Aw, how touching, a newbie bot:
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What’s bad for the goose…
Tiresome arguments, necessary arguments
I was starting to write a post about this Ed Koch endorsement of Obama. My plan was to point out what the piece said about Romney’s positions vs. his actual stated positions, highlighting the sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle distortions of what Romney has proposed.
But I decided not to go into the laborious details, and it’s not just because Ed Koch isn’t that much of a political player any more. Entitlement programs are remarkably complex, and so are any proposed fixes. And of course the law of unintended consequences almost always comes into play. The real point is that there’s almost no way to talk about these matters—particularly things like reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are the substance of much of Koch’s article—without simplifying and therefore misrepresenting, either deliberately or accidentally or some combination of both.
Many decades ago I took a semester-long course on the welfare system. We had to do a lot of reading about the laws that were current at the time—their flaws, and possible remedies. Then we had to make some recommendations ourselves.
Well, it was a very very sobering few months. The system was deeply troubled, but each fix seemed to introduce other problems. Were the cures worse than the disease? All too often, it appeared so. I developed a healthy respect for anyone who would make a serious attempt to wade into that morass and try to improve it in the real world rather than just the classroom.
That’s what came to mind when I read Koch’s piece. For example, take just this one example Koch cites for his support of Obama:
The Democrats believe Medicaid ”“ health care for the poor ”“ should remain an entitlement, no matter the number of poor qualifying, while Republicans believe Medicaid should instead become a block grant to the states, eliminating the federal responsibility to care for the poor, giving the 50 states the power to decide the benefits to be provided and the funding.
Koch conveniently omits the fact that one of the biggest problems with Medicaid and the federal government is that its regulations now threaten to bankrupt the states, because entitlements that are given “no matter the number of poor qualifying” require a little thing called funding. He also ignores the fact that it’s only the health care law passed in 2010 that’s become known as Obamacare that would cause the states to lose so much of their power over Medicaid in the first place. In fact, he ignores almost everything about the program in order to make it seem to fit the narrative of “Democrats care about poor people getting health care and mean old Republicans don’t.”
Here’s some history:
Until the 2010 enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), Medicaid preserved state sovereignty and was consistent with the constitutional framework of federalism, despite numerous stringent federal mandates, because the states retained substantial discretion to decide Medicaid eligibility, determine the scope and duration of coverage, and they were free to discontinue participation in Medicaid if not satisfied with the terms and conditions imposed by the program.
At the core of ObamaCare is the individual mandate requiring every citizen to obtain health-insurance coverage with the benefits and provisions specified by the federal government. The way ObamaCare provides for lower-income individuals and families to obtain that required coverage is by forcing the states to offer expanded coverage under Medicaid as a condition of continuing to participate in the rest of the program.
Under ObamaCare, the federal government now imposes Medicaid on the states as a federal mandate to meet the federal requirements of the individual mandate for the entire below-age-65 population with incomes under 138 percent of the poverty line. That includes mandatory coverage for the first time of all non-elderly, childless adults within the income limits. The states, consequently, no longer retain substantial discretion to determine eligibility or scope and duration of coverage for the program within their respective jurisdictions, which makes the program unacceptably coercive.
The result of this coercion will be to increase Medicaid enrollment by 24 million additional beneficiaries by 2015, covering nearly 100 million Americans by 2021 according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that ObamaCare will impose at least another $20 billion to $42 billion in additional costs on the states by the end of the decade, even counting all the federal financing for Medicaid, not to mention other open-ended mandatory costs that are inestimable.
Now, we shouldn’t really expect Ed Koch to go into all that. It would make his task of endorsing Obama so much harder. Nor do Republicans generally present the arguments against their point of view when they’re talking about why they’re supporting other Republicans, either.
But that means voters have to to do their own homework, because they certainly can’t depend on the MSM to do it. And in the case of Medicare and Medicaid reform and so many other things, the issues are remarkably complex, it’s difficult to find trustworthy and unbiased information, and analysis is demanding of skills in math and logic. How many people have the time and the inclination to tackle such a project? And yet without it, we’re at the mercy of the polemicists.
Perceptions actually changing in the Zimmerman-Martin case
Some of the new evidence about the Zimmerman-Martin confrontation actually appears to be penetrating the public awareness, according to the results of this poll:
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 24% of American Adults still believe the man who shot Martin should be found guilty of murder. But that’s down from 33% in late March when the case first began to draw national headlines and 30% in early April.
Forty percent (40%) now think George Zimmerman, who has been charged with second degree murder in the Martin shooting, acted in self-defense. That’s up 25 points from 15% in March and up 16 points from 24% last month. Thirty-six percent (36%) remain undecided, compared to 55% two months ago.
I’m not a Rasmussen subscriber, so I can’t log in and read the full report. But in this post at Althouse, she writes:
47% [of black people surveyed] say murder, but the number is going down. 55% said murder in March. And 40% of black adults now say self-defense ”” exactly the same as percentage for adults Americans generally. Note that this means that black people are much less likely to be undecided or uncertain.
It’s interesting to speculate why such a relatively high percentage of black respondents seem to be rejecting the original MSM line. Is it because they never bought the “Zimmerman is a hateful white guy” narrative? Is it because they are disproportionately the victims of black crime, and see Martin not as an innocent kid but as a young man up to no good? Is it because they are quite familiar with the need for self-defense? Is it because the new evidence is so compelling, and they are following the case closely?
If I had access to the full report some of this might become clearer, as you can see if you look at the wording of the questions Rasmussen asked. If anyone’s a subscriber there, you might be able to shed some light on the matter.
As for me, my attitude remains that only the trial will tell us what we need to know to come to an informed conclusion about Zimmerman’s culpability. I’m leaning slightly towards “not guilty, self-defense” at this point, but my level of uncertainty is high.
North Carolina teacher joins the Thought Police
My first thought on reading this was how interesting it is that new technology—the ability to easily record such incidents—is now being used by regular folk to fight efforts at thought control such as the one here. Quite different from 1984’s telescreen:
The video shows a classroom discussion about the Washington Post hit piece about Mitt Romney bullying a kid some five decades ago. One student says, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?” The teacher says: “Not to my knowledge.” The student then cites the fact that Obama, in Dreams from My Father, admits to shoving a little girl. “Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” screams the teacher. Romney is “running for president. Obama is the president.”
The student responds that both are “just men.”
The teacher yells — literally yells — that Obama is “due the respect that every other president is due ”¦ Listen,” she continues, “let me tell you something, you will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.” She yells over the student repeatedly, and yells at him that it’s disrespect for him to even debate about Romney and Obama.
The student says that he can say what he wants.
“Not about him, you won’t,” says the teacher.
The teacher then tells the student ”“ wrongly ”“ that it is a criminal offense to say bad things about a president. “Do you realize that people were arrested for saying things bad about Bush? Do you realize you are not supposed to slander the president?”
The student says that it would violate First Amendment rights to jail someone for such sentiments. “You would have to say some pretty f’d up crap about him to be arrested,” says the student. “They cannot take away your right to have your opinion ”¦ They can’t take that away unless you threaten the president.”
Clearly, the student should be teaching the class, and the teacher should be reading the Constitution more often.
Well, I’d ask the student to clean up his act in terms of the f-word—but yes, his reasoning seems impeccable compared to the teacher’s “logic.” Anger, however, is often the response when an authority figure is faced with a convincing rational argument that demolishes his/her own.
It’s also ironic that the ostensible subject matter is anti-bullying, when the teacher herself is acting as a bully.
You may notice that…
…my blogroll is finally back, updated. You can find it if you scroll down on the right sidebar.
The “nauseating” attack on Romney’s Bain record
Cory Booker, mayor of Newark and Obama supporter, voices an opinion and then retracts it somewhat:
On NBC’s Meet the Press earlier on Sunday, Booker had strongly criticized an Obama campaign ad which attacked presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s tenure at private-equity firm Bain Capital.
“This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides,” Booker said.
“It’s nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright,” he added, also referring to a proposal floated and quickly rejected by a pro-GOP super-PAC to attack Obama over his connection to his controversial former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
On Meet the Press, Booker went further, saying he would not “indict private equity.” “It’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.”
The Obama campaign ad in question, released last week, blamed Bain Capital for the closure of a steel plant and the loss of American jobs and accused Romney and other executives of profiting from the decision.
In his YouTube video, Booker backed away from those comments and said Romney’s business record at Bain was fair game.
If all of this is nauseating, then politics itself is nauseating (which it kind of is), because this sort of thing is ubiquitous. Politics isn’t a noble interplay of competing ideas, well-articulated by respectful rivals seeking the common good. In politics, virtually everything is fair game, although the word “fair” is often ignored. But why shouldn’t Romney talk about Obama’s years with Wright, and why shouldn’t Obama focus on Romney’s years at Bain, if either thinks that’s a winning approach?
Politics can be (and often is) a vicious slugfest full of distortions and even outright lies about the opponent, and the exchanges Booker references are by no means the worst we can expect in this campaign. These lies and distortions are the problem, not the subject matter itself (be it Wright or Bain), and it’s the function of the press to set us straight with the truth, although much of the MSM abdicated that effort long ago and joined in the mendacious festivities.
Nor is any of this anything new, going back to the early days of the Republic.
Al Megrahi…
…died yesterday, a bit short of three years after he was released on compassionate grounds by Scottish authorities to die in three months.
The reactions of the Lockerbie victims’ families were varied, as expected, since there is a rather vocal subset who believe him innocent of the heinous 1988 bombing. Now that Qaddafi is gone, it doesn’t seem that more information will be forthcoming, either:
After Gadhafi’s fall, Britain asked Libya’s new rulers to help fully investigate but they put off any probe.
No surprise there.
[NOTE: My previous posts on al Megrahi can be found here.]
G-8 meets at Camp David
In a move that should surprise no one, President Obama sides with the new French President and against Germany’s Merkel in the debate about the balance of growth vs. austerity for Europe.
British PM Cameron added that:
…he detected a “growing sense of urgency that action needs to be taken” on the euro zone crisis.
“Contingency plans need to be put in place and the strengthening of banks, governance, firewalls – all of those things need to take place very fast,” he told reporters.
What do you bet that action won’t be taken all that fast?
Starlets persevere…
…in their tireless quest to look like prostitutes.
I’m especially fond of this one, worn by an actress hetetofore unknown to me named Micaela Schaefer, whose dress unfortunately got caught in a paper shredder and yet who bravely soldiers on. I offer it in my tireless quest to raise the traffic of my blog:
That’s for all you metrosexuals out there.
Metrosexuals of the world, unite
The latest tiresome, minor, conjured-up brouhaha is that a Romney-supporting PAC sort of thought for a while about doing a clip talking about Obama and Reverend Wright. The memo features a description of Obama that has many on the left—including the Times’ Charles Blow—up in arms. It’s, “The metrosexual black Abe Lincoln has emerged as a hyper-partisan, hyper-liberal, elitist politician with more than a bit of the trimmer in him.”
We’ll skip the fact that it was Obama himself who’s been conjuring up the Lincoln comparisons, as well as all the evidence for considering him hyper-partisan as well as hyper-liberal and elitist (not sure what “more than a bit of the trimmer” refers to, actually). This post isn’t about politics, it’s about the word “metrosexual.”
Blow writes:
[Metrosexual] is usually defined as a man keenly interested in grooming and preening…But this term is rarely appropriately applied. On the contrary, it’s often delivered with a snicker to question sexuality and feminize the subject, and femininity in a misogynistic culture is the greatest of sins. Metrosexual has become a roundabout homophobic taunt.
First of all, the actual definition and derivation of the word includes the fact that the subject referred to is a heterosexual (note that it sort of rhymes with heterosexual), a combination of “metropolitan” and “heterosexual,” and a guy who (as Blow writes) spends a lot of time on his appearance. And I’d agree with Blow that it’s intended to imply that the man so designated isn’t a super macho guy; no Marlboro men need apply (although, come to think of it, they were pretty concerned with appearance, too, despite the macho exteriors). But the metrosexual is usually thought to be explicitly heterosexual despite all that.
So rather than being a homophobic taunt, it’s actually more of an anti-narcissistic taunt. The term “dandy” used to cover much the same territory (definition #1 here).
“Metrosexual” is also, I believe, sometimes used by men about themselves to indicate that they’re rather cultured and female-friendly, not troglodyte thugs who only want to watch football games (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). In other words, a guy you can take to the opera.
If you happen to want to go there.
Alan Dershowitz continues…
…to take on the Zimmerman prosecutor. And he is a formidable foe:
A medical report by George Zimmerman’s doctor has disclosed that Zimmerman had a fractured nose, two black eyes, two lacerations on the back of his head and a back injury on the day after the fatal shooting. If this evidence turns out to be valid, the prosecutor will have no choice but to drop the second-degree murder charge against Zimmerman ”” if she wants to act ethically, lawfully and professionally.
There is, of course, no assurance that the special prosecutor handling the case, State Attorney Angela Corey, will do the right thing. Because until now, her actions have been anything but ethical, lawful and professional.