Win, Lose or Draw?

It looks like a deal in Congress on legislation to curb gun violence is in sight. The problem is, it may not amount to much. 

Not included in the deal is a provision to ban assault weapons, left out to appease the "law-abiding citizens" who take seriously their Second Amendment rights.  (If you can think of any examples where a law-abiding citizen needs an assault rifle, please leave a comment on this blog post.)  Instead, the bill being proposed aims to provide resources to state and local governments to enact "red flag" laws to prevent guns from getting in the wrong hands - which has shown encouraging results in Florida - and expands support for mental health resources to get at the heart of what would make someone want to use an assault weapon in public spaces in the first place.  Also in the agreement are funds to help school security and closing the "boyfriend loophole" to prevent gun sales to unmarried people found guilty of domestic violence against a partner in a relationship.

Many progressives are likely to complain about the framework for gun legislation because it does nothing to reduce the quantity of guns in America.  But others have pointed out that some countries like Canada also have a gun for every man, woman and child, and yet the firearm homicide rate in Canada is much lower than in the U.S.  Maybe the root of the problem isn't the weapons at all but is in fact the sort of people who get their hands on them.  Not to mention Americans' fear of each other.

Doing something small at this point is better than doing nothing.  And I give Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT, above) a lot of credit for taking the initiative to get anything done at all. 

A Super Failure

The deficit reduction super committee created by Congress in the wake of the debt ceiling debate is ready to admit failure in advance of a Wednesday deadline to reach a deficit-cutting mandate without failure as an option.  Automatic cuts to everything are to take place beginning in 2013.

Wow, like we couldn't have seen that coming.  After all, there are six Democrats and six Republicans on that committee, each side it sticking to its pea shooters - Democrats on entitlements, Republicans on taxes - without enough compromise to break through anything, and Washington is more partisan than at any time since the decade before the Civil War.     

I'm sorry we don't have a parliamentary system.  If we did, President Obama - who would be a figurehead, kind of like what he is right now - would fire his prime minister and call new legislative elections, and every incumbent in Congress would lose.

And, of course, while Democrats would run a fresh team of challengers and pretend after the election never to have heard of John Kerry, Republicans would still be running the same people over again.

Barbarians In The Halls

Newly elected Republican members of Congress descend upon Washington this week like so many Visigoths, ready to shove their own version of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - their own - down our throats. They have this fantastic vision of cutting the deficit and getting spending under control that involves cutting or eliminating social welfare programs, repealing the health care law, and giving more tax breaks to wealthy people who don't need it. And although the Tea Party activists have been characterized as being mainly concerned with budgetary issues, no one in the mainstream media has bothered to point out that, by the way, they also want to criminalize abortion and they think climate change is a hoax.

I never thought I'd say this while Obama was President, but the United States has become even more of the sort of place any decent, intelligent, and sane person would want to leave more than it was under Bush. The nation's agenda is being set by gangs of bigoted, self-interested thugs who have blocked or attempted to block any initiative that would benefit someone other than themselves.

Adding to this sense of disgust are the people voters happily chose to send to Washington as a reflection of their values. Voters in Arizona's Third Congressional District cheerfully sent Ben Quayle to the House, determined to ignore his links to a pornographic Web site ("I was raised right") and an ad full of so many incoherent non sequiturs he made his father sound like Aristotle. In Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, Michele Bachmann's constituents endorsed her for another term in office and rejected the much saner Tarryl Clark, while voters in Florida's Eighth Congressional District sent Alan Grayson packing in favor of Daniel Webster, a conservative Republican whose only commonality with the nineteenth-century legislator of the same name promises to be just that - his name. Down in the state's 22nd Congressional District, retired Lieutenant Colonel Allen West - an Iraq War veteran who famously shot a bullet past a prisoner's head to make him talk - has been chosen to be that district's voice and conscience.

The Senate has produced an even worse freshman class, possibly the worst in thirty years. It includes Kentucky's Rand Paul, an eye doctor who can't see the forest for the trees; Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, whose idea of reviving the economy is to maximize profits and minimize production; Ron Johnson, Mr. Johnson of Wisconsin, who blamed climate change on "sunspots;" and, Rob Portman, elected by the voters of Ohio to provide remedies for an ailing industrial economy he helped ruin as Bush's trade representative.

I blame my fellow Americans for this. Only two-fifths of eligible voters voted, many young and minority voters who could have stopped this nightmare stayed home, and 46 percent of all Americans were, as of the middle of November, unaware that Republicans took over the House. Many Americans, rather than pay attention to the debate over the direction of the country, chose to go to the mall and max out their credit cards. Those who did get involved in the political discourse mainly listened to Glenn Beck. But who cares about Congress when another season of "American Idol" is coming? Why vote in the election when you can vote for a bunch of vapid hack entertainers for the People's Choice Awards and watch some hip-hop chick from New Jersey announce the results on the same day a perpetually tanned fellow from Ohio will likely announce his plan to abolish health care reform?

Again, I paint with a broad brush. Again, you get to watch me not care. I'm too ticked off to do so. Because I'm too outraged to be more even-handed. And how can I be anything but angry at a country that presents to the world a barbaric, horrific culture - what James Howard Kunstler calls a "clown civilization" - such as this one?

More Questions

Today's my birthday, and I was going to refrain from writing anything on my blog today in recognition of that personal landmark, but I have some serious questions to ask regarding the aftermath of Tuesday's elections. Here they are:

Why is Nancy Pelosi being scapegoated for the Democrats's loss of the House? Nancy Pelosi, who has announced that she will run for the position of House Democratic leader in the new Congress, is being blamed for the fix the Democrats in Washington find themselves in, and many moderate House Democrats - what few there are left - are pressuring her to take herself out of contention for a leadership position. Last time I checked, the Democrats were punished at the polls based on the perception that nothing got done. Outgoing Speaker Pelosi passed in the House over four hundred bills that would have improved the lives of many people (if not for the fact that they couldn't get through the Senate). She was more instrumental than Harry Reid in passing health care reform legislation, which Reid could only pass without some of Pelosi's reforms once it became apparent that Massachusetts would replace Ted Kennedy with a Republican. This bill actually will improve the lives of many people - ask Andy Griffith. Yet Reid will still be the Senate majority leader, so why does Pelosi have to be the sacrifical lamb? Because she's a woman? Because she's from San Francisco, a place even blue-collar liberals hate? Because there are certain parts of this country where they look down on anyone with a vowel at the end of his or her name? Actually, it's probably all of the above.

Why is Mitch McConnell acting like the Senate Majority Leader? Democrats had a bright spot in the midterm elections - they kept the Senate. And, they lost fewer seats than they were expected to. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania and Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois came close to winning their respective Senate races and minimizing the party's losses even further. And, Senate Democratic incumbents Michael Bennet and Patty Murray have just been declared the winners in their respective elections in Colorado and Washington State. And Senate Democrats add a strong, tough player to their ranks in the form of Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, known for his effectiveness as a fighter for ordinary people in his role as Connecticut Attorney General. But listening to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, you'd think he's the new boss of the Senate. He certainly thinks so. But how can he control a chamber in which his side is outnumbered? Also, how can he control a Republican Senate caucus with rambunctious Tea Party stalwarts such as Florida's Marco Rubio and Tea Party godfather Jim DeMint of South Carolina? McConnell can't even control Rand Paul!

Why are the successes of Democratic gubernatorial candidates being ignored? It is true that the Democrats lost governorships in states where it's crucial to preserve Democratic advantages in redistricting for the 2012 elections. But they won back the governorship of California and held the governorship of New York. And in President Obama's home state of Illinois, Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, held onto his job. California, New York and Illinois are among the most populous states in the Union. That has to count for something.

Why is the Tea Party being heralded for their "success" at the polls? Remember - 61 percent of Tea Party candidates who ran in the 2010 elections lost. Wow, some big success!

Finally, why is the White House willing to make concessions over tax cuts or the rich? The Democrats could present sound, solid arguments that tax cuts for the top 2 percent of Americans eviscerate the economy and create few jobs, as they would have solid facts to back them up. And, they could make their case in terms that anyone, even the most minimally intelligent Fox News viewer or commentator could understand. So why is the President caving on this issue in the name of compromising with a congressional Republican leadership that is in no mood to compromise? Especially when the polls show that most Americans agree that more tax cuts for the rich are just plain wrong?

These are very relevant questions (they're not moot!). But I have no answers for any of them.

Pauline Perils

It's hard to figure out who is the most offensive of the Republican new faces that will appear in Washington in January, but right now I would guess Rand Paul by a wide margin. He's not named for Ayn Rand - his name is actually short for Randal - but he shares the selfishness-oriented and self-centered socioeconomic philosophy of Alan Greenspan's former mentor. He's actually been quoted as saying the rich should be "left alone" in any tax policy that the 112th Congress devises, and we depend on the wealthy to maintain a prosperous society. And remember, Paul has come out against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a point of fact that would have likely brought out enough black voters elsewhere but not in Kentucky, one of the whitest states south of the Ohio River.

Runners-up in the new Senate for loathsomeness Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, who has forwarded arguments against helping to rebuild his state's beleaguered steel industry; Ohio's Rob Portman, who was George Walker Bush's trade representative and is therefore in part responsible for Ohio's current industrial malaise; and Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, who says global warming is caused by "sunspots" and has refused to answer questions on specific issues, like veterans' affairs.

But we can take comfort that Carly Fiorina, Linda McMahon, Christine O'Donnell, and the spectacularly insufferable Sharron Angle - without question the scariest ladies' auxiliary in Republican politics in recent memory (although Sarah Palin is scarier than all of them put together) - won't be in that august chamber.

The House is less august, and so that chamber can take a few crackpots. The only problem is that those crackpots - including the incoherent and personally horrible Ben Quayle - are part of the new Republican majority.

Oh, and though the mainstream media aren't likely to make a big deal out of it, only 31 percent of Republican candidates for Congress associated with the Tea Party won on Tuesday.

As for Rand Paul, who now has the power to stop legislation by himself, he can now follow the Randian (as in Ayn) philosophy of one individual against the collective body.

Led in part by Mitch McConnell.

I don't know how President Obama is going to react, but I was anything but re-assured by his lame press conference yesterday.

Once More Into the D.C. Breach

Having been on the receiving end of attacks by the Republicans for months, Democrats are now fighting back, as evidenced by Democratic senator Barbara Boxer's spirited performance against Republican opponent Carly Fiorina in California and Democratic senator Russ Feingold's similar stand against Republican Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. In Minnesota, Tarryl Clark has noted right-wing gadfly Michele Bachmann running scared so much that Bachmann has put out a new e-mail calling for more help from her supporters to keep her House seat. Could this mean that the Democrats are gaining momentum?
Not a chance.
The economy remains so excruciatingly bad, and Republicans have such an established ability to communicate their message, that it's appearing less likely that the Democrats will even minimize their losses, much less reverse them. Furthermore, because the Republicans have been on the attack for so long, it seems almost like an act of desperation for Democrats to attack in response.

It's also proven to be very effective for the Republicans to divorce themselves from the governing process for so long. At the beginning of the year, many pundits believed that incumbents of both parties would be blamed for the sorry state of the economy, and that Democratic incumbents would naturally bear more of the brunt of voter antipathy simply because there were more of them. Now, however, they're bearing all of it. Republican incumbents, by contrast, are sitting pretty. In Iowa, Charles Grassley - once a likeable moderate but now known as a purveyor of the "death panel" ruse against the health care law - is on his way to winning a sixth term to the U.S. Senate. David Vitter in Louisiana is still a favorite for re-election to the Senate, despite two sex scandals and a reputation for protecting BP. The Democratic challengers in these races, Roxanne Conlin and Charlie Melancon, respectively, are fighting hard but with little wind at their backs. It is very difficult for Democratic challengers to run effectively against Republican incumbents in Iowa and Louisiana when the national party is trying to defend Democratic incumbents in tough races in California and Wisconsin.
To be fair to the Democrats, even if they had counterattacked months ago, they'd still be behind in the polls due to an economy that stubbornly refuses to recover. Nevertheless, for the Democrats to promise a counteroffensive in the midterm campaigns at this point is comparable to the notion of the French planning to invade Nazi Germany after the fall of Belgium. The Democrats still have a chance to hold the Senate, even though the House is probably gone. But if present trends persist - and there's not much time left - the Senate may also fall to the GOP.

President Obama is a cool and reasonable man, and that has hurt him in his inability to connect with voters. But if a Tea Party-dominated Republican party gains control of one or both houses of Congress, that might be the best thing for him.

Democratic Senate and Republican House?

I think America had best get used to the notion of "Speaker Boehner." Despite Justin Coussole's spirited campaign for the noted tanned golf semi-pro's House seat, it's not only likely that the Republicans will take the House of Representatives in November but that John Boehner will be there to assume the Speaker's gavel. The White House is trying to make him the face of the Republican party to stir up the Democratic base, but the idea of "Speaker Boehner" won't set off alarm bells until Boehner actually is Speaker because as of now, too few people have heard of him. Bear in mind that few people had actually heard of Newt Gingrich before he became Speaker of the House in 1995.

A victory by Justin Coussole isn't entirely out of the question, though, as this article by Howie Klein of the Huffington Post suggests.

Meanwhile, the chances of the Democrats maintaining a majority in the Senate have improved as Republicans have continuously nominated a series of wackos and misfits to oppose sitting Democrats or to run for seats left open by retiring Democrats. I believe that the Democrats will have a bare majority of 51 or 52 Senate seats come January, mainly because the voters will realize that GOP crackpots like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky aren't ready for prime time.

I did a little research, and it appears that, except when a change of party affiliation in June 2001 gave the Senate to the Democrats during the 107th Congress while the Republicans held a majority in the House, there hasn't been a Democratic Senate and a Republican House since the 47th Congress met between 1881 and 1883, during the Republican presidential administrations of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur. So, if a Democratic Senate and a Republican House is the result of the 112th Congress to convene in January, we'll be seeing such a setup for only the second time in 130 years, and for the first time in that period in a Democratic presidential administration. The dynamics might prove fascinating.

One other historical fact demands notice. In 1854, when the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act led to violence in the Great Plains territories over slavery and the country began to fall apart, President Franklin Pierce, a Democrat, saw his party hold the Senate (not elected by the people until 1914) but lose the House. The new Republican party won the most seats but not a majority, as new parties were springing up to fill the void left by the collapse of the Whigs. So a party coalition opposing the Democrats controlled the House in the subsequent 34th Congress.

Are we headed to similar discord? I hope not.

Bye Bye Bayh

Evan Bayh, the junior Democratic senator from Indiana, announced that he is not, in fact, running for re-election after all. He cited the fact that nothing is getting done in Washington and also the partisanship on Capitol Hill as reasons for his retirement, plus the assertion that he doesn't like the job anymore. Some folks suspect that he's afraid of losing. Former senator Dan Coats, who in 1998 gave up the seat Bayh now holds (it also belonged to Bayh's father, the legendary Birch Bayh, until he lost in in 1980 to a little-known two-term congressman named Dan Quayle), recently announced his desire to get his old job back. Bayh apparently decided he'd retire rather than lose his seat to someone named Dan, like his father did. Some wonder if Bayh thinks he can't win after Scott Brown won his special Senate race in Massachusetts. (Note: Brown won because he was a regular guy with a pickup truck, a bodacious personality, and a sense of charisma, while his opponent was a frosty Irishwoman with all the warmth and charm of a Zamboni.)

It seems to me that incumbents of both parties are rushing to get out of Washington as quickly as possible. Bayh's announcement comes on the heels of the announcement of two House members, Republican Vernon Ehlers of Michigan and Democrat Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island. Democrats are likely to bear the brunt of the anti-incumbent movement in the midterm elections, since they hold large majorities in both houses of Congress. The current game plan for the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees is to blame the lack of progress on health care and a jobs bill on Republican obstructionism, but no less an authority the congressional pundit Amy Walter thinks that no one is likely to buy that argument. Besides, the "tea party" movement is largely generating the anti-incumbent wave and pushing an old-fashioned right-wing agenda of smaller government and equal rights for white people. As much as President Obama talks about transforming America, it's worth noting that Fox News is riding high in the ratings, voters flee government social program proposals like vampires from a cross (to cop a phrase from retired columnist Donald Kaul), and gun sales are through the roof. And there is no liberal equivalent to the tea party movement afoot, or at least no liberal equivalent that's getting coverage from the media. The direction of America in 2010 looks a lot like the direction Ronald Reagan set it on after getting elected President in 1980.

Oh yeah, Patrick Kennedy. The younger son of the late Ted Kennedy says he hopes to pursue other interests. (Which I think means, he wants to move back to Massachusetts and challenge Scott Brown in 2012.) When the 112th Congress convenes in January, Congress will not only include fewer Democrats - far fewer Democrats - it will not have a Kennedy in it for the first time since 1947. Big deal. Washington has no more Bushes, no more Doles, and soon will have no more Kennedys. And, no more Bayhs. The republic will survive, just as it got along fine without the Adamses.

Election 2009: Aftermath

The fallout from Tuesday's gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, where conservative Republicans running to the center won, isn't so much a Republican victory as a Democratic loss. Creigh Deeds in Virginia was a lousy candidate, and he didn't get enough help from President Obama or put up a good fight. Jon Corzine in New Jersey did both, and he might have won if he'd run a more positive campaign and highlighted accomplishments of his - expanding preschool for children, abolishing the death penalty - that mattered to his base and would have gotten them out to vote. They didn't. The consensus is that the young Obama voters from last year stayed home. That's not true. In fact, they went to the mall. (Dave Barry joke! :-D) In any event, they were not inspired enough to come out and work for the change they were expecting in an Obama administration. Young voters are far less motivated to work for their own interests than their more conservative elders.

I don't know about incoming governor Bob McDonnell in Virginia, but New Jersey is such a mess that Chris Christie has his work cut out for him. At least he doesn't have to drive his own car anymore, thank God for that.

Obama is trying to keep on track to push through a transformational agenda in the style of Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but he remains limited by an angry opposition resistant to change. The Democrats were buoyed, though, by winning two special House elections in California and in New York, where a Democrat won the 23rd Congressional District seat for the first time in over a century thanks to dissension between mainstream Republicans and the far right. The arch-conservative lightweight heavyweights in the party supported a third-party candidate because the official Republican nominee (who dropped out) was deemed too moderate. Despite Democrat Bill Owens's victory, the right is treating this as a victory because the purged a moderate candidate and expect to win the seat for a conservative Republican next year. Excuse me? If the 23rd District is so conservative, why did they reject the third-party right-wing candidate, Doug Hoffman? And since when did Sarah Palin and Dick Armey become residents of the district? Or, for that matter, Doug Hoffman?

Be that as it may, some Democrats in Washington have gotten cold feet over supporting President Obama's two priorities for this year - health care reform and climate change. The congressional Democratic leadership, though, is still pushing legislation on both issues, with health care reform up for a vote in the House soon and greenhouse gas emission control legislation in the Senate. (The climate change bill has the support of noted liberals John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman, so it has a fighting chance there after passing closely in the house this past June.) The Democrats will still have comfortable control of both houses of Congress after the 2010 elections if - if - they get this legislation passed and cite the party's accomplishments so far under Obama (expansion of children's health care coverage, protection of women's rights to sue for pay discrimination, a $787 billion stimulus package that saved people's jobs) in the midterm election campaigning to get out the vote next time. I'm sure Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid understand that.

Uh-Uh, Mr. Wilson!

President Obama not only spelled out his views - rather concrete views at that - on how to reform the health care system in his speech to Congress, he got more people on his side , according to the latest polls. He's now emphasizing the moral need to cover more people and aim for universal coverage, and the Republicans remain unmoved.

Obama's proposals would require everyone to obtain health insurance while creating a subsidy those who currently can't afford it. His proposals also include banning insurance companies from refusing to insure people with pre-existing conditions or cancelling their coverage and taxing insurance companies that offer premium plans to wealthier individuals. All of this would costs $90 billion a year over a decade.

But - get this - Obama also wants to see a public option, even though he stopped short of demanding it.

Obama offered a lot of good ideas and a couple of mediocre ones - anything to keep single-payer proposals of the table - but his biggest boost may have come from South Carolina House member Joe Wilson, when the Republican called him a liar right in the middle of the speech. The charge was over Obama's insistence that his plan would not cover illegal immigrants. And even though Wilson apologized, many Republican leaders and right-wing talk radio hosts compounding the disaster by insisting the Wilson was correct about this. He isn't, but he's not as wrong as John Boehner or Sean Hannity will be if they think they've done harm to Obama's efforts to get a health care reform bill passed.

They've only hurt themselves.

Some people must wonder what folks in other countries must think of this lack of decorum. Well, based on the raucous question-and-answer sessions in the British Parliament with the prime minister, the Brits might want to see more of it here!

Health Care News - August 31, 2009

Good news and bad news involving health care reform as the month ends . . .

Janet Hook, reporting for the McClatchy-Tribune News Service, wrote yesterday that Democrats and Republicans actually agree on my many elements of health care reform and such proposals could expand and improve medical insurance in this country. Among these ideas are banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, expansion of coverage for preventive medicine, and provide new incentives for small businesses to offer insurance to their employees. The theory is that Democrats and Republicans can work out a deal of sorts to reform the system incrementally - something Edward Kennedy did for his entire Senate career.

But there's a sinister game afoot. As Democratic legislators have had their town hall meetings disrupted by protesters, Republican candidates hoping to challenge Democratic incumbents in next year's midterm elections are hosting their own "town hall" meetings to let opponents of health care reform vent in a more civilized manner. These meetings are little more than the opportunity for local GOP candidates to preach to the converted and get free publicity from the local media.

The Democrats have dismissed this tactic as empty showmanship, which they do at their own peril. Because as the Republicans, the party of Ronald Reagan, and Ronald Reagan, the President from Hollywood - not to mention Hollywood itself - have all proven, empty showmanship works.

I doubt the Republicans will gain majorities in the House or Senate in 2010 - the majorities Democrats currently enjoy in both houses of Congress are likely top big for the GOP to overcome - but a strong showing and a whittling down of the margins in both houses will make it that much more difficult for President Obama to accomplish much in the latter half of is first term - or win a second.

Twitter Ye Not

Republicans in Congress sent an awful lot of awful text messages on Twitter while sitting through President Obama's speech Tuesday night. Now that they have been made public on MSNBC, I suspect that they're going to become much more receptive to the idea of a constitutional right to privacy.

Name Your Price

The economic stimulus bills passed by the House and the senate are only a few billion dollars apart, and at first one would guess that it shouldn't be too hard for them to be reconciled in conference. One who would guess so, though, doesn't know diddly-squat about Washington. Also, President Obama has been weakened somewhat by his failed communications skills and self-admitted screw-ups of the past week. A stimulus bill is likely to pass, but it almost certainly won't pass without acrimony or with much Republican support.

Since Congress now has to negotiate the bill's final price tag, perhaps it's time to call in William Shatner. :-D