, regardless of the season they were having.  On this second ballot I admit, I voted for Wayne Garrett over Ron Santo, Felix Millan over Joe Morgan, Tommie Agee over Cesar Cedeno, Jerry Grote over Johnny Bench, and even Ed Kranepool over Willie McCovey.

Over the years, the fans generally got it right.  The popularity contest and bias towards one's home team was, for the most part, outweighed by votes for the players having the best years.  What helped making this system relatively fair was the rule that each team received the same number of ballots to hand out.  But with the advent of internet voting and organized campaigns by the teams themselves, the process has gotten out of balance.

The San Francisco Giants' marketing department was particularly relentless and creative this year in urging their fans to vote for Giants players early and often.  As a result, the Giants can boast three starters in this year's game:  Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey and Melky Cabrera.  Sandoval, who spent a good deal of time on the disabled list, is having a season that pales in comparison to David Wright, who is having an MVP-type year. Wright leads all third basemen in every offensive category.  (Padres' third baseman Chase Headley is also having a far better year than Sandoval.)

Giants' catcher Buster Posey is having an excellent season, coming back from last year's injury, but he should not be the All Star starter -- despite receiving more votes than any other player in history.  Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz, who is having a remarkable year, is far more deserving.  So is Yadier Molina of the Cardinals.

Melky Cabrera is arguably worthy of a start in the NL outfield, but the outsized votes for Sandoval and Posey, and for other Giants such as 1B Brandon Belt and SS Brandon Crawford -- who just missed starting nods (and 2B Freddie Sanchez came in fourth despite being sidelined all year) -- demonstrate that the system is broken.

Fans have been disenfranchised before.  In 1957, an organized campaign in Cincinnati resulted in seven Reds players being elected as starters:  Johnny Temple (2B), Roy McMillan (SS), Don Hoak (3B), Ed Bailey (C), Frank Robinson (LF), Gus Bell (CF), and Wally Post (RF). (The only non-Red elected was Cardinal first baseman Stan "the Man" Musial.)  The Cincinnati Enquirer apparently printed up pre-marked ballots to allow fans to vote early and often.  After an investigaton, Commissioner Ford Frick substituted Willie Mays and Hank Aaron for Gus Bell and Wally Post as NL starters, and changed the system so that managers, coaches and players voted instead of fans.

It is time to take the vote away from the fans again.

Andy Griffith (1926-2012)

"When a man carries a gun all the time, the respect he thinks he's getting might really be fear. So I don't carry a gun because I don't want the people of Mayberry to fear a gun. I'd rather they respect me."  -- Sheriff Andy Taylor (from the Andy Griffith Show)

At Least Those Supreme Court Conservatives Aren't Influenced By The New York Times

Clarence and Virginia Thomas

After the theory that Chief Justice Roberts' vote to uphold ACA was caused by his epilepsy medication didn't fly, the latest conservative narrative making the rounds (thanks to a "scoop" by CBS's Jan Crawford) is that Roberts switched his vote, buckling to external political pressure, and then withstood a ferocious month-long campaign by Justice Kennedy to bring him back around. 

Who knows what truth there is to this story (or who inside the Court leaked it), but I was particularly struck by a remarkable nugget in Crawford's article which describes the conservative wing of the Court, in contrast to Chief Justice Roberts, as impervious to outside influences -- or at least liberal ones.  Thus, while Roberts "pays attention to media coverage," the conservatives, "such as Justice Clarence Thomas, deliberately avoid news articles on the court when issues are pending (and avoid some publications altogether, such as The New York Times). They've explained that they don't want to be influenced by outside opinion or feel pressure from outlets that are perceived as liberal."

What the article left out are the right-wing influences on Justices Thomas, Scalia and Alito.  As I've previously written, these three justices have attended, headlined and spoken at political fund-raising events for right wing organizations.   In another piece, Activist Judges, I pointed out that Justice Alito attended a major fundraising event for the notorious right wing magazine American Spectator (notorious for smearing President Clinton with false stories as part of the "Arkansas Project," an effort to get Clinton impeached), and that Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas have also attended secret political fundraisers.

And as stated here, Scalia and Thomas were featured guests at a retreat of wealthy Republicans and conservative leaders organized by Charles and David Koch, the brothers who finance right wing causes from the money they made from their energy conglomerate.  One of the Koch brothers pet causes had long been ending financial regulations on elections.  Indeed, according to Common Cause, they funded many of the groups who filed amicus briefs in the Citizens United case.  What is so unseemly about the appearances of Thomas and Scalia at the Koch Industries-sponsored event is that it occurred while Citizens United was pending before the Court.

And then, of course, there is the influence of Justice Thomas's wife, Ginni Thomas, a right-wing activist and powerful lobbyist, who worked to repeal the health care law.  Thomas was employed by the Heritage Foundation, a right wing think tank, between 2003 and 2007, and then set up a political consulting business, Liberty Central, which is described as an advocate for “liberty-loving citizens" fighting against the left wing "tyranny" of President Obama and the Democrats.

Well, at least the conservative members of the Court are not influenced by the New York Times and other dreaded liberal media.

If Pre-Existing Conditions Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Pre-Existing Conditions

Tom Tomorrow's latest:  Health Care Glossary Updated

Click here (or on the Read Tom Tomorrow link on the right panel) for the full comic.

10 Ways John Roberts Is Still A Conservative's Best Friend

By Ian Millhiser, cross-posted from ThinkProgress

Last week, Chief Justice Roberts embraced a ludicrous, Tea Party reading of the two key provisions of the Constitution, tossing out nearly two centuries of established law in the process. Yet, after he also refused to join a deeply partisan decision tossing out President Obama’s signature accomplishment — agreeing with several leading conservative judges in the process — the right-wing did not waste any time drawing its knives upon him. In just 24 hours, he was accused of everything from caving to non-existent “bullying” to being mentally unfit for duty.

It’s tough to imagine a more flagrant display of ungratefulness than the pushback Roberts is now receiving from his fellow conservatives. The reality is that Roberts consistently advanced the right’s agenda from the moment he joined the Court:

1) Corporate Money In Elections: Roberts jonied the majority in Citizens United, holding that wealthy corporations should have a nearly unlimited power to buy and sell American elections. Roberts also voted to undermine public financing laws in a way that severely undermines candidates without well-moneyed backers’ ability to compete in elections.

2) Judges For Sale: Roberts wrote a dissent in Caperton v. Massey that would have allowed a wealthy coal CEO to pay $3 million to put a sympathetic supreme court justice on that court. The same justice would then go on to $50 million verdict against the big spender’s company.

3) Corporate-Owned Courts: Roberts consistently votes to give corporations a nearly unlimited power to force workers and consumers into a privatized, corporate-run arbitration system that overwhelming favors corporations.

4) Dividing And Conquering Ordinary Americans: Roberts voted in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion to allow corporations to strip their workers and consumers of their ability to bring class action lawsuits. Because of this decision, corporations now have a nearly unlimited power to cheat the people who do business with them — so long as they only do it a few dollars at a time.

5) Corporate Immunity To The Law: Roberts voted to give generic drug makers immunity to key state laws after one of their drugs caused a condition called tardive dyskinesia in many of the people who took it. Tardive dyskinesia is an horrific neurological condition that causes sometimes crippling, uncontrollable bodily movements, often in the face:

6) Abortion: Roberts also joined the Court’s decision restricting reproductive freedom in Gonzales v. Carhart, which reasoned that a woman’s right to choose must be cut back because “it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.”

7) Race: Roberts has also consistently resisted attempts to eradicate the legacy of racism in America. Most notably, in Parents Involved v. Seattle School District No. 1, he claimed that a plan to desegregate public schools violates Brown v. Board of Education.

8) Gitimo: Roberts twice sided with President George W. Bush on questions of detainee treatment — as a lower court judge in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and as Chief Justice in Boumediene v. Bush.

9) Unequal Pay For Women: Roberts joined the Court’s discredited decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire rolling back women’s right to receive equal pay for equal work.

10) Older Workers: Roberts also joined the Court’s 5-4 decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services limiting older workers’ ability to be free from age discrimination in the workplace.

Mets Hit Parade

A player with the most hits in a team's history usually possesses two qualities:  greatness and longevity.  Several legendary stars lead their teams with 3000 or more hits, including Willie Mays (Giants), Ty Cobb (Tigers), Pete Rose (Reds), Carl Yastrzemski (Red Sox), Hank Aaron (Braves), Cal Ripken (Orioles), Stan Musial (Cardinals), Roberto Clemente (Pirates), and most recently, Derek Jeter (Yankees).

Even some of the 1960s expansion teams can claim players with 3000 or more hits:  George Brett (Royals), Robin Yount (Brewers), Craig Biggio (Astros) and Tony Gwynn (Padres).

Hall of Famers such as Mike Schmidt (Phillies), Cap Anson (Cubs), Sam Rice (Senators/Twins), Zack Wheat (Dodgers) and Luke Appling (White Sox), while not reaching the hallowed 3000, have the most hits on their long-time teams.

And then there are teams like the Mets, celebrating their 50th Anniversary this year, whose all-time hit leader can boast longevity but not greatness.  Except for the Marlins, Rays and Diamondbacks, who all came into existence in the 1990s, no team other than the Mets have a career hit leader with less that 1500 hits.

Ed Kranepool, who played for the Mets in their inaugural season of 1962, all the way through 1979, is their all-time hit leader with 1418.  For better or worse Kranepool played in far more games than any other Met and, as a result, is in the top 10 in most offensive categories.  But pretty soon we won't have Kranepool to kick around anymore.

29-year old David Wright, is in his ninth year with the Mets and having his greatest season.  After starting off his career in spectacular fashion, the five-time All Star has had an uneven last few years, which included a beaning and a concussion in 2009, and missing more than two months from another injury last year.  But he is putting it all together in 2012, with an MVP-type year.

David Wright is the Met all-time leader in runs scored, RBIs, and doubles.  He is about 75 hits behind Kranepool, and is sure to pass him sometime this year.  Hopefully, he will be a Met for many years to come, and if so, he will fit right in there with the great hit leaders of the other Major League clubs.