I had rather do and not promise
than promise and not do.
Arthur Warwick
Image of the Day: Bitcoin's Bernanke Portrait
 |
| Courtesy of CNN Money |
I stopped regularly watching Fox News several months back and now focus primarily on the Internet for my news. It has nothing to do with with the ad hominem mainstream media attacks on Fox News; I stopped watching network and local news years ago, and the other cable news channels also have a slanted perspective. I used to watch Headline News years back; I liked the 30-minute format I could get at my convenience, but it morphed. What turned me off Fox News? It has more of a populist feel; it can get too repetitive, and the filler interviews and contrived points/counterpoints are predictable and full of spin (curious given O'Reilly's notorious 'No Spin Zone') I also don't like coverage of things like the latest car chase in Los Angeles.
Point/Counterpoint used to be one of my favorite Sixty Minute segments. I used to be entertained by CNN Crossfire. I've seen rumors of its revival with Stephanie Cutter and Newt Gingrich. I actually like the choice of Gingrich; he's perhaps one of the most articulate conservatives out there whom keeps current and refreshes the conservative message and agenda. (He and I disagree on a number of issues, but I respect his point of view. I just caution on his flirtation with intellectual fads. He can turn on a dime; for example, he went from outlining a conservative pro-environment vision to 'drill, baby, drill' and from being a GSE consultant to GSE critic.) I think George Will or Charles Krauthammer would be good choices, but they work for competing networks. I am not a Stephanie Cutter admirer; she is like David Plouffe: an obnoxious political spin machine. It's hard for me to come up with a social liberal whose opinion I respect: almost every one of them recites the same talking points. James Carville is a past host and probably out of the question in doing a revival, but he famously wrote 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. However, Carville has moments of lucidity, e.g., he argued Obama was in trouble over the economy in 2010 and after the first Presidential debate last fall, he sounded an alarm over the campaign. I also see George Stefanopoulos, another Clinton campaign veteran, whom goes beyond political spin. There are true believers given the reality of trillion dollars of deficits; the emergence of politicians like 'Cherokee Lizzie' Warren make that clear; perhaps former Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) or, if you want comic relief, Barney Frank (D-MA)? Of course, I would like to add a third voice to the format....recently retired Ron Paul.
To be honest, I hoped that News Corp. after it acquired the Wall Street Journal would launch an alternative, meatier conservative/libertarian format. More extended interviews and debates. To a certain extent Fox Business does that with shows by John Stossel and Andrew Napolitano. Something which might include some of the type material I sample in the blog, including content from Reason, Cato, Institute for Justice, maybe even repackaged Sixty Minutes segments or my beloved Charles Kuralt On the Road stories. I also liked CBS Sunday Morning when he hosted which came across like a Sunday newspaper and ended with a meditation-worthy nature clip. (In fact, why hasn't CBS launched its own cable channel?) Of course, people don't necessarily share my tastes; my blog gets more hits from Russian spammers than real readers, even though I think I have a unique blog and perspective, and I vary my content.
Krauthammer is spot on in terms of the sequester; it never made sense to me why Obama tried to pretend that he had never had a part in the sequester, it wasn't his idea, etc. The mainstream media went along with the preposterous White House spin, even willing to throw journalism icon Bob Woodward under the bus in the process, when he pointed out the Pied Piper of Failed Liberalism was wearing no clothes. The arguments are so pathetic: despite record, massive federal spending sprees, deficits and national debt and near zero interest rates and massive liquidity from the Fed for 5 years running, economic growth and employment are subpar, this President wants you to believe despite spending excessively doesn't budge the job numbers, cutting back mere pennies on the dollar will--to the downside. His taking money out of the private sector in the form of tax hikes won't hurt the economy, but cutting waste from government spending will....According to fourth quarter 2012 numbers we saw a dampening effect of DoD (not domestic spending) dollars... I kept waiting for word on domestic cuts...
It seemed like a Solomonic agreement at the time: the GOP agreed to put up their beloved DoD cuts up against Obama's beloved domestic spending cuts. Obama had been bluffing all along; he thought he had manipulated the GOP into a trap: he knew that the neo-cons would scream Chicken Little over DoD cuts (and some, like McCain and Graham, did scream on cue). After enough House Republicans caved over the middle-class only Bush tax cut extension, Obama was sure that momentum was one his side; they would also cave on the sequester. After all, weren't these fiscal conservatives hypocrites--they had raised the DoD budget significantly over inflation. According to Cato, "The fiscal year 2009 baseline or nonwar request of $518 billion is $228 billion higher than the FY00 defense budget in current dollars, or about 43 percent higher in real, inflation-adjusted terms." (I will point out Dems have controlled at least one chamber of Congress since 2007.)
[As an aside here, one of the key cost drivers is personnel, and Obama made it clear that military personnel would be exempt from prospective furloughs. I have to chuckle here at this comment on the same cited page: "Being a DOD employee, I'm a little puzzled as to why we continue to hire so many contracters. I have a contractor in my office and I'm perfectly capable of doing the job that he is contracted to do. In fact, every time he takes normal leave/sick leave, which is about 45-50 days every year, I have to do his job. We really don't need a contractor and it makes me wonder how many other contract workers are out there who aren't really necessary." Actually this makes my point: the civil servant in question is essentially redundant unless the contractor isn't doing a full-time job. And this sort of waste goes on across government. I know the last FTE I did at an agency, my colleague went to India for a month, and my employer tried to hire a temp so they would not lose the billing hours. I ended up pulling double-duty during the interim. It is customary for contractors to serve as the workhorses, whom get treated as second-class citizens. The fact that civil servants feel entitled at the expense of contractors when it comes to things like furloughs is predictable; I think, for instance, the USPS labor agreement prohibits contractors and part-timers--which is a big reason why the USPS is losing money. I can't speak to government contracts, but in the private sector, subcontractors can be rolled off at will, with or without reason. I remember in one case on a Chicago public sector project we had to wait 2 weeks, because he was offered a guaranteed minimum; I had been asked to qualify him, found him to be unqualified, and the call ended with his telling me he would see me Monday. (The project manager had offered him the job without waiting for my feedback.) In reality, all the customer has to do is threaten not to approve timesheets; some agencies would throw their own mothers under the bus to win a contract or renewal. Building and network access can be disabled with a single phone call. One of the drawbacks to working as a government contractor is no one else observes all the federal holidays, so you ended up having to putting in hours elsewhere, training or whatever. I remember one time driving 90 miles to a Navy client to find the gate closed; it turned out to be Martin Luther King Day. None of my colleagues nor my employer had discussed it the prior week. But generally I don't have an issue with downsizing both civil servants and contractors and/or outsourcing most program services.]
So why did Obama freak out over sequester? He never thought the GOP would call his bluff; he never announced his cuts because why worry about something that's never going to happen? He underestimated how many conservatives wanted those cuts and a lot of us are willing to concede that spending across the board needs to be cut--including Defense. We in the Tea Party warned any additional enabling of Obama's spendthrift ways would have consequences next primary
So now he is scrambling--and losing credibility by the minute. He finds no training or travel budget dollars, no projects or equipment to defer, no pencil pushers to lay off, no military air traffic controllers on loan, no managers to put on furlough, no air traffic controllers to shift from lightly used airports or managers to fill-in--no, that 1-3% cut has to come out of air traffic controllers whom just happen to be at heavily used airports. Because everyone knows the only thing in the budget is air traffic controller costs. But even so--what is that? Maybe an hour a week? A work day every other month?
But the Congress is convinced the issue is Obama doesn't have enough authority to shift funds in the budget--funny, I don't recall Obama complaining about red tape in cutting budgets. Obama doesn't want a one-off fix, threatens to veto a one-off, Congress passes a one-off, and he signs a one-off. Of course, he does--how is he going to argue he doesn't want more discretion with the budget? Not to mention, once the Congress passes a fix, he is going to have to explain to travelers why he is playing politics at their expense if he vetoes the bill.
So not only has he lost credibility over the air traffic controllers but private GDP and hiring are up in the aftermath of sequester--after all his minions went on the loose dressed up as Chicken Little. He tried to exploit the Newtown tragedy with a grab for gun control, went down in flames and had a public temper tantrum.
Then he set a red line, and Syria's Assad reportedly has crossed it with the use of chemical weapons. He was caught off-guard by the Boston terror incident wavering over whether Tsarnaev should be given a Miranda warning. (Krauthammer and I have differing opinions on this issue, but we can both agree that he was indecisive in the moment.)
Some think that Obama will regain his momentum with immigration reform. First, it is easier said than done; Sen. Rubio (R-FL) notes that Obama's politicization of the issue (premature release of immigrant prisoners on sequester, last year's executive order, threats to ignore/release any Arizona-based suspects, abuse of executive discretion (refusal to process illegal immigrants except under certain criteria) has poisoned the well, and the bipartisan bill is not a lock to pass even the Senate in its current form. Second, the idea that the GOP has stonewalled immigration is false; it was a priority under Bush, and labor opposition sabotaged the 2007 effort. Let us recall that the Dems controlled both chambers of Congress from 2007 to 2010, and the Dems controlled the Senate last session.
Christopher Ruddy, "Rick Scott’s Smart Move on Florida Medicaid": Thumbs DOWN
[I realize this essay is a couple of months old, but I just read it, and I don't think I've commented on the Medicaid portion of ObamaCare.] Recall the Feds wanted to force states to accept Medicaid expansion or lose existing Medicaid matching funds; SCOTUS struck down this Draconian attempt at extortion. Right now as it stands, the Feds pick up 100% of the cost of expansion for the first 3 years, 90% of the fourth year and future share to be determined; if I'm a betting man, I would bet that the Feds pick up 50% in the long term. Just an update here: this week the Florida legislature adjourned, in particular, the House, without approving the Medicaid expansion. The problem is that in states with a large uninsured population (like Texas) could find their budgets going up by billions of dollars.
The conservative editor of Newsmax Media characterizes the decision of GOP governors like Rick Scott, Kasich (OH), Brewer (AZ), Synder (MI) and others to accept the federal free trial period of Medicaid expansion as "wise", "reasonable", "pragmatic", "realistic", and a rejection as a "disservice to taxpayers":
The governor simply recognizes that Washington is taking Florida’s money, and it should be returned to the state and save taxpayers the cost of carrying the nearly 4 million people who lack healthcare insurance.Good grief! Does the world revolve around the philosophy of Charlie Brown's little sister Sally, i..e, "All I want is what I... I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share."
Scott is noting that the state can drop out of the program after the free trial period. Yeah, right, Scott. Do you actually believe that politicians are going to cancel policies of thousands of people? Do you think drug dealers give away their best stuff for free, thinking they won't make it up in future sales? Do I believe Floridians can stop at just one Lay's potato chip?
The problem is that Medicaid is a net cost to providers, even with government reimbursements. It is subsidized by non-government patients, insured or out-of-pocket, Medicaid is a key driver of federal deficits. Contrary to Scott, Ruddy, and other fiscal-hawks-in-name-only, we already have an unsustainable Medicaid system. They actually believe there is federal Obama moolah behind the promises. Ruddy is being completely disingenuous here: it may well be some states are givers and others ate takers in terms of federal revenues. But we are running up trillions in debt, and Florida is fighting for its grandchildren's tax receipts. All socialized medicine will do is exacerbate demand on the already inflation-bound health care sector; if anyone should know this, it's Rick Scott.
At its core, this is morally hazardous politics as usual. We have to vest health care patients in minimizing costs (e.g., high deductibles). We can discuss catastrophic insurance and expanding high-risk pools; we can talk about enabling group plans across states; we can debate tax expenditures (tax-free benefits). Most of all we must apply free market principles to healthcare.
When Ruddy and other pseudo-conservatives talk about milking the federal teat for all its worth in stimulus bailouts, Medicaid, etc., they are no different than the GOP that lost its way in the 2000s, eagerly embracing Bridges to Nowhere, jacking up domestic spending to its highest increases since the LBJ era. It's time we stop playing politics and start acting on principle.
Disturbing On So Many Levels
How do you shoot an unarmed man in bed, not even a suspect, without so much as a warrant, even 1 time, never mind 16 times? From a Seattle area TV station:
The case involves a 2012 incident where 28-year-old Dustin Theoharis was shot 16 times while in bed. Theoharis had not committed a crime--police entered his room to search for weapons after arresting someone else at the Auburn home.
It started when team of sheriff's deputies and a Washington Department of Corrections officer entered an Auburn house to arrest a convicted felon who had violated the terms of his parole.Yeah, right. Two officers enter a room without notice or provocation with weapons drawn, pointed at an unarmed man in bed at point-blank range, and he's going to beat the officers to the draw? I don't think so.
After the team arrested the man they were after, two officers proceeded to search the rest of the home for firearms. They were told that another man -- Dustin Theoharis -- was also in the house in the room he rented.
The officers -- DOC's Kris Rongen and Deputy Aaron Thompson -- fired nearly 20 times after entering Theoharis' room, hitting him 16 times. Miraculously, he survived, but was left with a shattered jaw and shoulder, a fractured spin, and damage to his limbs and organs.
The officers said they fired because they believed Theoharis was reaching for a firearm.
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Glenm McCoy and Townhall |
Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band, "Thunder Road"
