I've gone cold to Obama...

This Krugman op-ed reminds me how Clinton has somehow slid into the number two seat behind Edwards on my ranking of the Democratic candidates...

Finally, Mr. Obama is storing up trouble for health reformers by suggesting that there is something nasty about plans that “force every American to buy health care.”

Look, the point of a mandate isn’t to dictate how people should live their lives — it’s to prevent some people from gaming the system. Under the Obama plan, healthy people could choose not to buy insurance, then sign up for it if they developed health problems later. This would lead to higher premiums for everyone else. It would reward the irresponsible, while punishing those who did the right thing and bought insurance while they were healthy.

Here’s an analogy. Suppose someone proposed making the Medicare payroll tax optional: you could choose not to pay the tax during your working years if you didn’t think you’d actually need Medicare when you got older — except that you could change your mind and opt back in if you started to develop health problems.

Can we all agree that this would fatally undermine Medicare’s finances? Yet Mr. Obama is proposing basically the same rules for his allegedly universal health care plan.

Obama's way of playing health care shows he cares more about independents than actual policy. Which is a death knell if you think for two seconds you can take on the insurance companies and private profits coming from the status quo and come out with some form of policy that will be effective and successful.

John Edwards is the most electable Democrat

Well it was a ride...

State Representative, District 72
100% of precincts reporting
PR=Precincts Reporting
TP=Total Precincts



Brown(R) 888 24.6%

Madden (D) 571 15.8%

Ramsey (R) 1,925 53.4%

Vaisvil (R) 221 6.1%

Kevin and all of Team Madden did a great job. It was a real campaign, but Matt Ramsey had real money and the 72nd is a really conservative district. Despite all of that the Democrats have proven it is a new day in Fayette County and that they will be knocking on doors and making every call they can to make sure Republicans don't get a pass for their bad policy and poor leadership.

John Edwards - CNN debate

Yumi Attacks McDonalds

I love Youtube

Billy Bragg - Waiting For The Great Leap Forward

Bragg on Rollins show...

Billy Bragg - There is Power in a Union

Our Moment Is Now

Very good comericial...

Trump: Bush is the Worst President in History

wow...

Green Day - Working Class Hero

A local group of volunteers from The Save Darfur Coaltion are holding an event at the Martin Luther King Center today at 2pm in Atlanta. Come if you live here... do something to raise awareness where you live if you don't.

Genocide is going on right now. Right now. It is our duty to do something. Our duty.

John Edwards - Mess

Illegal immigrant

Illegal immigrant ‘never’ thought to leave boy
Man comforted child after mom died in Arizona desert crash, officials say

An illegal immigrant who gave up his long walk into the U.S. to help a boy whose mother was killed in a van crash in the desert said Wednesday that he never thought of leaving the child.

Undecided Republican Chooses John Edwards

hey hey hey!!

Habermas on Rorty...

Link to a talk given at Stanford by Jurgen Habermas about Richard Rorty. David Pacini has spoken on numerous occasions to me that I need to read more of both of these philosophers.

Amnesty International Report 2007 Overview Video

Why I Shouldn't Have Let You In - Original Song

this is why I love the internet! And youtube! I love it!

Iraq Surge Continues with No End in Sight

Flu Shot...

Ecnomist Alex Tabarrock just got his flu shot

People who have the flu spread the virus so getting a flu shot not only reduces the probability that I will get the flu it reduces the probability that you will get the flu. In the language of economics the flu shot creates an external benefit, a benefit to other people not captured by the person who paid the costs of getting the shot. The external benefits of a flu shot can be quite large. Under some conditions each person who is vaccinated reduces the expected number of other people who get the flu by 1.5.

Since a large fraction of the benefits of the flu shot, perhaps even a majority of the benefits, go to other people and not to the person paying the costs, the number of people who get a flu shot in the United States is well below the efficient level. I only got the shot because, as you well know, I'm altruistic. I care about you. But do send your checks, that will help.

In lieu of a check I'm thinking of having some buttons made up to encourage people to get their shot. Here are some possible slogans:

Kiss me, I'm vaccinated.
Take one for the herd!
Get a flu shot. The life you save may not be your own.
Madison Avenue here I come!

Of course, we know from the Coase Theorem that there is an alternative approach. We could charge people who do not get their flu shots. (Thus, if you haven't had a shot you must still must send me a check.) Or to reduce transaction costs we could fine people who get the flu. I kind of like that last one. (But what to do about the 36,000 a year who die from the flu - charge their estates?)

Update on Edwards polling...

I have yet to see any data contradicting the claim that Edwards does better with swing/conservative voters. And I have yet so see any claims to the contrary (which the appreciative nod to purist of the Kucinich/Green party wing--i'm talking about electable's not my ideals right now) that of the Democrats, Edwards as an entire policy agenda is the most Progressive/Liberal of the Democratic candidates who can win.

After the Democracy for America training where I began to learn how to articulate and apply both actions and energy towards getting candidates elected, I've begun to see how close some of these local elections can truly be. No matter how conservative a district is, there is positive uplifting work that can be done to advocate for Liberal policies. But the impacts of who's on top of the ticket are huge when you are looking at the precinct level. When you break it down to hard numbers, you start getting towards a meaning number--meaningful in the sense that you can knock on those doors, make those phone calls, and find those voters!

The data on Edwards polling seems to strongly point to how bad Clinton would be down the ticket.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1322.xml?ReleaseID=1120

Quinnipiac University - OH: November 14, 2007

Note: Edwards and Obama were only paired against Giuliani

Vs. Rudy Giuliani

Clinton - 44%
Giuliani - 43%

Obama - 41%
Giuliani - 41%

Edwards - 46%
Giuliani - 40%

Clinton leads by 1%, Obama is tied%, Edwards lead by 6%

Clinton - 47%
Romney - 38%

Clinton - 48%
Thompson - 38%

Clinton - 42%
McCain - 46%


Past Ohio General Election Polling

http://esrc08.blogspot.com/

House Chief of Staff (R): Edwards Has the Best Chance of Winning Ohio in a General Election. During June 2007 interview, Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff for the Republican-controlled Ohio House of Representatives, predicted that Edwards was the Democratic presidential candidate most likely to carry Ohio in a general election. "I think if John Edwards wins Iowa and gets some steam and ends up being the candidate, Ohio could go with an Edwards type of Democrat, or an Edwards-looking Democrat, meaning he looks like every other Ohioan," Borgemenke said. "I think Ohio is very much in play for the Republicans if Hillary or Obama is the candidate." [ OhioPols.com, Borgemenke Interview, 6/8/07 ]


Quinnipiac University - OH: October 10, 2007

Favorable / Unfavorable

Hillary Clinton - 49/42
Barack Obama - 45/26
John Edwards - 47/26

Vs. Mitt Romney

Clinton - 51%
Romney - 34%

Obama - 47%
Romney - 31%

Edwards - 50%
Romney - 28%

Clinton leads by 16%, Obama leads by 16%, Edwards leads by 22%

Vs. Fred Thompson

Clinton - 48%
Thompson - 36%

Obama - 44%
Thompson - 33%

Edwards - 48%
Thompson - 31%

Clinton leads by 14%, Obama leads by 11%, Edwards leads by 17%

Vs. Rudy Giuliani

Clinton - 46%
Giuliani - 40%

Obama - 44%
Giuliani - 38%

Edwards - 46%
Giuliani - 36%

Clinton leads by 6%, Obama leads by 6%, Edwards leads by 10%

Vs. John McCain

Clinton - 48%
McCain - 38%

Obama - 43%
McCain - 39%

Edwards - 46%
McCain - 35%

Clinton leads by 10%, Obama leads by 4%, Edwards leads by 11%

Averages

Clinton leads the Republicans by an average of 11.50%
Obama leads the Republicans by an average of 9.25%
Edwards leads the Republicans by an average of 15.00%


Survey USA - OH: September 20, 2007

Vs. Mitt Romney

Clinton - 52%
Romney - 42%

Obama - 45%
Romney - 46%

Edwards - 56%
Romney - 36%

Clinton leads by 10%, Obama trails by 1%, Edwards leads by 20%

Vs. Fred Thompson

Clinton - 48%
Thompson - 47%

Obama - 42%
Thompson - 50%

Edwards - 52%
Thompson - 43%

Clinton leads by 1%, Obama trails by 8%, Edwards leads by 9%

Vs. Rudy Giuliani

Clinton - 47%
Giuliani - 48%

Obama - 39%
Giuliani - 52%

Edwards - 47%
Giuliani - 48%

Clinton trails by 1%, Obama trails by 13%, Edwards trails by 1%

Averages

Clinton leads the Republicans by an average of 3.33%
Obama trails the Republicans by an average of 7.00%
Edwards leads the Republicans by an average of 9.33%



Quinnipiac University - OH: September 6, 2007

Favorable / Unfavorable

Hillary Clinton - 51/ 43
Barack Obama - 47/ 25
John Edwards - 54/ 26

Vs. Mitt Romney

Clinton - 50%
Romney - 37%

Obama - 46%
Romney - 32%

Edwards - 50%
Romney - 30%

Clinton leads by 13%, Obama leads by 14%, Edwards leads by 20%

Vs. Fred Thompson

Clinton - 49%
Thompson - 37%

Obama - 46%
Thompson - 34%

Edwards - 50%
Thompson - 32%

Clinton leads by 12%, Obama leads by 12%, Edwards leads by 18%

Vs. Rudy Giuliani

Clinton - 47%
Giuliani - 40%

Obama - 42%
Giuliani - 41%

Edwards - 47%
Giuliani - 38%

Clinton leads by 7%, Obama leads by 1%, Edwards leads by 9%

Vs. John McCain

Clinton - 46%
McCain - 41%

Obama - 41%
McCain - 42%

Edwards - 46%
McCain - 38%

Clinton leads by 5%, Obama trails by 1%, Edwards leads by 8%

Averages

Clinton leads the Republicans by an average of 9.25%
Obama leads the Republicans by an average of 6.50%
Edwards leads the Republicans by an average of 13.75%



Survey USA - OH: May 2nd, 2007

Vs. Fred Thompson

Clinton - 53%
Thompson - 38%

Obama - 43%
Thompson - 43%

Edwards - 57%
Thompson - 33%

Clinton leads by 15%, Obama is tied, Edwards leads by 24%


Vs. Rudy Giuliani



Clinton - 48%
Giuliani - 45%

Obama - 40%
Giuliani - 51%

Edwards - 50%
Giuliani - 42%

Clinton leads by 3%, Obama trails by 11%, Edwards leads by 8%

Do something. Iowa is going on now.

View Edwards new Ad running in Iowa and help it stay on the air by giving to his campaign today

plan to help veterans

Edwards to Outline Plan for Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Presidential contender John Edwards is introducing a $400 million plan Monday to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, including those recently returned from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Oh this is good.

Over 190,000 weapons sent to Iraq for the Iraqi security forces disappeared almost as soon as they got off the C-17s.

Colbert and open secrets

Colbert with a guy from open secrets.com it was a great segment.

Here we go...

The election will not be televised. As part of my efforts to get the job of Field Director for a certain unnammed candidates campaign I am kicking off a blog at the Democratic Parties Web Site called Take it Back and an online network called GA 3rd District Grassroots network.

Check it out

As a result. I'll be less active here. But will have lots to tell after November.

When are humans going to catch up to technology

I sometimes get the feeling my Dad and I are trying to do the same thing in different forums. He's working the energy market in the Philippines, i'm working the political scene and social justice movement in Georgia.

I just titled this post... When are people going to catch up to technology. But then I rewrote it. When are humans... human beings. The people that care, feel, hurt, and love. People... randomized automatons. They already plug into tv, vapid consumerism, and such. They are already on board with technology, but like technology they don't care...

I'm weary of leaning on carelessness as a solution. Vain narcissistic randomness and careless revelry is not going to fix anything, only be a release. My dad works in the energy Field. His business, is something I know next to nothing about. But he's in it for the right reasons. He wants markets to work FOR people, not just blind profit. Blind profit hurts human beings. He wants to use technology to make his little detailed sector of expertise work for humans.

I want to use technology to make my little sector of expertise policy wonkishness and political theory work for humans.

We're both trying hard to use technology to help. I struggle to make it work. I think he goes through the same struggles. I look to his recent post Journalist Interviews and Blogs and think if we keep at this it might just work!

We might just be the generation that helps human beings use technology. Not to eradicate cultures, bomb a city, or suck another dollar out of labor. But break free information, giving the informed and wise a way to network, communicate, and the tools to make those ventures beneficial to everyone in society.

I think my Dad may take it too far...

I may begin declining phone interviews much more frequently. I prefer to be in the open, on the record, and unfiltered - although I realize there will be need for exceptions at times. The on-line conversations are much more robust.

Technology, is a tool for humans. And human beings deal in and thrive off of personal relationships. Insider games, and elitism, are the things that are eradicated by the openness of the internet. But that doesn't replace personal relationships. Relationships with neighbors, economists, reporters. Whatever your goal is, people are that which stands in your way. The questions is how to make people humans. And you do that by talking, listening, and having a cup of coffee. Blog posts, online comments, social networks. For all of their perks, will never sit across from another person, look them in the eye and say "yeah, I give a shit too....."

Highly complex society's suck the life out of humans. They lose attachment to what counts. THe soul I guess is what poets would call it. And you don't relate to people, teach people, lead people.... if you negate that which we are trying to save. At least we that get it. And know they may be few and far between. But many times I think thats an illusion too... But forget that for a moment. How does one live? Together or alone?

I vote for together.

update with a quote from "No Paradise" by Anti-Flag that I was listening to as I wrote without realizing it speaks to what i'm talking about....

We want the truth
It isn't going to be no paradise
Forget the claims
Oh no
We need to take the world back now
We need to take control right now

Promises of a better tomorrow
Promises bought on borrowed dollars
No disaster ever looked so great
So while I say
As old men delivered that league of terror; war
We ask ourselves what are we dying for?

So all the kids are sick and tired of the news today
Sick and tired of all your lies
We want the truth
It isn't going to be no paradise
Forget the claims
Oh no
We need to take the world back now
We need to take control right now

There is some blue haired 15 teen year old singing those words today. But there is also a political activist in his late 20's and a energy consultant in the Philippines living those same words today as well.

Interesting take on the Bush tax cuts...

From Brad Delong back in July of 2004

First, can we please please please please please please PLEASE!! stop talking about Bush's "tax cuts." There are no tax cuts. There's a tax shift--current taxpayers pay less, and future taxpayers pay more. Only by pretending that nobody has to service and amortize the growing federal debt can you talk about Bush's "tax cuts." They aren't there, any more than a $5,000 increase in your VISA limit is an increase in your income.

.

October numbers to chew on....

Rasmussen - October 2007 (Most recent match-ups)
Favorable / Unfavorable

Hillary Clinton - 49/49 - 54/45 - 47/51 - 46/52 - 50/49
Barack Obama - 47/45 - 55/39 - 51/42 - 47/48 - 48/50
John Edwards - 49/44 - 46/47 - 48/44 - 46/43


Ideology

Hillary Clinton

Conservative - 8%
Moderate - 34%
Liberal - 51%

Barack Obama

Conservative - 7%
Moderate - 34%
Liberal - 49%

John Edwards

Conservative - 10%
Moderate - 34%
Liberal - 44%


Vs. Mitt Romney

Clinton - 47%
Romney - 41%

Obama - 48%
Romney - 39%

Edwards - 52%
Romney - 35%

Clinton leads by 6%, Obama leads by 9%, Edwards leads by 17%


Vs. Fred Thompson

Clinton - 47%
Thompson - 45%

Obama - 44%
Thompson - 43%

Edwards - 48%
Thompson - 39%

Clinton leads by 2%, Obama leads by 1%, Edwards leads by 9%


Vs. Rudy Giuliani

Clinton - 44%
Giuliani - 46%

Obama - 43%
Giuliani - 45%

Edwards - 44%
Giuliani - 45%

Clinton trails by 2%, Obama trails by 2%, Edwards trails by 1%


Vs. John McCain

Clinton - 44%
McCain - 43%

Obama - 44%
McCain - 45%

Edwards - 47%
McCain - 40%

Clinton leads by 1%, Obama trails by 1%, Edwards leads by 7%


Averages

Clinton leads the Republicans by an average of 1.75%
Obama leads the Republicans by an average of 1.75%
Edwards leads the Republicans by an average of 8.00%


He's got the best health care policy... AND he polls less liberal than the two other leading Dem's. What more could you want? Why are we even discussing this?

Thursday NYT Editorial

America’s Lagging Health Care System

Americans are increasingly frustrated about the subpar performance of this country’s fragmented health care system, and with good reason. A new survey of patients in seven industrialized nations underscores just how badly sick Americans fare compared with patients in other nations. One-third of the American respondents felt their system is so dysfunctional that it needs to be rebuilt completely — the highest rate in any country surveyed. The system was given poor scores both by low-income, uninsured patients and by many higher-income patients.

The survey, the latest in a series from the Commonwealth Fund, is being published today on the Web site of Health Affairs, a respected health policy journal. Researchers interviewed some 12,000 adults in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Given the large number of people uninsured or poorly insured in this country, it was no surprise that Americans were the most likely to go without care because of costs. Fully 37 percent of the American respondents said that they chose not to visit a doctor when sick, skipped a recommended test or treatment or failed to fill a prescription in the past year because of the cost — well above the rates in other countries.

Patients here were more likely to get appointments quickly for elective surgery than those in nearly all the other countries. But access to primary care doctors, the mainstay of medical practice, was often rocky. Only half of the American adults were able to see a doctor the same day that they became sick or the day after, a worse showing than in all the other countries except Canada. Getting care on nights and weekends was problematic.

Often the care here was substandard. Americans reported the highest rate of lab test errors and the second-highest rate of medical or medication errors.

The findings underscore the need to ensure that all Americans have quick access to a primary care doctor and the need for universal health coverage — so that all patients can afford the care they need. That’s what all of the presidential candidates should be talking about.

What can you do about it?

This

John Edwards came out with the best of both worlds. A health care plan that mandates coverage for every American. Keeps insurance company's in the game as long as they play by the rules. And doesn't mandate programs, but lets consumers choose. Using the market to decide who and how they want to be insured. In America, the land of "don't tread on me" you can't sell a government program when millions of dollars will be spent to tell consumers they are losing their free choice. John Edwards gives Americans a choice of what plan and lets the market do what a market is good at.

Plus can you really deal with more of a Clintonian presidency?


Do something.

Multiple Draft Theory...

Curious Idiot reminds me why I liked Consciousness explained....

update: which sent me over to google for a Dennett lecture on consciousness

Krugman and the shrill

Great post... on Krugman which brought me back to Brad Delong's post a while back on Krugman/Bush/and being shrill...

I guess it started, I think, with that extremely strange and not-very-analytical Svengali of the Bush Social Security reform plan, Peter Ferrara, who wrote back in 2001 about "the fierce, shrill, and unreasoned denunciations of allowing workers the freedom to choose a personal-account option for Social Security may impress the gullible... and denounced ..the highly irascible Paul Krugman...

That was, I think, the start of a very peculiar meme: a piling-on of critics of Bush--especially of Paul Krugman--whose sole criticism was that he was "shrill." The critique was neither that he was a bad economist, nor that his accusations that the Bush administration was lying about a whole bunch of stuff were incorrect (indeed, one of Paul's most vicious critics, Andrew Sullivan, gloried in the fact that Bush was lying about his tax cut. See http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/05/yes_andrew_sull.html). So if you wanted to attack Krugman, but could not attack him because his analytics were right, and could not attack him because his accusations of Bush administration dishonesty were correct, what can you do? Well, a bunch of right-wingers led, IIRC, by Mickey Kaus and Andrew Sullivan found a way.

Here's Kaus:

"Comparative Advantage" by Nicholas Confessore: "[Krugman] is obviously a very smart guy, basically liberal, with complicated views, who once recognized when his own side was wrong. And at some point he switched and became someone who only sees what's wrong with the other side, in fairly crude terms," says Mickey Kaus. "The Bush tax cut is based on lies. But it's not enough to criticize a policy to say that it's based on lies. You have to say whether it's good or bad for the country."

(Never mind, of course, that Paul always spent a lot of time, space, wordcount, energy, and breath criticizing the substance of Bush's idiot policies. Yes, they were bad for the country--and Paul said why.)

And here's Sullivan:

www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: I have long found Paul Krugman an insufferably pompous, shrill, Bush-bashing pseudo-populist...

The accusation--the only line of critique--is that Paul "only sees what's wrong with the other side, in fairly crude terms," or--in shorthand--is "shrill."

God alone knows why they thought this line of attack would do anything other than shred their own reputations. God knows why others took up this line of attack. But take off it did, both as a narrowly-focused attempt to degrade the reputation of Paul Krugman, and as a broader attempt to marginalize all who pointed out that the policies of the Bush administration were (a) stupid, and (b) justified by lies, and it took off both among the yahoos of the right and also among the denizens of the center-left.

Why did it take off? I think the reasons were well laid out by Nick Confessore:

"Comparative Advantage" by Nicholas Confessore: On balance, Krugman's record stands up pretty well. On the topics he writes about most often and most angrily--tax cuts, Social Security, and the budget--his record is nearly perfect. "The reason he's gotten under the White House's skin so much," says Robert Shapiro, a former undersecretary of commerce in the Clinton administration, "is that he's right. None of it is rocket science."

So if dismantling the facade of lies around, say, Bush's tax cut is so easy to do--and makes you the most talked-about newspaper writer in the country--why don't any other reporters or columnists do it themselves? Because doing so would violate some of the informal, but strict, rules under which Washington journalists operate. Reporters usually don't call a spade a spade, unless the lie is small or something personal. When it comes to big policy disagreements, most reporters prefer a he-said, she-said approach--and any policy with a white paper or press release behind it is presumed to be plausible and sincere, no matter how farfetched or deceptive it may be.

Similarly, among pundits of the broad center-left, it's considered gauche to criticize the right too persistently, no matter the merits of one's argument. The only worse sin is to defend a politician too persistently; then you become not a bore, but a disgrace to the profession and its independence--even if you're correct...

This seemed to hit the nail on the head: it was (and is) considered impolite to take what the Bush administration said about the rationales for its policies seriously. Consider the Washington Post's Richard Cohen, sneering on September 16, 2004 at those who took Bush's impact on the country seriously:

I was only briefly enamored of George W. Bush... who went to war in Iraq for stated reasons that turned out to be baseless and for unstated reasons that have yet to be publicly acknowledged... neoconservative foreign policy agenda in which violence plays too prominent and casual a role.... chilled by assertions of near-royal power... choice of judges, his energy policy, his unilateralism or the manner in which he has intruded religion into politics.... I nevertheless cannot bring myself to hate Bush.... In fact, Bush haters go so far they wind up adding a dash of red to my blue...[1]

In this context, given that criticisms of George W. Bush and the malevolence, mendacity, incompetence and disconnection from reality of him and his administration are--no matter how sound their analytics or how true their factual claims--going to be dismissed by many as impolite and "shrill," why not have some fun with and embrace the term?

Somebody needed to say the things Paul Krugman said. But I hear this so much - about the shrillness, about not doing economics anymore (which isn't true - e.g. for just one recent example, who do you think started the meme "non-bank bank run" in the recent financial crisis?), about how he needs more space to explain himself in more detail, how what he will say is predictable, he'll just bash Bush no matter the policy, etc., etc.

I don't have any substantive disagreements with Brad's take on this but I'm still not sure I fully understand it.

Maybe you can help me see this better. So here's the question. If you agree with Krugman's critics, even to a small degree, or even if you don't, how could he have been more effective? In his shoes, how would you have communicated the points he needed to make in a way that would have had more impact? I'm not convinced there is such an alternative path, but I'm curious to hear other thoughts.

The Politics of Parsing

House of 1000 Muppets

John Edwards - Look your children in the eye tonight

Tom Waits-- Gods away on business

Tom Waits - Hold On

TPMtv: Sunday Show Roundup: The Rhetoric of Iran

Had a nice day off...

This is the first weekend I've had totally off in a month. I feel it, i'm tired, the people around me are tired. But I finally had a Saturday for myself and it was wonderful. I grabbed my camera and went to Oakland Cemetary, you can read more about the history here. It was founded in 1850 and boomed with the civil war.

Here are a few of the best shots...









And finally here is (or is it... was???) my tour guide: Melvin...

Krugman on movement conservatism and the thesis of his new book (which I highly recommend)

What the movement is about is economics: the core goal is, as Heritage says in its fundraising letters, to roll back the New Deal and the Great Society — or as Grover Norquist puts it, to get things back to the way they were “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over.”

Race and other distractions aren’t the goal, they’re a tactic — they’re how an anti-populist movement wins elections.

The 2004 election was a perfect example. Bush won by portraying himself as the nation’s defender against gay married terrorists — then, immediately after the election, declared that privatizing Social Security was his first priority.

Excellent point...

Mamutong on Dumbledore, Rawling's, and ever present conservativism in our world

Did anybody notice the disconnect in Rawling’s quoted response? What, may I ask, does Dumbledore’s gayness have to do with the question? Does she not think gays fall in love? Or worse, is she intentionally failing to give recognition to that?

As the press makes speculation on Rawling’s liberal leanings, I’m thinking just the opposite - I read the answer as coming from someone deeply homophobic.

911 TRUTHERS INFILTRATE BILL MAHER AUDIENCE

Bill Maher dealt with this well...

Lance Hahn R.I.P.

My fiances family just had a major loss, so we are headed up to North Carolina in the morning. But getting home from from work I see that the punk rock world just had a major loss as well. Lance Hahn known for many things... but I think of him most fondly as the nice anarchist guy, whom I read in MRR, and listened to in a band called J Church died on Sunday. I remember seeing J Church 7inches when I was 14. I think I finally got around to buying J Church around 20 or so. I saw them live when they open for Propagandhi in Los Angeles. Its strange to feel something for a man I never knew in real life. Only in my mind, where his words and his music gave me some hope that somewhere "out there" outside my little head someone else gave a damn about things and wanted things to work out for the best. Where everyone was cool and we all lived in a perfect little commune. Everyone had the latest 7inches, and ended their days watching movies and thinking about the meaning of life. Then we'd all sit by fires drinking and singing songs of remembrance for those who came before and the ideals of peace and freedom we hoped our children will keep alive. Lance, what you were is now gone... but what you are will always be alive inside me. And that makes me smile....

Imaginary Friends
Available on One Mississippi LP/CD

She can talk in codes I only partly understand,
She learned them trying to communicate with imaginary friends,
She used to call them angels but now they're not anything,
Now she feels alone and wishes that they were here again

She writes a letter and one week later she puts it in the mail,
She says that California Dreaming is a cautionary tale,
She says I shouldn't treat it like an empty pop song,
She says interpretations make the premises all wrong,

She has two older sisters who send care packages in the mail,
She collects all of their letters in a yellow plastic pail,
She can make it to the store as it's part of her routine,
She watches videos until they mix in with her dreams,
Until they mix in with her dreams,
Until they mix in with her dreams,
Until they mix in with her dreams

Good post.... don't have time to really dig into it though...

So you go do the close read... cause i'm due to be at work by 5am!

Obituary: Conservative Economic Policy

Conservative economic policy is dead. It committed suicide.

Its allegiance to market solutions, tax cuts and spending cuts, supply-side nonsense, manipulative and corrosive ties to industry and the rich, have left it wholly unable to cope with the challenges we face. Its terribly limited toolbox simply cannot address the economic insecurities and opportunities generated by today's global, interconnected, polluted, insecure, dynamic, bubble-prone economy.

What’s more, progressives have developed an alternative policy set with the flexibility to combine market forces with the necessary regulation and redistribution to address these challenges. Whether that agenda will ever see the light of day is another question.

My first thought is... was it ever alive?

bad move... again... redux...

From TPM: The hysterical party heads for the fainting couch

A month ago, congressional Republicans were so desperate to avoid discussing the substance of U.S. policy towards Iraq, they decided a newspaper ad from MoveOn.org was the single biggest threat to Western Civilization in recent history. The coordinated hissy fit was a transparent effort to distract attention from the issue at hand, but it was also a largely successful sham -- Republicans stopped talking about Bush's failed policy and started talking about the NYT's ad rates.

This month, those same congressional Republicans are so desperate to avoid discussing the substance of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), they've decided Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) has replaced MoveOn as Public Enemy #1. (For reasons that defy logic, CNN has decided that the GOP's feigned outrage is a really important story.)

Far be it for me to give Republicans advice, but I don't think they've thought this one through.

For the record, what did Stark say to send the right into high dudgeon? During the debate on overriding the president's veto for children's healthcare, Stark said, "You don't have money to fund the war or children, but you're gonna spend it blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their head blown off for the president's amusement."

Intemperate? Sure. But the coordinated hysteria we've seen over the last few days is more than misguided; it's silly.

There's just no reason for apoplexy here. Stark said something mean about Bush during a congressional debate. The president is a big boy; I think he can handle it. But by throwing a tantrum, congressional Republicans are suggesting that they can't handle it. They're not grown-ups. Random, intemperate criticism of Bush is just too much for the fragile, virgin ears.

In other words, by throwing a fit, Republicans end up looking weak and hysterical. Indeed, it reinforces the least flattering GOP caricature of all -- these guys can't govern, but they can fall onto a fainting couch like nobody's business.

For years, Republicans worked to create the opposite reputation. They're tough. This is the macho "daddy party." They don't care about "political correctness" and wussies who cry over words that rub people the wrong way. This is a crowd that calls it like they see it, and doesn't look bad or apologize.

And yet, they've now spent the better part of a year trembling over mild rebukes from liberals. If Democrats were smart, they'd look at this as an opportunity to rebrand the GOP as pathetic cry-babies who can barely go a week without throwing a hissy fit over one manufactured outrage or another. Alas, it doesn't look like Dems are smart at all.

Rejoice....

a beautiful thing, should be appreciated.



and another

Torture

MatthewY has a great email on torture

As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

As I was reading today...

So I'm reading the new Paul Krugman book. And I was thinking about economic data, and how you really can't run around it. You either address it--which is what the reality based community would do. Or you evade it, which is what Conservatives do. And I thought to myself,you know

the numbers don't lie... but there are people who will lie about the numbers.

[of coarse that is a bit of hyperbole... even though the numbers don't lie, there are a very small number of people who understand the numbers--some of whom lie about them, and then a really large group of people who don't understand the numbers and so when they talk about them and are wrong...they aren't lying persay. They are just exposing poor computational skills. The really hard part is understanding the numbers, the really really hard part is explaining the numbers to the rest of us... I don't know if there is anyone in the really really hard part arena. I have my presupmtions...]

Star Trek + Nine Inch Nails = Closer

Sometimes a picture...

I nearly shattered after seeing this picture yesterday morning on the front page of the NYT's

I've been trying to put this into words...

And George Lakoff did it really well in an old interview.

BLVR: Is Karl Rove Bush’s Ailes?

GL: Well it’s not just one genius. What you’ve got is forty-three think-tanks. Two billion dollars. Thirty-five years of experience. And thousands of people working on these projects. All the leadership institutes they have, which give them language training. Given all that, Karl Rove can integrate it.

TPMtv: A Chat with Paul Krugman

IMF... uh... nevermind....

Dean Baker on Dwindling Budget Surpluses: Bleak Times in Argentina

Greenspans book...

I haven't bought the book yet, I have too many higher priorities right now. But I excited to read it, and have been watching very carefully all of the coverage of the books release.

Some quick thoughts. As an economist, Greenspan should be respected as a very smart, sharp thinker, with broad understanding of the global economy. And although I do disagree with him philosophically and politically; I have to give him credit for that.

From a philosophical and by way of that political perspective. He is a very clever, shrewed marketer of anti-statist Libertarian thought. His understanding of being a successful politician and agenda setter is visible in how he promotes his book, and answers attacks and criticism of his policy. Its the classic parlor trick of hiding the important stuff in one hand by showing you the other.

Even his answers, and perceived attacks of Bush II shouldn't necessarily be seen wholly for what they are. At the end of the day part of this is a political move to punish Bush I for trying to make the Fed cut rates. Anti-statists don't think the Fed should ever keep social policy in mind when making decisions.

I have more to say but Dean Baker is doing a good job of keeping score from an economic standpoint on Greenspans positions. ( here here,here, and here)

Is the world flat?

watch this from the view... to get a feel for the many conversations we have to have in our communities. And I don't post this as a call for more oppositional thinking and us vs. them rhetoric. But just an awareness and sensitivity for what is the outcome of philosophical postions I disagree with.

This isn't good.

There were many reasons I didn't support the Iraqi invasion and the War on Terror itself. This (hat tip TPM) is one of them. A poll in Pakistan that finds

According to poll results, bin Laden has a 46 percent approval rating. Musharraf's support is 38 percent. U.S. President George W. Bush's approval: 9 percent.

cuz

cuz
Originally uploaded by kelco

what a picture!

Recess appointment for AG?

This from TPM

Judged by the standards of our history, a recess appointment to replace Alberto Gonzales sounds like an incredible proposition. But don't be so sure. Just as we saw with the 'pardon scooter' movement, the word seems already to have gone out to the folks on the right to start preparing the ground for just such a move by the president. I've already heard a few just this morning saying it would be the right thing for the president to do. Watch for it.

Bloggers, not an alien race after all

Over at Daily Kos, Kagro X takes on an LA Times op-ed on bloggers chanllenging the assumption that bloggers didn't exist at some point.

But there never was a time when bloggers did not exist. Because -- again -- bloggers are not an alien race who fell from the heavens on a meteorite. They are people. And in fact, they are the very people for whom journalists have always been writing, and for whom they always will write. We have always been here, and we have always been a vital part -- perhaps the most vital part -- of the journalistic equation. You just didn't count us because you couldn't hear us.

Can you hear us now?

Good.

We were always talking to you. Always talking about you. Always had the exact same things to say about you and your reporting that we're saying now. We just lacked the technology to make you aware of it. Maybe you liked it that way. Maybe you'd rather it had stayed that way. But it didn't, and no amount of elitist scorn is going to change that, just as it was never able to contain it in the past. The "blogger's" disdain for shoddy reporting (and truthfully, sometimes even for quality reporting -- I have to acknowledge that) has always existed and likely always will. Blogs are just the most effective tool we've yet found to plug that disdain into.

No journalist who fails to grasp this will ever be able to write insightfully about blogs, bloggers or the blogosphere. It can't be done. You can write, of course. No one can stop you. But you can't be right. You can't be right about bloggers until you acknowledge who they actually are.

Daily show...

Its funny. But this study isn't... No-Vacation Nation

This report reviewed international vacation and holiday laws and found that the United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation or holidays. As a result, 1 in 4 U.S. workers do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays. The lack of paid vacation and paid holidays in the U.S. is particularly acute for lower-wage and part-time workers, and for employees of small businesses.

This chart makes it more concrete.


















Why can the other industrialized nations afford to make sure their workers get vacation, and we can't?

An inability to grasp the concerns and struggles of average workers from very powerful sectors of the political class might be one reason. How else do you explain this...

While promoting Social Security privitization in 2005.

MS. MORNIN: That's good, because I work three jobs and I feel like I contribute.

THE PRESIDENT: You work three jobs?

MS. MORNIN: Three jobs, yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that. (Applause.) Get any sleep? (Laughter.)

Rudy Giuliani on Immigration: To End, or Not To End?

He makes some really good points about why ending illegal immigration isn't going to happen.

John Edwards - On Impeaching President Bush

morning news break...

Rangel On Draft: ‘It’s Easy To Talk About Supporting A War If Someone Else Is Fighting That War’ (watch it)


Kissinger: Iraq Military Win Impossible



Breyer Says Last Term Was Difficult

on war

From Tim O'Brian's vietnam memoir The Things They Carried via Brad Delong

A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things they have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. Listen to Rat Kiley. Cooze, he says. He does not say bitch. He certainly does not say woman, or girl, He says cooze. Then he spits and stares. He’s nineteen years old—it’s too much for him—so he looks at you with those big gentle, killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it’s so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back. You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don’t care for obscenity, you don’t care for the truth; if you don’t care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty...

Henry Rollins - "This is how I protest the war"

Bush Admits Lying to the Press

FOX News and John Edwards

Why exactly would John Edwards not like FOx news? Bill asks such a good question. TPM pulls together a quick 2 min possible reason...

Everyone together now...

On the train this morning on my way to work (by the by I transferd stores from the Peachtree City location of a major American retailer to a new store near Atlantic Station in downtown) reading about the current economic woes of the market. And I was struck by one thought: while George Bush is showing reporters how well he can enunceiate the phrase "liquidity in the market" investors are busy moving into treasury bonds (I think...) taking all of that investment out of securities...

this post wasn't really about anything other than Bush's press confrence and his enunciation. He always enunciaties certain terms and certain circumstances more than others. I can't place my finger on it yet...

but I digress... anyways here is Dean Bakers thought for the day on the coverage of the recent economic news...

The coverage of the market meltdown includes many assurances from the experts that everything is just fine. I suppose it would be considered rude for reporters to ask why anyone should trust the assessments of people who apparently failed to see the current credit crunch coming.

I'm going to try feedbliz...

see if I like this one...

For those of you who use RSS feeds I'm trying to open up my readership. Twiddle dumb over here didn't realize who forign blogging and RSS feeds are to many people.

But that shouldn't hinder the spread of information.

Change...

I'm taking down the email subscribe button. I didn't like the tool... namely cause it didn't work for me. So I have to assume it doesn't for others as well. I'll work on finding another one that actually works! Any ideas?

Not looking good...

Iraqi government unraveling as more ministers boycott

Iraq's government, already unable to reconcile rival Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions, seemed headed for complete paralysis Monday as five more Cabinet ministers announced that they'd boycott government meetings.

Brownback to Romney: Facts Are Facts

Brownback helps solidify my view of Romney as one of the more reasonable candidates in the Republican party this year...

Ron Pauls debate response came right on the tails of this

yesterday over at Ezra Klien's blog on the "Genocide dodge" triangulation of many war supporters.

This is one of those "Still True Today" things where plenty of blog posts have been written, but it deserves repeating: asking withdrawal supporters, as Matt Bai did to Bill Richardson, "What about the genocide that will follow American withdrawal from Iraq", is what Mitt Romney might call a "null set". Political support for daily US casualties cannot continue indefinitely. At some point in the future, and probably within the next decade, US troops will either leave Iraq, or at the least scale back their day-to-day peacekeeping actions; there is no precedent for having an occupying force endlessly conduct regular patrols in a foreign land. At that point, given the current level of ethnic strife and civil unrest in Iraq, the level of violence will increase whether it occurs six months from now or sixteen years from now. The burden needs to be on occupation supporters to explain how they will reduce the level of violence while grinding through US military equipment and personnel. Otherwise, we're just postponing the inveitable, and at an enormous cost, and we would be better off negotiating away as much violence as possible while withdrawing.

All of this, of course, takes as a given the idea that a US withdrawal is certain lead to genocide, something that hasn't received any real scrutiny and might not hold up under closer examination.

Since one of the refrains from print journalists is that the blogosphere gets too "personal", and I can empathize with that, let me say that none of this carping is really Matt Bai-specific; the "withdrawal will lead to genocide and it will be America's fault" frame of reporting about Iraq has dominated the Beltway discourse since at least 2005.

Ron Paul at Iowa GOP Debate

great response...

PoliticsTV @ Yearly Kos '07: Markos' Keynote

Al-Jazeera News Aug. 3, 2007

civilian casualties in Afganistan...

Senator Dodd versus Bill O'Reilly

nice job Senator...

John Edwards - at YearlyKos

TPMtv: YearlyKos Chapter 16

Dodd on consolidation of media

Damn good film...

Der Untergang about Hitlers last secretary, and the last weeks of Hitlers reign in his bunker in Berlin. Very powerful. The horrors(and stupidity... though stupidity is quite a brash word for a 27 year old who has never had to deal with such realities) of war. The film does a great job of showing everyone come to the realization of what will become of them, and in a way what had deluded them for so long. Very brutal without being disrespectful or commercialistic. I highly recommend.

Gov. Huckabee on the YouTube Debate

good for him!

Site update...

I put an email notification bar to the right. Some people told me they don't use rss feeds so here is another option for keeping up with my blog.

I'm A Liberal

Conservative Eye for the Liberal Guy

Conservative, Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, Wh

Brownback Girl

so much better than Obama girl!!

Charlie Cook on Dems...

Off to the races

Two conclusions might be drawn from all of this. First, the fundamentals are starting to rub off onto the specifics of the 2008 presidential contest. That cold wet blanket that has covered President Bush and congressional Republicans is increasingly weighing down on their presidential contenders as well; the tarnishing of the GOP brand is continuing. The upward movement of Edwards and Obama and the corresponding downward movement of the GOP contenders show that. But, for the more controversial and polarizing Clinton, the lines are just now crossing.

This conforms with other data showing Clinton is growing less unacceptable to voters inside and outside her party as the campaign progresses. What started out as nearly 50 percent of voters saying that they would never vote for her has diminished.

Clinton's negatives dropping is interesting, and exposes her strength as a political figure--which is something I've been intriuged by in recent weeks. This weakens the case for Obama in my book. I think Edwards is dead unless a strong showing in Iowa makes waves.

Amen...

Ezra Klien on "big government"

The question, of course, isn't whether government should be big or small, but whether it should be used for more than launching wars and abrogating rights. Rather than articles that accept the frame of big government as "bad" and try to protest that Republicans are for it too, I'd much prefer a movement to restore government's reputation, and simply underscore the Right's incompetence at managing federal affairs.

I've been interested in building a list of "Government failures"... that have occurred during the terms of those who are busy decrying Government as inefficient, incompetent, and wasteful. One would think those who are here to protect us from the big bad government would be the ones to be able to do things right. But that doesn't seem to be the case. As Krugman pointed out in a recent op-ed on Bush's Schip position

He wants the public to believe that government is always the problem, never the solution. But it's hard to convince people that government is always bad when they see it doing good things. So his philosophy says that the government must be prevented from solving problems, even if it can. In fact, the more good a proposed government program would do, the more fiercely it must be opposed.

And that is the crux of some conservatives. Its hard to want the government to intervene in the economy when one is walking out with wads full of cash in their pockets... at least I would think that would have more to do with the fight against "big government" than due to some passionate belief in liberty and personal responsibility.

Its one of those "pass it on" moments...

American Freedom Campaign

"We are Americans, and in our America we do not torture, we do not imprison people without charge or legal remedy, we do not tap people's phones and e-mails without a court order, and above all we do not give any president unchecked power."

Cheney: I Don't Recall

Old but still reads true...

Boston Globe has an article on impeachment Its from June but it articulates a position I find dead on accurate. If you want to help every day peoples lives more than you want to make petty political points you don't (in my eyes at least) support open movement towards impeachment. I'd love to see Bush impeached. But I have to step outside of my head and my petty psychological passion and consider the fact that this upcoming election is the Democrats to lose. Impeachment throws everything up in the air, granted it might still turn out in the Democrats favor. But why take a chance, I'd rather see a potential to get some kind of health care reform, and a sane Iraqi policy. I have the utmost respect for many people trying to make impeachment happen. In a perfect world I'd be all on board. But here on the ground, in GA's 3rd district I don't see impeachment doing any good for anyone. I talk to conservatives and republicans every day and impeachment would fire them up about something. You can't bring new ideas or arguments to people who have their passions inflamed to hate you.

Plus it makes me think of the economist who wants to make economics a purely mathematical question and uses great reason and logic to explain why and how the models make sense; and what they miss in all of their accurate number crunching is that economics is a behavioral science from the ground up.

interesting comment on republican youtube debate...

Turns out Republicans don't like the youtube debate

But here was an interesting comment as to why... from a TPM comments section

For the Democratic debates, most of the issues that are on the table are pretty mainstream, like healthcare and Iraq and poverty and global warming, and thus its pretty difficult for the standard rank-and-file member of the democratic base to ask them in an amusing viral format like Youtube and still come out as looking too bizarre (unless they happen to be a talking snowman). As far as issues like illegal immigration and "coercive interrogation techniques" go, how does one ask questions like this in a Youtube format in an amusing way? The differences between the GOP base and the political mainstream can seem less extreme when asked by someone like Wolf Blitzer, but if presented from the standard GOP rank-and-file member of the base, it seemed like a great way to show how unhinged the GOP has become on some of these issues.

Jon Stewar doing his thing...

Morning Meditation

From the Art of living by Epictetus.

From now on, practice saying to everything that appears unpleasant: "You are just an appearance and by no means what you appear to be." And then thoroughly consider the matter according to the principles just discussed, primarily: Does this appearance concern the things that are within my own control or those that are not? If it concerns anything outside your control, train yourself not to worry about it.

Markets Plunge: Hundreds of Billions Redistributed to the Less Wealthy

Dean Bakers headline for his blog post on the drop in the marketwhich goes on to state

You won't see that headline in the articles reporting on today's stock market plunge. However, it is in fact true, as can be seen with a moment's reflection.

The stock market's value does not directly affect the country's ability to produce goods and services. We have just as much labor, capital and technical know how after the market plunged as before it opened. The only thing that changed was that the people who hold shares in the market now have about $400 billion less in wealth.

The market's $400 billion loss in value reduced the ability of shareholders to make claims on the economy's output, but It didn't reduce the economy's productivity ability. This means that people who own little or no stock can now claim a larger portion of the economy's output. As a practical matter, this means that the price of some items (e.g. houses) might fall, so that they will be more affordable to people who either don't own a home or would like to buy a bigger home.

[If this is hard to understand, imagine the extreme case where the stock market fell to zero. People like Bill Gates would no longer have the money to keep up their homes. They would be forced to sell them for whatever price they could get. Those without substantial stock or property are suddenly well-situated to buy a house.]

In short, the stock market is often about redistribution. When it falls sharply this is a redistribtuion from the wealthy to the less wealthy. That is not upsetting for everyone, even though the media may not report it that way.

sometimes a picture...

I've decided to start a new tag called "sometimes a picture" and it will be made up of pictures that are very moving. The ones that capture some essence of the human experience. The ones that make me visibly shudder when I see them...

The first is the front page picture in the NYT's this morning
Ali Yussef/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Its a picture of some kids celebrating in the streets after the Iraqi national team beat South Korea to advance to the Asian Cup Championship Match.

Sports is often the hobgoblin of the left. The Marxist contention that its an opiate of the masses. And it can be... such as in this image. The existence the kids in this picture have to wake up to every morning is beyond my comprehension. But the joy in their eyes is just as real--for just a moment a football match alleviated the suffering. My complicity in their suffering makes pause. But the eyes and smiles in this picture push me to take all the emotion I feel and try every day to channel it not towards anger at the orchestrator's of my complicity as a US citizen; but towards my capacity to help be a participant in pragmatic and constructive changes in the future.

Mutual Contempt

wow... this is stunning to watch.

Catapult The Propaganda

John Edwards - Post-Debate Webcast

I like the follow up...

John Edwards - Hair

this is good...

Go post at the health care discussion week blog...

Thats where i'm going to be most of the week! So check out the first ever 3rd District Common Agenda discussion week. Post your own thoughts and opinions about health care policies of presidential candidates. Keep it above the fray and about issues and ideas... stay above the Red State/Blue State mentality that directs attention away from the ideas.

Tell others about it as well!

Old paper to read....

On Ethical Naturalism by James Rachels called Naturalism. The essay originally appreared in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. Hugh LaFollette (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 74-91.

TPMtv: The New Al Qaeda Bamboozle

Youtube can help change the political landscape if it is used the way TPM is using it.

This is the kind of substance I like in candidate speeches...

That's the soul of the American Dream. It is what draws people from around the world to our shores; it is what has sustained the optimism of the American people; and it is what has helped build the wealthiest nation in history.

But if you go out and talk to people around this country, they'll tell you, they still believe in the American Dream – they just think it's out of reach.

It's hard to call it the American Dream when fewer than a third of Americans thinks life will be better for their children than it is for them.

It's understandable that they feel that way. For the last 20 years, about half of America's economic growth has gone to the top 1 percent.

Today, the top 300,000 Americans now make more than the bottom 150 million put together.

Productivity is up but median income is down. People are making more, while they're making less. Men in their 30s today earn less in real dollars than the men did 30 years ago. More and more women have gone to work, and now married couples with children are working an average of 10 hours a week more than their parents did. Working families with breadwinners in their 40s are almost three times more likely to fall in to poverty than they were a generation ago.

What does all this mean in real terms? It means that our system rewards wealth, not work.

The gap between CEOs and the average worker is out of sight – today, the average CEO makes 400 times what the average worker makes.

Our tax system has been rewritten by George Bush to favor the wealthy and shift the burden to working families. That is simply wrong – and even those who benefit the most from our current system know that it is wrong.

Warren Buffett once complained that his receptionist loses more of her income in payroll taxes than he does. He called it "class welfare," and he meant welfare for the rich.

The candidate is John Edwards

Not a good sign...

I don't want Hillary Clinton to be President. I think she makes a great Senator--which is exactly why I don't think she'd make a good President. But aside from those feelings. Things like this make me not like her policy positions

"I want to have universal health care coverage by the end of my second term."

Ezra Klien makes a great point

Her hypothetical second term happens after the 2012 elections, when Democrats will have to defend a whopping 24 seats while attacking only 9, an even worse schedule than McConnell faces today. How will waiting win us more Senate votes than we're likely to lose then? (And what if she doesn't win a second term?) I don't know whether to doubt Hillary's strategic grasp on how to pass universal coverage, or her desire to do so.

Morning meditation

From the Art of Living by Epictetus

Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours. If you do this, you will be impervious to coercion and no one can ever hold you back. You will be truly free and effective, for your efforts will be put to good use and won't be foolishly squandered finding fault with or opposing others.

Matthew Yglesias on Edwards

Given the objective realities of the situation, his campaign's doing pretty well. He's leading in Iowa. Lefty intellectuals love him. Progressive bloggers love him. Labor leaders love him. If he continues to establish a lot of good will among opinion leaders on the left, plus continues to be a white man in a world where a lot of people think a white man is more electable than a woman or a black guy, and pulls off a win in Iowa, then he just might be able to "bounce" his way to victory. How much better could he realistically be doing?

left off reading....

I have to get going in my day but I was reading the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on value ethics. Check it out if you have time...

Morning meditation

From The Art of Living by Epictetus

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can't control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.

New Bill Richardson Ad

Authors@Google: George Lakoff

excellent... watch it. And it got me to thinking. You never see conservative neuroscientist, linguists, psychologists talking about the why's they do and believe the things they do. At least i'm not aware of them.

NYT Economics Coverage Shrinks

From Market Movers

Was there too much economics in the NYT, which is literally shrinking in August and might need to make cuts? Elsewhere in the NYT there's Paul Krugman, of course, with his own op-ed columns, but those are rarely particularly economics-based these days. And every so often the Levitt 'n' Dubner team writes a Freakonomics column in the Sunday magazine – there have been four of those so far this year.

This is not good news for economic discourse in the mainstream press. One column every two months is not much of a platform: it will take years for readers to get a decent feel for where each of the columnists stands. And while the Economic View column was not always scintillating, it was a million times better than the half page of undigested tripe filed every week by the dreadful Ben Stein. To kill View but to keep Stein alive betrays a sense of priorities which can't bode well for the NYT Business section.

Did you know? John Edwards is rich!

The Media Cares About Whether John Edwards Cares About Poor People

To say this explicitly, it's okay to be rich if you act rich. The amount of flak Edwards is getting for being both wealthy and concerned with the working class versus the amount of criticism Giuliani and Romney are getting for being uber-rich and utterly unconcerned with issue of class and wage fairness is telling. The press doesn't care if you're loaded and out-of-touch, or self-interested. But to both make a lot of money and think other people should make relatively more money?

This is not good...

There is talk of Cynthia McKinney running for the Green Presidential nomination. First let me clarify my position. I don't dislike McKinney. If I were to come across her in my everyday world. I would find her views great. I would love to see more citizens speak more to the social good, and social justice tinge. I cringe because she doesn't handle herself well. If you are going to hold some of the positions she holds you have to not have a personality that allows your opponents to use your behaviors to denigrate your ideas. I don't begrudge her. First off I don't really think she's as bad as people make her out to be, though I have a feeling there is some justification for the sentiment even though the sentiment has more to do with the inability of McKinney to articulate in a manner that is historically and politically accurate to the nth degree. But the average person doesn't do that. Heck the average Representitive in the US house dosen't do that. So I don't dislike Mckinney. But I so desperately don't want the green party to deligitmize itself via a circus act. I want them to deligitimize themselves via policies that are pro social justice and pro democracy.

Sen. Jim Webb and Sen. Lindsey Graham on Meet the Press

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/15/webb-v-graham/

interesting point...

from Ezra Klien

Like many others, I'm cool to the idea of Rupert Murdoch buying the Journal. But there is an upside to it. While many professional media observers have the secret decoder manual that tells them to ignore the paper's Neanderthaloid editorial page and only pay attention to the top-notch reportage, most of the Journal's millions of subscribers don't know to make such a distinction, and so the newspaper's terrific reputation also bolsters an unbelievably pernicious and problematic op-ed page, which in turn exerts great influence on the country's monied set (and that set matters). If Murdoch took over the paper and ran its reputation into the ground, we'd lose a lot of good reporting, but the editorial page would also lose influence, becoming something more akin to The Washington Times. I can't decide if, on the whole, sacrificing the news to kill the opinions would be a net benefit or a net loss, but I'm thinking about it.

Bashir lies, Darfur dies

new Save Darfur commercial...

Gov. Romney: Dems Would Lead Us Down The Wrong Path

shocking...

Foreclosures Up in Georgia: Who Could Have Known?

The NYT has a piece this morning reporting on the surge in foreclosures in Georgia. This one is interesting because Georgia is not a state with a depressed economy like other states with high foreclosure rates. This one is simply driven by the reversal of an overheated housing market, although this market certainly did not stand out as a center of the bubble. In those cases, the wave of foreclosures will hit somewhat later (people have accumulated more equity), but considerably harder.

This piece should have included comments from David Lereah (former chief economist of the National Association of Realtors) or some of the other experts who were regularly cited during the housing boom. It would be interesting for readers to learn why they apparently ended up being so wrong about the state of the market.

2006 Supreme Court

This years rulings have been disturbing. Not merely for the actually decisions but for the open doors many of these decisions predict for future cases. The next 25 years (as proclaimed in Martin Garbus's new book) will be a tough one from a judicial perspective.

We'll be seeing more editorials such as this mornings at the end of every term. Last Term’s Winner at the Supreme Court: Judicial Activism

The conservative activism that is taking hold is troubling in two ways. First, it is likely to make America a much harsher place. Companies like Philip Morris will be more likely to injure consumers if they know the due process clause will save them. Employees will be freer to mistreat workers like Lilly Ledbetter, who was for years paid less than her male colleagues, if they know that any lawsuit she files is likely to be thrown out on a technicality.

We have seen this before. In the early 1900s, the court routinely struck down worker protections, including minimum wage and maximum hours laws, and Congressional laws against child labor. That period, known as the Lochner era — after a 1905 ruling that a New York maximum hours law violated the employer’s due process rights — is considered one of the court’s darkest.

We are not in a new Lochner era, but traces of one are emerging. This court is already the most pro-business one in years, and one or two more conservative appointments could take it to a new level. Janice Rogers Brown, a federal appeals court judge who is often mentioned as a future Supreme Court nominee, has expressly called for a return to the Lochner era.

The other disturbing aspect of the new conservative judicial activism is its dishonesty. The conservative justices claim to support “judicial modesty,” but reviews of the court’s rulings over the last few years show that they have actually voted more often to overturn laws passed by Congress — the ultimate act of judicial activism — than has the liberal bloc.

It is time to admit that all judges are activists for their vision of the law. Once that is done, the focus can shift to where it should be: on whose vision is more faithful to the Constitution, and better for the nation.