Does John Kerry ever wake up in the darkest hours before the dawn and wonder, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
Showing posts with label John Kerry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Kerry. Show all posts
War here, war there, pretty soon it's war everywhere all the time
U.S. to Mubarak: Drop Dead (or Not)
When the White House backed off ushering Hosni Mubarak into retirement, they condemned a lot of Egyptians to die. But that's okay. At least now there can be a gradual, orderly, peaceful transition to democracy.
Just kidding.
The rest of the story:
✓ An historian explains how the U.S. became closely tied to the Mideast dictatorship: How did the U.S. get in bed with Mubarak? by Justin Elliott (Salon)
✓ US, in shift, bluntly urges Mubarak to reform now (Egypt Indendent)
✓ Kerry to Mubarak: Step down by Jennifer Epstein (Politico)
✓ Israel shocked by Obama's "betrayal" of Mubarak by Douglas Hamilton (Reuters)
✓ New Egypt Plan: Let’s Send Mubarak On Permanent Medical Leave Or Something by AllahPundit (Hot Air)
Just kidding.
The rest of the story:
✓ An historian explains how the U.S. became closely tied to the Mideast dictatorship: How did the U.S. get in bed with Mubarak? by Justin Elliott (Salon)
✓ US, in shift, bluntly urges Mubarak to reform now (Egypt Indendent)
✓ Kerry to Mubarak: Step down by Jennifer Epstein (Politico)
✓ Israel shocked by Obama's "betrayal" of Mubarak by Douglas Hamilton (Reuters)
✓ New Egypt Plan: Let’s Send Mubarak On Permanent Medical Leave Or Something by AllahPundit (Hot Air)
Insurance Reform: Save The Insurance Companies!
In the fight over health care insurance reform, the underlying conservatism of many so-called liberal Democrats is being exposed. Sen. John Kerry is the latest, demonstrated by his proposal to delay the creation of a public option for 10 years by including in the legislation a "trigger" that would activate competition only if the insurance companies fail to control costs by 2020. The insurance industry had more than half a century to show that it can operate equitably and efficiently. It didn't. It hasn't. It can't. It won't.
Insurance companies like the public option because it will give them a government-supported refuse heap on which to dump people with expensive health problems while the companies haul off premiums paid by healthy folks.
It's good business practice to cherry pick government contracts for goods and services that are cheap to provide while burdening the public with tough, costly problems. It's done all the time, in areas as diverse as security, transportation, education, utilities and prisons -- wherever public officials are too corrupt, stupid or craven to protect the public interest.
The plan providing for a publicly funded insurance option being advanced by the administration and supported by most senate leaders (even Arlen Specter wants a public option provision) already represents a retreat from progressive policy. Universal public insurance -- the so-called single-payer system most familiar to us because it is the way that Canada provides for its citizens -- that removes insurance overhead and bureaucracy from the health care system is the method used in most countries, for good reason. It would be understandable that Kerry would support his president's proposal. But his effort to undermine even the public option can only be understood if you accept that the debate in the senate is not over the health of the people but the health -- the continued profits -- of the insurance industry.
Insurance companies have failed to control costs and rein in greed in the more than 60 years since FDR, in his call for an "Economic Bill of Rights," cited "the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." Senator Kerry has to know the insurance companies aren't going to change now and or in ten years or in another half century, as he agreed when he supported the immediate adoption of the public option when it was first proposed by the president. Yet now he is willing to undermine the best chance this country has had to catch up with the rest of the world in providing its citizens with universal access to health care by neutering the White House's already timid proposal.
As the wealthiest solon, John Kerry is probably beyond the reach of corruption. And, although it's possible that a privileged lifestyle has rendered him clueless about the lives of the ordinary citizens he claims to represent, there is no evidence he is stupid. Maybe he's just too craven, too pitifully afraid of being called bad names -- radical! anti-capitalist!! oh, horrors, socialist!!! -- by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to stand up for the people against the powerful, greedy and unscrupulous insurance industry.
Or maybe he's just another of the corporatist shills who sit like obedient school children in the semicircle of desks on the senate floor waiting for industry lobbyists to teach them what to do.
Insurance companies like the public option because it will give them a government-supported refuse heap on which to dump people with expensive health problems while the companies haul off premiums paid by healthy folks.
It's good business practice to cherry pick government contracts for goods and services that are cheap to provide while burdening the public with tough, costly problems. It's done all the time, in areas as diverse as security, transportation, education, utilities and prisons -- wherever public officials are too corrupt, stupid or craven to protect the public interest.The plan providing for a publicly funded insurance option being advanced by the administration and supported by most senate leaders (even Arlen Specter wants a public option provision) already represents a retreat from progressive policy. Universal public insurance -- the so-called single-payer system most familiar to us because it is the way that Canada provides for its citizens -- that removes insurance overhead and bureaucracy from the health care system is the method used in most countries, for good reason. It would be understandable that Kerry would support his president's proposal. But his effort to undermine even the public option can only be understood if you accept that the debate in the senate is not over the health of the people but the health -- the continued profits -- of the insurance industry.
Insurance companies have failed to control costs and rein in greed in the more than 60 years since FDR, in his call for an "Economic Bill of Rights," cited "the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health." Senator Kerry has to know the insurance companies aren't going to change now and or in ten years or in another half century, as he agreed when he supported the immediate adoption of the public option when it was first proposed by the president. Yet now he is willing to undermine the best chance this country has had to catch up with the rest of the world in providing its citizens with universal access to health care by neutering the White House's already timid proposal.
As the wealthiest solon, John Kerry is probably beyond the reach of corruption. And, although it's possible that a privileged lifestyle has rendered him clueless about the lives of the ordinary citizens he claims to represent, there is no evidence he is stupid. Maybe he's just too craven, too pitifully afraid of being called bad names -- radical! anti-capitalist!! oh, horrors, socialist!!! -- by Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to stand up for the people against the powerful, greedy and unscrupulous insurance industry.
Or maybe he's just another of the corporatist shills who sit like obedient school children in the semicircle of desks on the senate floor waiting for industry lobbyists to teach them what to do.
God must love the Clintonites...
...he made so many of them.
From the apparent intention to drag every Clinton administration veteran back to Washington from the lobbying company, law firm, brokerage house, or outpost of the academic gulag where eight years of exile were endured, to the perplexing consideration of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as secretary of state, President Change has become President StatusQuo more swiftly than you can say, Yes we can.
The absence of a strong set of political beliefs was part of candidate Obama's appeal. It allowed every supporter to project his own ambitions for the country on the blank face of "change." But now, that same absence of political agenda is enabling the center-right coalition that has run this country for its own benefit since Reagan to seize control of the next administration. Call it Clintonism with a new face.
The incoming White House chief of staff is Rahm Emmanuel, who was a staff assistant to President Clinton (and, not incidentally, as head of the last several Democratic House election efforts, the hatchet man who systematically undermined the candidacies of progressives in the Democratic primaries). Former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta is in overall charge of the transition team. Overseeing the selection of the foreign policy corps is former Clinton secretary of state Warren Christopher. And staffing defense is up to former senator Sam Nunn, not a Clinton intimate, exactly, but as head of the Senate armed services committee in the Clinton years intimately involved in crafting the militarized foreign policy of that era. The first important picks after Biden and Emmanuel: Clinton's impeachment attorney Gregory Craig as White House counsel and Ronald Klain, a former lobbyist who was a lawyer on Al Gore's vice presidential staff, as the new veep's legal adviser.
Bowles, Ian; Mathews Burwell, Sylvia; Campbell, Kurt; Cunningham, Nelson; Danzig, Richard; Downey, Mortimer;
Garvey, Jane; Gensler, Gary; Hochberg, Fred; Johnson, James; Lake, Anthony; McGinty, Kathleen; Ness, Susan; Rice, Susan; Sperling, Gene; Steinberg, James; Talbot, Strobe; Thompson, Mozelle; Witt, James Lee; Zoellick, Robert...the nice thing about this return of the politically undead is that lobbyists won't be compelled to waste a lot of energy updating their speed dialers. If he didn't throw out his old business cards, Lawrence Summers is really set; treasury under secretary Clinton, and partly responsible for our current economic mess, he is likely to get the same job from Obama.
Then there are short-list names one prays are no more than the latest examples of the Obama crew's mastery of political symbolism. John Kerry or Hillary Clinton at the state department (and what happened to Bill Richardson, anyway?). Al Gore as secretary of interior. Bill freaking Clinton at the UN. Excuse me, but wasn't getting rid of the Clintons the whole point of the rush to endorse Obama on SuperTuesday?
It's not that many of these people are not admirable in their own right, it's just that in their massed numbers, and in conjunction
with other appointment rumors -- retaining defense secretary Robert "The Surge Is Working" Gates; bringing back former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker as treasury secretary; putting GOP stalwarts Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar in charge, respectively, of defense and state (no, really, what did happen to Bill Richardson?); sending Jane Harman, the scary Democratic representative from Venice CA, to homeland security; giving education to Colin "Mea Culpa" Powell, as if he doesn't have enough to apologize for already -- they make it seem increasingly likely that the only change we're going to see is the kind that is confusingly difficult to distinguish from la même chose.
We thought we were throwing the bums out. Silly us.
From the apparent intention to drag every Clinton administration veteran back to Washington from the lobbying company, law firm, brokerage house, or outpost of the academic gulag where eight years of exile were endured, to the perplexing consideration of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as secretary of state, President Change has become President StatusQuo more swiftly than you can say, Yes we can.
The absence of a strong set of political beliefs was part of candidate Obama's appeal. It allowed every supporter to project his own ambitions for the country on the blank face of "change." But now, that same absence of political agenda is enabling the center-right coalition that has run this country for its own benefit since Reagan to seize control of the next administration. Call it Clintonism with a new face.
The incoming White House chief of staff is Rahm Emmanuel, who was a staff assistant to President Clinton (and, not incidentally, as head of the last several Democratic House election efforts, the hatchet man who systematically undermined the candidacies of progressives in the Democratic primaries). Former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta is in overall charge of the transition team. Overseeing the selection of the foreign policy corps is former Clinton secretary of state Warren Christopher. And staffing defense is up to former senator Sam Nunn, not a Clinton intimate, exactly, but as head of the Senate armed services committee in the Clinton years intimately involved in crafting the militarized foreign policy of that era. The first important picks after Biden and Emmanuel: Clinton's impeachment attorney Gregory Craig as White House counsel and Ronald Klain, a former lobbyist who was a lawyer on Al Gore's vice presidential staff, as the new veep's legal adviser.
Bowles, Ian; Mathews Burwell, Sylvia; Campbell, Kurt; Cunningham, Nelson; Danzig, Richard; Downey, Mortimer;
Garvey, Jane; Gensler, Gary; Hochberg, Fred; Johnson, James; Lake, Anthony; McGinty, Kathleen; Ness, Susan; Rice, Susan; Sperling, Gene; Steinberg, James; Talbot, Strobe; Thompson, Mozelle; Witt, James Lee; Zoellick, Robert...the nice thing about this return of the politically undead is that lobbyists won't be compelled to waste a lot of energy updating their speed dialers. If he didn't throw out his old business cards, Lawrence Summers is really set; treasury under secretary Clinton, and partly responsible for our current economic mess, he is likely to get the same job from Obama.Then there are short-list names one prays are no more than the latest examples of the Obama crew's mastery of political symbolism. John Kerry or Hillary Clinton at the state department (and what happened to Bill Richardson, anyway?). Al Gore as secretary of interior. Bill freaking Clinton at the UN. Excuse me, but wasn't getting rid of the Clintons the whole point of the rush to endorse Obama on SuperTuesday?
It's not that many of these people are not admirable in their own right, it's just that in their massed numbers, and in conjunction
with other appointment rumors -- retaining defense secretary Robert "The Surge Is Working" Gates; bringing back former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker as treasury secretary; putting GOP stalwarts Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar in charge, respectively, of defense and state (no, really, what did happen to Bill Richardson?); sending Jane Harman, the scary Democratic representative from Venice CA, to homeland security; giving education to Colin "Mea Culpa" Powell, as if he doesn't have enough to apologize for already -- they make it seem increasingly likely that the only change we're going to see is the kind that is confusingly difficult to distinguish from la même chose.We thought we were throwing the bums out. Silly us.
2008: A big man for a big job
Anybody who still doubts Fred Thompson will be the next president should consider this: he's 6'7", and the tallest candidate almost always wins.
This held true even in 2000, when 6'1" Al Gore ran against 5'11" George W. Bush. If you think back, you'll recall that Gore won.
Harder to explain is the outcome in 2004, when 6'4" John Kerry ran against Bush, but it has to be said in his defense that Kerry managed to overcome many advantages that year on the road to defeat (also, let's not forget that there were disputes about the vote in 2004, too [2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities], with the states of Florida and Ohio certifying returns that varied nearly 20% from exit polling [2004 United States presidential election controversy, exit polls]).
Parenthetically, at his August 2001 physical, Bush was supposedly 6' tall (Health and Medical History of George W. Bush), but the doctors probably just rounded up to make him seem more presidential. Medical spin. USA Today says that Bush is 5'11 3/4" (Time-tested formulas suggest both Bush and Kerry will win on Nov. 2) and Bush's much-discussed National Guard records listed him at 5'11" in his mid-20s. He doesn't appear to have grown any since then.
This held true even in 2000, when 6'1" Al Gore ran against 5'11" George W. Bush. If you think back, you'll recall that Gore won.
Harder to explain is the outcome in 2004, when 6'4" John Kerry ran against Bush, but it has to be said in his defense that Kerry managed to overcome many advantages that year on the road to defeat (also, let's not forget that there were disputes about the vote in 2004, too [2004 United States presidential election controversy and irregularities], with the states of Florida and Ohio certifying returns that varied nearly 20% from exit polling [2004 United States presidential election controversy, exit polls]).
Parenthetically, at his August 2001 physical, Bush was supposedly 6' tall (Health and Medical History of George W. Bush), but the doctors probably just rounded up to make him seem more presidential. Medical spin. USA Today says that Bush is 5'11 3/4" (Time-tested formulas suggest both Bush and Kerry will win on Nov. 2) and Bush's much-discussed National Guard records listed him at 5'11" in his mid-20s. He doesn't appear to have grown any since then.
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