The Courier Times Gives It Up For “No-Corp-Tax” Pat

In a thoroughly unsurprising development, the Bucks County Courier Times endorsed Pat Toomey for the U.S. Senate from PA today (here)…

For sure, (Joe) Sestak, a Delaware County congressman and retired admiral, is far to the left of Toomey. He has energetically supported President Obama’s initiatives on the economy and health care reform – and makes no apologies for that. He argues that the stimulus bills and the bailouts, vilified now as immense debt diggers, were necessary to stanch economic disaster and widespread unemployment.

Looking at the glass “half full” for a minute – when it comes to the bailout of GM, the company is now poised for an IPO and may actually turn a profit in the short term, as noted here (throwing “good money after good,” if you will).

Continuing…

A Harvard graduate, Sestak was equally supportive of health care reform, including a liberal-favored government-run public option that was not included in the final law.

I hate to break the news to the Courier Times, but Sestak voted against the public option, as noted here (see “Fun With Committee Votes”).

Continuing…

Toomey, a former Lehigh Valley congressman, would extend the cuts for all Americans and pay for them by cutting spending, including rescinding the unspent portion of federal stimulus money.

As noted here as of last July, “According to Recovery.gov, $55 billion of the unspent ARRA money comes in the form of tax benefits for middle class and working families.”

So, by saying he wants to reclaim “unspent funds” from the stimulus, what Toomey is really saying is that he wants to raise our taxes.

Continuing with the editorial, Toomey also says that he wants to “cap discretionary spending unrelated to national security”; as far as I’m concerned, that’s an extreme position when even a partisan like Senate Repug Bob Corker of Tennessee says here that defense cuts have to be “on the table.”

Also, I’m concerned that Toomey says he would “create competition among health care insurers,” which to me is more code in favor of allowing insurers to compete across state lines – it doesn’t make me happy to point out that a mechanism for this is already in place in HCR, as Ezra Klein tells us here…

(1) “Let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.” This is a long-running debate between liberals and conservatives. Currently, states regulate insurers. Liberals feel that’s too weak and allows for too much variation, and they want federal regulation of insurers. Conservatives feel that states over-regulate insurers, and they want insurers to be able to cluster in the state with the least regulation and offer policies nationwide, much as credit card companies do today.

To the surprise and dismay of many liberals, the Senate health-care bill included a compromise with the conservative vision for insurance regulation. The relevant policy is in Section 1333, which allows the formation of interstate compacts. Under this provision, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho (for instance) could agree to allow insurers based in any of those states to sell plans in all of them. This prevents a race to the bottom, as Idaho has to be comfortable with Arizona’s regulations, and the policies have to have a minimum level of benefits (something that even Rep. Paul Ryan believes), but it’s a lot closer to the conservative ideal.

And of course, Toomey supports “tort reform”; as noted here, it was enacted in Ohio but hasn’t lowered rates (as if Toomey cares about that).

Oh, and Toomey of course supports privatization of Social Security, and the Courier Times editorial board is just ducky with that…what a shame that they apparently didn’t read the following letter in their own newspaper today (here)…

On the subject of Social Security, the president cannot direct the Social Security Administration to issue a COLA. The COLA is mandated by law using the Cost of Living Index for urban and clerical workers for the previous fiscal year.

If a COLA is not generated, then the law prohibits a COLA for the following year. Congress can change this by amending the law to consider the cost of living for seniors.

Those receiving Social Security were sent a $250 payment. This was requested by the president and Congress approved it with a vote. It was funded by the stimulus money. If you do not think you got this, check your bank statements for May or June. Some federal retirees got a tax credit and not a direct payment.

Social Security is solvent for the next 25 years. The money being paid covers the obligations so it is not adding to the deficit. The deficit is caused by unfunded spending, such as tax cuts with no corresponding cuts in spending, or two wars lasting a decade that included billions of dollars to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq.

If workers are allowed to divert some of their Social Security payments to a private account, that will result in a loss of funding to Social Security; and as an obligation set by law the taxpayers will have to make up the loss, higher taxes, to provide the benefits to the beneficiaries. No one has considered this as the unintended consequence of “privatization.”

Susan Gibbons
Fairless Hills, PA

Finally, Toomey supports reducing business tax rates – please watch Keith Olbermann’s report here (first video) and then try to tell me why I should give a fig about tax liability for corporations.

Meanwhile, to support someone who will actually support us (and time is short now, people), click here.

Tuesday Mashup (9/7/10)

1) I don’t know how many people remember the story of 5-year-old Kyler Van Nocker (pictured), a little boy who suffered from neuroblastoma, which is a very rare form of childhood cancer that targets the nervous system and creates tumors throughout the body.

As Think Progress told us here last February…

Due to successful treatment in 2007, Van Nocker’s cancer went into remission, giving him 12 months of pain-free life. Unfortunately, in Sept. 2008, the cancer returned, and Van Nocker was once again in need of treatment. Unfortunately, his health insurer, HealthAmerica, refused to pay for one form of treatment doctors believe could save his life (MIBG treatment) because they consider it “investigational/experimental” since it has yet to be approved by the FDA.

Yet in April 2008, the insurer approved cheaper treatment for Van Nocker that was also “experimental,” prompting Philadelphia Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky to ask, “So why, pray tell, is HealthAmerica playing the ‘experimental therapy’ card in the case of the MIBG treatment Kyler now needs? Gee, money couldn’t have anything to do with the decision, could it?”

Well, as Polaneczky tells us in her column today, Kyler Van Nocker died last weekend at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, three months shy of his sixth birthday.

Also…

Drained as he was yesterday by grief, (Kyler’s father) Paul was still able to express outrage at the immorality of the American health-care machine, in which the expertise of world-renowned doctors – like those who treated Kyler – is routinely usurped by insurance bureaucrats responsible first and foremost to shareholders, not to patients.

“Because of the lawsuit, I have had to behave and keep quiet about what I think,” lest he jeopardize Kyler’s case in any way, he said. “Well, I don’t have to keep quiet anymore. I am a pissed-off dad whose son’s life was made hell by bean-counters who got in the way again and again of what was right.”

And gee, where were the Koch Brothers-funded teabaggers to offer what they could in support of the Van Nockers? You know, to do something actually constructive instead of parading around with their racist signs and funny clothes, screaming about a government takeover of health care, or whatever? I guess they think our delivery of health care in this country, whereby a family could become utterly destitute while an insurance conglomerate refuses to fund treatment for a sick family member, is just A-OK.

Our deepest sympathies go out to the Van Nockers over their awful loss, as well as admiration for their endurance and courage in the face of an ordeal no one should ever have to undergo.

2) Returning to the more mundane world of politics, I give you the following from The Hill (here)…

GOP Rep. Geoff Davis (Ky.) used the weekly Republican radio address to pound the Obama administration over its economic record, suggesting that the economy would revive quickly if the government loosened a swath of business regulations.

Davis’s address came a day after statistics were released by the Labor Department that showed 67,000 new jobs were added in August — more than expected — but the nation still saw a net loss of 54,000 jobs.

If you want to read what Davis actually said, be my guest, but suffice it to say that it was a rehash of every other Republican talking point about the economy (including Davis’s claim that the stimulus didn’t provide jobs, which is particularly hilarious coming from him seeing that, as Think Progress tells us here, Davis was one of the 114 (!) Repug lawmakers deriding the “stim” while taking credit for the jobs it provided).

And as noted here, there’s the little matter of about $30 grand in campaign donations Davis received from Tom DeLay that he never donated or returned. And on top of that, this post tells us how he slashed funding for Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies, abused Congressional franking privileges, sided with his wealthy donors over our troops by opposing caps on military payday loans, and has no trouble attacking the patriotism of those who disagree with him.

With all of this in mind, let’s do what we can to help Davis’s opponent (and disabled Iraq war vet) John Waltz; to say Waltz faces an uphill challenge in this heavily Republican district is an understatement (and Waltz is a true progressive who deserves whatever support we can provide).

3) Finally, I give you the latest from Tucker Carlson’s crayon scribble page (here)…

Teachers who may be worried that their pupils don’t have enough access to curriculum materials with a liberal slant will be pleased to know that the lefty Nation magazine is revamping their Educators Program, which includes a weekly series of teacher guides designed to influence what is taught in schools

A spokesman for the magazine told The Daily Caller that the magazine wants to ensure students are exposed to liberal thinking, citing what he said was a tendency for classes to exclude progressive ideas and viewpoints.

And as you might expect, all of this is treated for yuks by TDC (including the pic of Malcolm McDowell’s “conditioning” experiment in “A Clockwork Orange” – nice touch), though if you read to the bottom of the story, you learn the following…

According to the Nation’s spokesman Ben Wyskida, the magazine has proposed teaming up with National Review on a collaborative education program, but no decisions have been made. (The National Review’s publisher, Jack) Fowler said they were open to it, but he was not making it a priority.

“If there was a backburner for the backburner for the backburner, this would be on it,” he said.

Yeah, that sounds like a really serious commitment, all right.

Well, at least The Nation is proposing educating students on more than one point of view.

As opposed to this example (definitely not a shining moment for what passes for conservative thought).

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/31/10)

1) In response to this story, I would like to ask the following questions:

Where is the U.S. Congressional committee with subpoena power looking into the massive thievery of taxpayer funds designated for the reconstruction of Iraq (a topic that is noticeably missing in this triumphal column on the subject by BoBo today)?

Where is Attorney General Eric Holder and his arrest warrants for those allegedly responsible for this genuine scandal?

And why aren’t the members of our prior ruling cabal being called to account by our media and all of our institutions of government (and why is this story basically being ignored – yes, I know, everyone is focused on the economy, but that really isn’t an excuse, is it?).

And why isn’t this person being called to account first for the insulting stupidity of her remarks on this subject from December 2008, noted by Think Progress?

2) And speaking of investigations, look at what Fix Noise is telling us (here)…

The Veterans Affairs Administration is spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to maintain hundreds of buildings – most of them vacant – that have fallen into such a state of disrepair that many of them are considered health hazards, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals.

Exactly how much it costs to maintain the run-down and abandoned buildings is a matter of dispute. The General Accountability Office estimates that the VA has spent $175 million every year since 2007. But the VA disputes that figure, saying it spent $85 million on the buildings in 2007 and only $37 million last year.

Whatever the figure, the timing couldn’t be worse for the VA, as tens of thousands of American troops, many of whom have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, prepare to return to the U.S. and will require the expensive medical, psychological and support services it provides.

Wow, talk about being “late for the party” – by about three years in this case…

For you see, Fix Noise and their brethren basically ignored the scandal of how the VA was run when it was first reported by Anne Hull and Dana Priest of the WaPo here, including the particularly infamous “Building 18” of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, described as follows…

When (a) wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

And how did Fox and its right-wing brethren react at the time? I think Steve Young captures that pretty well here.

But of course, now that Dubya is long gone (thank God) and we have a Democrat in the White House, Fix Noise is paying attention, as well as concocting propaganda that Obama was pushing a plan to get our vets to pay more for health care (here) and encouraging them to commit suicide (here – particularly despicable even for Fox).

That, however, is very much in keeping with the “M.O.” of this bunch, as noted here.

3) Finally, we have a particularly propagandistic screed from Cal Thomas (here)…

President Obama may have experienced his Walter Cronkite moment over the economy.

Responding to Cronkite’s reporting from Vietnam four decades ago that the only way to end the war was by negotiating with the North Vietnamese, President Lyndon Johnson was reported (though never confirmed) to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.”

Now President Obama appears to have “lost” New York Times liberal economic columnist Paul Krugman. Krugman, who enthusiastically supported the president’s redistributionist and stimulus plans, has bowed to the reality that they are not working. In a recent column titled “This is Not a Recovery,” Krugman took issue with the president and Vice President Joe Biden that we have experienced a summer of economic recovery. “Unfortunately, that’s not true,” he wrote. “This isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policymakers should be doing everything they can to change that fact.”

And of course Thomas then launches into a commercial for the RNC and its supposed economic platform, which of course is a rehash of every bad idea over the last 30 years or so that got us into this mess to begin with.

I realize that only a fool would actually expect Thomas to tell the truth, but it’s particularly galling for him to take Krugman’s statements so thoroughly out of context, given that Krugman also said the following (here)…

In the case of the Obama administration, officials seem loath to admit that the original stimulus was too small. True, it was enough to limit the depth of the slump — a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office says unemployment would probably be well into double digits now without the stimulus — but it wasn’t big enough to bring unemployment down significantly.

Now, it’s arguable that even in early 2009, when President Obama was at the peak of his popularity, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger plan through the Senate. And he certainly couldn’t pass a supplemental stimulus now. So officials could, with considerable justification, place the onus for the non-recovery on Republican obstructionism. But they’ve chosen, instead, to draw smiley faces on a grim picture, convincing nobody. And the likely result in November — big gains for the obstructionists — will paralyze policy for years to come.

And besides, given this incorrigible dreck, Thomas really should stay away from any historical references whatsoever.

Tuesday Mashup Part One (8/10/10)

1) Robert Borosage pretty much echoes my sentiments here in response to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and his complaints about “the professional left” supposedly not paying proper homage to the Obama Administration (h/t Daily Kos).

And I thought this excerpt from here was particularly mystifying…

Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished in a shattered economy with uniform Republican opposition and a short amount of time.

As noted here by Atrios, though, it seems as if Gibbs is “walking back” these insipid remarks somewhat (and I’m sure either Broderella, Doug Schoen and/or their pals are writing another one of their “tut-tut” columns about those nasty bloggers in response and how this country craves bipartisanship above all else and anyone disagreeing with the elite Beltway pundits should just sit down and shut up).

Update 8/12/10: Well, I got the gender wrong, but the WaPo is definitely the primary “font” of DC “conventional wisdom,” so this isn’t surprising in the least.

I don’t have much to add here, but as others smarter than me have noted, this election is going to be about jobs, jobs, jobs. And as I’ve followed what this administration has done on the economy, it has borne out the fact that Obama, on financial matters, is basically a disciple of Milton Friedman, which he pretty much stated in “The Audacity of Hope,” inasmuch he has tried to let our wretched economy wheeze itself back to health (and anyone who argues that Obama is a Keynesian doesn’t know what they’re talking about).

However, I believe the Obama Administration fundamentally miscalculated the amount of resistance it would face from corporate America in helping to revive employment. There was a time when I cringed and wrote off the employment numbers as a “lagging indicator,” but at this point, having progressed about a year into our supposed “recovery,” I think it is going to take more active government intervention (and more “carrots” for employers) to make a dent in the wretched degree of joblessness we currently face (again, not an original observation I know, and something that should’ve dawned on this bunch much earlier, cries of “socialism” be damned).

On the subject of corporate resistance, this 2008 article tells us the following…

Chief Executive magazine’s most recent polling of 751 CEOs shows that GOP presidential candidate John McCain is the preferred choice for CEOs. According to the poll, which is featured on the cover of Chief Executive’s most recent issue, by a four-to-one margin, CEOs support Senator John McCain over Senator Barack Obama. Moreover, 74 percent of the executives say they fear that an Obama presidency would be disastrous for the country.

“The stakes for this presidential election are higher than they’ve ever been in recent memory,” said Edward M. Kopko, CEO and Publisher of Chief Executive magazine. “We’ve been experiencing consecutive job losses for nine months now. There’s no doubt that reviving the job market will be a top priority for the incoming president. And job creating CEOs repeatedly tell us that McCain’s policies are far more conducive to a more positive employment environment than Obama’s.”

Basically, they didn’t want Obama, but they got him.

And they’re not going to lift a finger to help him unless they’re prodded into doing so somehow (and blaming the “professional left” for this circumstance won’t help either).

Update 1: Yep, and what kos sez here too…

Update 2: I know the wingnuts will have fun with this little spat, but some fights are worth having (here, and kudos to those who stood up).

2) Also, it looks like the Tea Partiers are running out of money based on this (awwww)…

The movement’s money problems suggest what may be the tea party’s central paradox — that the very anti-establishment sentiment that spawned it may keep it from having the resources it needs to become a sustainable political force.

Many of the newly engaged activists who joined the movement regard traditional political fundraising as representative of the corrupt politics they abhor.

“When you start chasing the money, you start having to compromise, and that’s where a lot of D.C. organizations go wrong,” said Everett Wilkinson, a South Florida financial adviser who runs two of the biggest tea party groups in Florida. “If we stay trim and we keep our overhead small, we won’t have to raise a lot of money and we won’t have to compromise. No one owns us.”

Anecdotal evidence from Wilkinson and others suggests that many groups are being financed out of the pockets of a handful of organizers and activists.

I guess their fundraising efforts weren’t helped by the recent paltry showing at their gathering in Philadelphia starring their hero Breitbart (here). And as noted here, RNC Chairman Michael Steele is “the gift that keeps on giving” when it comes to GOP fundraising and other matters.

And another thing – did you know that “American Crossroads,” the Repug Party outfit founded primarily by former Bushies Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, is primarily funded by four billionaires (here)?

As concerned as I am about tone-deaf Dems like Robert Gibbs (noted in the prior post), at least I and others of my political persuasion can take comfort from the ineptness of the opposition party.

3) Finally, looks like Just Plain Folks Sarah Palin spoke today on the death of former Senator Ted Stevens in a plane crash (here – sorry about the loss)…

It’s with great sadness that Todd and I hear the reports coming in of Senator Ted Stevens’ passing in the plane crash near Dillingham. In our land of towering mountains and larger than life characters, none were larger than the man who in 2000 was voted “Alaskan of the Century.” This decorated World War II pilot was a warrior and a true champion of Alaska.

Of course, this is a departure from Palin’s statement here from October 2008 in which she basically threw Ted “under the bus” (snowmobile?), telling him that he “needs to step aside” due to the ethics investigation which ultimately removed him from office, though Obama AG Eric Holder eventually asked a judge to dismiss the charges the charges were eventually dismissed by Obama AG Eric Holder (here).

Another Dose Of Repug “Stim” Hypocrisy

Because it cannot be pointed out enough times (more proof is here)…

In Support Of The “Stim”

I would say that this chart speaks volumes (from here, and here is more).

Friday Mashup

(Note: I’m probably a couple of weeks away at least from posting again the way I have in the past due to my arm injury. I’ll be sure to let you know what’s going on.)

1) Over at The Hill, Repug Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana recently said the following (here, in yet another attack on the Obama Administration)…

First out of the gate was the $787 billion so-called stimulus bill that was nothing more than a wish-list of liberal spending priorities. Following the policies of more spending and more debt — the same policies that got us into this mess — would not get our economy moving again.

Meanwhile, this tells us the following (from Crooks and Liars)…

Rep. Mike Pence disagrees with the stimulus and voted against it but wants more of it for his state. “The Democrats in Congress and the administration said we were going to have to borrow nearly a trillion dollars from future generations and spend it on this — this long laundry list of liberal spending priorities we called stimulus and that unless we did that, unemployment would reach 8% nationally. It’s 9.5% nationally today,” Pence told Fox News’ Chris Wallace.

But Pence charges that Indiana isn’t getting enough money from the very program that he doesn’t support. “You check the Indiana Star, you’ll see stories about the stimulus. One is that four out of ten major projects in the stimulus for Indiana had been allotted to companies outside the state of Indiana,” complained Pence.

So which is it, Pence? Do you support the “stim” or don’t you? If you don’t, then why are you trying to grab up the dough?

Oh, and by the way, as Think Progress notes here, Pence was one of the Repugs who was just thrilled over yesterday’s horrific Supreme Court ruling allowing unlimited free speech for corporations, among other entities (no word on what Pence’s reaction would be if another Giganticorp, Inc. came along and decided to fund a Pence election opponent as much as they wanted, which is now allowed of course).

So what other economic ideas has Pence supported as long as he opposes Obama and the “Democrat majority” (jerk)? Why, as noted here, he supports a spending freeze, which, as TP (again) tells us, “would allow inflation to eat away at funding for vital programs, including Pell Grants, Head Start and infrastructure investments. It would mean less money, in real terms, for just about everything. There are also projects — like the 2010 census – that need a spending boost.”

The game of Pence and his Repug playmates is to do nothing and hope that voters forget that our current economic mess, to say nothing of two wars, originated under the administration of Obama’s predecessor. And that worked in Massachusetts because the Democratic Party leadership was utterly asleep and thought they would win a ceremonial victory.

But Messrs. Kaine, Menendez and the rest of the Dems should have learned from that debacle that everything is in play for November. However, the Repugs will have to play the same game of defending their seats as the Dems.

Being a Dem in this climate has disadvantages, as does being a Repug. But being an incumbent, period, is the biggest disadvantage of all.

2) Today’s Bucks County Courier Times tells us the following (here)…

A 12.5 percent salary increase to the Bucks County employee in charge of overseeing the $100 million courthouse project led to a heated disagreement among county commissioners.

Diane Marseglia, the lone Democrat on the three-member panel, criticized the decision of her colleagues, Republicans Charley Martin and Jim Cawley, to raise the salary of Director of Operations Jerry Anderson to $104,456.

“It’s too much money,” Marseglia said Wednesday of the $11,575 bump in pay from $92,881. “Nobody gets an increase like that, especially in this economy.”

Martin defended the pay hike, saying the “fairly substantial amount is appropriate.”

Anderson is in charge of all county bridges, buildings and the parks and recreation department, in addition to spearheading work on the new courthouse, according to Chris Edwards of the county public information office.

He also headed up building the $22 million parking garage on Broad Street.

Compensation for non-union county personnel is set by the salary board. Martin said Anderson’s raise fit within that range.

Hired Dec. 26, 2006 as special projects manager in the public works department for $55,344, Anderson became the director of operations on Sept. 17, 2008 at a salary of $85,000. Since then, his annual pay has jumped nearly $20,000, or 23 percent, including a 3 percent cost of living adjustment on Jan. 1.

Another “triumph” for Jim Cawley and Charley (“I Have A Semi-Open Mind”) Martin (no comment from Jay Russell, the “independent” candidate in the last Bucks County commissioners election who ensured that we would be saddled once more with Martin and a Repug majority).

Update 1/24/10: The Courier Times points out here today that Anderson basically contributed $4,400 to “Republican causes” and was rewarded with about a $50,000 raise as a result. And Republicans dare to scream about alleged Democratic Party fiscal malfeasance.

3) Finally, this letter in the Courier Times yesterday stated as follows…

Newtown Township Supervisor Rob Ciervo recently announced he will run for the 31st Assembly District seat now held by state Rep. Steve Santarsiero.

Ciervo was elected supervisor in 2007 to a six-year term and assumed the role of chairman this summer, after former Supervisor Tom Jirele’s sudden resignation. As a resident of Newtown Township, I feel that Mr. Ciervo should fulfill his commitment to the residents of Newtown Township who elected him to the board of supervisors.

If these local politicians can’t commit themselves for six years, they shouldn’t run for the position in the first place. Perhaps Mr. Ciervo wishes to leave the NTBOS before local residents catch on to the fact that constant dipping into reserve funds is a temporary fix and only postpones the inevitable tax increases facing Newtown Township.

Steve Santarsiero has been in office less than one year. Honestly, that is not enough time to truly gauge the job of a state representative. However, in that time, Steve helped balance the state’s budget and actually decreased overall spending by $500 million. Let’s keep Steve Santarsiero working for us and let self-serving politicians finish the jobs they started.

Edward H. Valenti
Newtown, PA

To contact Steve, click here.

Wednesday Mashup (12/2/09)

1) Amy Sullivan here at Time tells us the following (in a story timed for World AIDS Day, which took place yesterday)…

George W. Bush didn’t get a whole lot of attaboys on his way out of the White House. But on World AIDS Day near the end of last year, the outgoing U.S. President was the man of the hour, fielding praise from global health advocates and world leaders for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPfAR, which increased tenfold the number of HIV-infected patients in Africa who receive antiretroviral treatments.

…

But now some critics are wondering if Bush’s successor is doing enough. Many global health advocates worry that the success of PEPfAR — an initiative that has consistently enjoyed broad bipartisan support — may be jeopardized by harsh economic realities and shifting political priorities. Although Barack Obama pledged during the 2008 campaign to boost PEPfAR funding by $1 billion each year, his first budget proposed just $366 million more for fiscal year 2010 than the current year, and a majority of the 15 countries that receive PEPfAR funds will see no increase.

I never understood the point of PEPFAR as opposed to pledging full support to the already established and internationally acclaimed multilateral initiative known as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This was true particularly since PEPFAR created a duplicate bureaucracy with lower funding versus the Global Fund (as well as typical Bushco nonsense such as prioritizing abstinence-until-marriage programs – this and more is discussed here).

Also, as noted here, Obama has promised to double aid over the next years (sic), according to an interview with Bono, “because even though (President George W.) Bush tripled it … the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage (sic), and I think he knows that’s not right.”

(It should be noted, though, that concerning the claim that the U.S. is supposedly giving half of what European countries give, Bono was talking about all foreign aid and not just anti-AIDS funding, as the story tells us.)

I will also acknowledge that the Obama Administration has more work to do on this score (just add this to the pile of the mess he inherited). And even though Number 43 was easily the worst president I’ve ever seen or hope to ever see, if he’s legitimately entitled to some credit for African AIDS relief, then let him take a bow, and then disappear.

2) Also, this story at The Hill tells us the following…

A handful of Democrats pushing for a new jobs bill are criticizing the $787 billion economic stimulus for not creating enough jobs.

…

“To the extent that I would have criticism of the stimulus, it was that it didn’t sufficiently meet the three-T test: ‘targeted, timely, temporary,’ ” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).

In response, this tells us the following…

…the stimulus bill goes right to the heart of many of the conversations I heard in my three months going town-to-town in North Dakota, including:

• more than $170 million toward road improvement projects in North Dakota – a critical, job-creating need, as many county commissioners told me;
• more than $85 million the state government can use to help our public universities and colleges meet high-priority projects, from making buildings more energy efficient to updating classroom technology;
• more than $25 million toward weatherizing homes to improve energy efficiency, and more than $24 million in energy-related funding;
• more than $39 million for high priority water projects;
• more than $266 million in middle-class tax relief, or about $860 for the average family at a rate of savings of more than $70 a month; and
• $156 million in relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The bill also includes hundreds of millions of dollars for North Dakota health care and to update the electrical transmission grid. There is no doubt in my mind that these are important priorities for North Dakota that deserve my support.

So now that you have the chance, you’re trying to “wash your hands” of the stim, Conrad? I guess that’s to be expected, though, from someone who laughed about others in your state without health care (here).

The fact that I have to share a party allegiance with life forms like Kent Conrad continually disgusts me.

3) Finally, for history buffs out there, it should be noted that today is the 150th anniversary of the hanging of anti-slavery abolitionist John Brown; he staged the unsuccessful raid at Harper’s Ferry and was hanged for the offense.

With that in mind, writer David S. Reynolds claimed here that Brown should receive a presidential pardon, since Brown’s plan “was (only) to create panic by arousing fears of a slave rebellion, leading Southerners to view slavery as dangerous and impractical,” and (the thinking may go) Brown was thus trying to head off The Civil War which followed his seizure of the Harper’s Ferry armory.

Besides, as Reynolds puts it, “none of the heroes from that period is unblemished. Lincoln was the Great Emancipator, but he shared the era’s racial prejudices, and even after the war started thought that blacks should be shipped out of the country once they were freed. Andrew Jackson was the man of his age, but in addition to being a slaveholder, he has the extra infamy of his callous treatment of Native Americans, for which some hold him guilty of genocide.”

Seriously.

Oh, I can just picture what would happen if this country’s first African-American president pardoned a guy who attacked a federal armory in an effort to free slaves (and who also murdered pro-slavery southerners in Kansas three years prior to his Harper’s Ferry raid). If that wouldn’t be giving the green light to every teabagger and right-wing militia nut case out there (who, ironically, would believe they have common cause over removing their newfound benefactor from office any way possible), then I don’t know what would.

Monday Mashup Part 1 (11/30/09)

1) I detected a bit of an inconsistency with the following from Republican political strategist Ed Rollins in this CNN editorial…

…Michaele and Tareq Salahi want to be famous as stars of reality television. I am all for that. Give them a reality television series and call it “Trial and Jailtime” in the D.C. criminal justice system. This despicable, desperate, duplicitous couple disgraced the Secret Service and embarrassed the president in his home.

If someone wants to bring charges against these two and investigate how they came face-to-face with the President of the United States the other night at the state dinner for the Indian prime minister and his wife, then I would tend to think that that’s a good idea.

However, it would have been nice if we had heard such outrage from Rollins and his pals when James Guckert (under the alias “Jeff Gannon”) accessed the White House and was admitted to the White House press briefing room on day press passes for almost two years, even though the following was true:

• (Gannon had) no media experience other than a two-day training course at The Leadership Institute’s Broadcast School of Journalism.
• (Gannon) was denied media credentials April 7, 2004, by the “Standing Committee of Correspondents, the press body that oversees the distribution of credentials on Capitol Hill.”
• (Gannon) was not working for a recognized media outlet.
• (Gannon) had access to the White House press briefing room before Talon News (a “psuedo-news” organization tied to a right-wing web site; it was the alleged news site Gannon worked for) was operational.

So to sum up, Rollins thinks that the two gate crashers at the state dinner recently held at the White House should be prosecuted, but neither he nor anyone else in his party thinks Jeff Gannon should pay any price whatsoever, considering that he “somehow bypassed both Secret Service and FBI screening to access the White House press room.”

And Rollins wrote this for CNN.

…

We’ll have to “leave it there.”

2) I felt like I was taking a bit of a trip back in time when I read through this “Politico” rehash of Republican talking points, called “7 ‘Stories’ Obama Doesn’t Want Told” (including the following – I’ll explain in a minute)…

People used to make fun of Bill Clinton’s misty-eyed, raspy-voiced claims that, “I feel your pain.”

The reality, however, is that Clinton’s dozen years as governor before becoming president really did leave him with a vivid sense of the concrete human dimensions of policy. He did not view programs as abstractions — he viewed them in terms of actual people he knew by name.

Obama, a legislator and law professor, is fluent in describing the nuances of problems. But his intellectuality has contributed to a growing critique that decisions are detached from rock-bottom principles.

Both Maureen Dowd in The New York Times and Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post have likened him to Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

The Spock imagery has been especially strong during the extended review Obama has undertaken of Afghanistan policy. He’ll announce the results on Tuesday. The speech’s success will be judged not only on the logic of the presentation but on whether Obama communicates in a more visceral way what progress looks like and why it is worth achieving. No soldier wants to take a bullet in the name of nuance.

(Oh, by the way, this is “story” number two of seven – insert your snark here.)

So basically, what we have here is a “reboot,” if you will, of the Al Gore “Ozone Man” narrative of the 2000 election (as the punditocracy told us, Gore was intellectual, not a “common man” like George W. Bush, couldn’t decide whether or not he was an “alpha male” and was therefore a liar, etc. – I know I’m leaving some other contrived mythology on Gore, but you get the idea).

And it’s appropriate actually that Harris would mention MoDo here since, perhaps more than anyone else (here), she piled onto the former veep during the campaign over Gore’s “obsessions about global warming and the information highway”; she also compared Gore to the “wackadoo wing of the Democratic Party” for his criticism of the Iraq war; and has repeatedly furthered numerous falsehoods about Gore, such as that Gore once claimed to have “invented the Internet” (guess there was no way to avoid that one) and that author Naomi Wolf advised Gore on his wardrobe.

And by the way, I would not have blamed Dowd or anyone else if what they wrote was legitimate, verifiable criticism instead of corporate media idiocy.

But getting back to Obama, John Harris of Politico takes note of the president’s “peculiar” bow to the Japanese emperor and concludes with the following…

Obama’s best hope of nipping bad storylines is to replace them with good ones rooted in public perceptions of his effectiveness.

Of course, there’s no word on whether or not Harris and his playmates will actually take note of those “good ones” (such as Obama’s speech before Congress on health care and not taking the bait of the oafish Joe “You Lie” Wilson) as opposed to rehashing the bad ones instead for the millionth time.

Update 1 12/1/09: And while The Politico concocts dookey like this, blogger Nathan Newman actually went to work and reported on achievements of the Obama Administration here (of course, too bad that reality conflicts with Harris’s dumb narratives – hat tip to Chris Bowers of Open Left).

Update 2 12/1/09: “Spock this” indeed – ha, ha, ha.

3) And finally, here is more unintentional comedy from “Z on TV”…

A consensus is starting to build that says so far, Barack Obama has been a lot better at playing a president on TV than actually being one in 2009.

Maybe it is the arrival of the holidays and the inescapable realization that our president has seemed to be mostly indifferent to the millions of Americans who are out of work and can’t even start to think of holiday cheer. While the White House has been focused in recent months on such misguided campaigns as trying to beat Fox News into submission for daring to criticize him, more and more Americans are wondering why the president hasn’t heard their growing cries of desperation. That’s what the intensity and outrage of the town halls were really about during the summer. But the tin ears in the administration didn’t hear it. They were too busy booking the president on every talk show on television — as long as it wasn’t on Fox News.

You know, it’s really hilarious to read someone like Zurawik criticize Obama for “playing president” (and any proof on this emerging “consensus,” by the way?) after less than a year in office after we all had to endure the antics of Commander Codpiece since he was installed into An Oval Office in November 2000 (I’ll tell you what, Z – let me know if Obama “drops in” on our troops with a plastic Thanksgiving turkey like 43 did here, and maybe I’ll take you seriously, OK?).

And as far as Obama being “indifferent” to Americans out of work, all I can ask is which party supported the “Stim” and which one didn’t (and which president signed it into law – this tells us that the ARRA “added roughly 2.3 percentage points to real GDP growth in the second quarter “ and created or saved between 660,000 and 1.1 million jobs…and I didn’t recall hearing a plan for a “stimulus” from the Palin/McBush ticket last year).

Also, as far as Obama appearing on every talk show except Fix Noise, is “Z” aware that Obama was interviewed here by Major Garrett on November 19th? And another thing… anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the corporate “Astro-turf” support behind the teabaggers and their faux outrage over the summer is suffering from a serious case of reality avoidance anyway (here).

And finally, how’s this for a “Z” “mea culpa”…

Don’t blame me on this one, folks. I have been saying this since early in the year, and generally catching hell for it even from some of my colleagues.

If you, Z, as a salaried media pundit who writes for a living, don’t even have the fortitude to take some criticism, then stick to writing about TV “reality” shows and Tiger Woods’ vehicle accident instead (or the White House “gate crashers” I noted previously), and leave political criticism for those who do even a bare minimum of research to make their case.

Friday Mashup (11/27/09)

1) I don’t know if anyone else noticed that the New York Times was able to discover some typos on the menu for the state dinner the White House recently held for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and his wife, Gursharan Kaur (with CNN taking note here).

However, what would really impress me would be if they weren’t quite so brainless in their feature writing (here), to say nothing of acting as a propaganda conduit for global warming denialists (here).

2) Also, get a load of the latest from U.S. House Minority Leader John “Man Tan” Boehner here…

At every turn this year, Republicans have offered better, fiscally-responsible solutions to tackle the immediate challenges facing the American people, including an economic recovery plan that would have created twice the jobs at half the cost, a budget that would impose strict caps to limit federal spending on an annual basis, and the only health care bill that would cut the deficit and consistently reduce federal spending on health care over the next two decades.

When Boehner is referring to “fiscally-responsible solutions,” would he be talking about the budget alternative noted by Nate Silver here (the one with, like, no actual numbers in it)? You know, something containing all the worst ideas from right-wing “think tanks” (here)?

And when he’s talking about an alternative health care bill, is he referring to the one noted here, with “eight or nine ideas” posted on the RNC web site?

Yes, busting on Boehner in this way is like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel, but he makes the temptation irresistible when he continues to peddle such obvious nonsense.

3) And finally, former Dubya speechwriter Michael Gerson laments the demise of journalism today in the WaPo (here – hint; as far as Gerson is concerned, it’s the fault of those darned U.S. bloggers who mostly don’t report from war zones and cable TV).

Oh, and by the way, what exactly are the “lies” of Dan Rather to which Gerson refers, I wonder (here)?

Such pontifications are actually funny from someone like Gerson, who, as noted here, ignored a speech President Obama gave to evangelicals and then accused Obama of not reaching out to them.

And as noted here, Gerson said Obama should “come out strongly for policies reducing the number of abortions,” even though did just that. And this tells us how Gerson inflated his role in the development of his former boss’s AIDS initiative in Africa, otherwise known as PEPFAR, which, as I noted here, had strings attached all over the place.

Oh, and this discusses the phrase “pulling a Gerson” (linked to the post)…

“Gerson is a ‘planner,’ not a ‘plunger,’” a 2005 National Journal profile noted, “meaning that he makes a meticulous outline, which he consults during the writing process.” This is true, and equal care and intensity went into crafting the Gerson image. Colleagues were not in the outline, nor were the normal standards of discretion in White House speechwriting. People have a way of disappearing in Mike’s stories. The artful shaping of narrative and editing out of inconvenient detail was never confined to the speechwriting. (The phrase pulling a Gerson, as I recently heard it used around the West Wing, does not refer to graceful writing.) And though in (Gerson’s book) Heroic Conservatism (ugh!) Mike has doubtless offered a kind word or two for speechwriting colleagues, no man I have ever encountered was truer to the saying that, in Washington, one should never take friendship personally.

And as noted here, Dubya and his pals (including Gerson) “came into office determined to tightly control the flow of information,” which is the life blood of any decent journalist (a stretch in Gerson’s case, I know).

So the next time Gerson decides to go “tut-tut” over the “slow, sad death” of the profession to which he claims to be a member, he ought to take a good, long, hard look at himself in the mirror first before he ever decides again to waste our time with such sickeningly self-righteous drivel.