In fact just last night/this morning I was scanning his list "WTF Has Obama Done So Far? R-rated!"
For you family people he does give you a pg version... I scrolled down the list. One thing that was interesting was the fact that under HRC-what the conservatives derisively term "ObamaCare" anyone under 65 who makes no more than 133% of the poverty line will be covered under Medicaid. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/your-money/health-insurance/22consumer.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=policy&adxnnlx=1311747725-XHLLzzjDT34uG8Vvv9Df9g
Now as noted above, the conservatives have derisively labeled it ObamaCare and have made opposition to it a litmus test for the GOP nomination for President. During the Congressional races of 2010, the Republicans actually ran against "cuts to Medicare" and "death panels and rationing."
Pretty impressive Trojan horse to run against cuts to Medicare-prompting their tea baggers to declare 'keep your dirty government hands of my Medicare.' A new watershed for political illiteracy. The woman who declared this must have been a Rush Limbaugh fan. Even now it was Al Franken who gave us the best working description of Rush's show: 'it's where you get punished for knowing things' Al said. He's right, listening to Rush provided you are not a complete ignoramus is like taking a test that is graded on a reverse curve-the more you know the lower your score.
Yet despite the fact of what HCR does-for starters as noted above, frees all who make 133% or less of the poverty line from worry by giving them guaranteed Medicaid, it was a supposed liberal site-Jane Hamsher's Firedoglake that went as far in late 2009-early 2010 as threaten any Democrat who supported HRC with a primary. Ms. Hamsher herself declared HCR so bad, so unworkable, that it was unsalavageable, better to be scrapped she argued.
What really makes you stand up and notice in this episode, is that Jane was making an argument that had currency only with the GOP. What further stands out is where she chose to argue this and whom she made common cause with in fighting for HRC to be killed. The tea party and even an appearance on FOX News to declare it unworkable.
For her attempts to break bread with the tea party see here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/will-palin-and-the-neocon_b_456824.html
http://washingtonindependent.com/79406/tea-partiers-working-with-firedoglake-on-hcr-whip-count
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/22/817902/-Tea-Party-activist-David-McKalip-agrees-with-Jane-Hamsher
See also her Fox News appearnce with Steve Doocy
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=1501
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9F_J_sbeU8
This was all because of the failure to include the public option. On balance I would have preferred the public option. Nevertheless as even a cursory glance(again see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/your-money/health-insurance/22consumer.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=policy&adxnnlx=1311747725-XHLLzzjDT34uG8Vvv9Df9g) shows the major benefits it's beyond me to figure out how Hamsher could honestly believe having everyone under 65 making up to 133% of the poverty level and disallowing insurance companies from being able to deny people with a preexisting condition or dropping someone after they get sick-and giving insurance to up to 32 million previously uninsured Americans) would be worse than the status. quo.
Hamsher-and her friend Salon' Glenn Greenwald-have both been believers in the "transpartisan" movement for a long time. See Greenwald's 2008 Salon article http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2008/08/08/accountability
I do think they overrate the supposed benefits of 'transpartisanship', but let's start with the example of HCR. Hamsher worked-or at the minimum consulted with-tea party groups and argued on FOX for it to be defeated. As I noted above the fact that a liberal joined the GOP plea to go back to the drawing board just seems pretty counter-intuitive. There are those who felt her appearing on Steve Doocy was surprising enough. She no doubt would argue that if the tea baggers-or even FOX News and the GOP party establishment-agree with her there's no trouble as what matters is "principle not party."
Fair enough, but let's consider the intellectual argument that she used in arguing against HRC on Doocy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9F_J_sbeU8
She begins by addressing middle class America by warning that "if you like your employer health insurance" that taxes imposed by HCR "actually cause it to be worse." That they will be cut due to higher taxes, more expensive co-pays, essentially they will be more expensive to beat the cost curve.
See how she doesn't focus on it's best features like we noted above, those under 65 who make no more than 133% of the poverty line will be covered under Medicaid or that no longer can you be denied coverage due to preexisting conditions nor can you be dropped when you get sick-overall up to 32 million new Americans will be covered under health insurance.
She instead focuses on middle class Americans and attempts to spook them about higher taxes or co-pays. Of course as is true so often when in these kinds of discussions we talk about "the middle class" the term can be used far too broadly. Similar, for example, to conservative opponents of the inheritance tax who claims it's a terrible burden on "small business owners" another term which can be slippery.
Intuitively phrases like "the middle class" and "small business owners" are political winners as most people think of themselves as "middle class' and therefore the virtious, hardworking class-as opposed to the idle rich or poor-and the same goes for "small business owners" a designation the conservatives(Stephen Moore, Larrry Kudlow, as well as Jane's freind Grover Norquist) use interchangeable with "entrepeneurs" and of course "job creators."
When Jane warns (by definiton middle class) America that if "you" like your employer provided health care, your taxes are gonna go up and this "causes it to actually be worse" who exactly does she have in mind? What income level is this "you?"
There's no question that affluent tax payers will have to pay more taxes to fund it. But the way she presents it on FOX is, well, all too appropriate for FOX as it blurs the line between the middle class and the rich.
As it happens beginning in 2013 "affluent families with annual income above $250,000 would be required to pay an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income, while contributing more to the Medicare program from their payroll taxes. And eventually, the most expensive insurance policies would be subject to a new tax. "
Is your health insurance one of the most expensive? If not you won't be subject to a new tax.
Again what is striking is that it is a classic Right-wing argument she makes encouraging Americans to worry that "their taxes are gonna go up" when actually it's only a small group wealthy tax payers who are gonna see a hike.
This is the kind of argument you will see on FOX any day of the week or read on the WSJ editorial page or on the home page of the Cato Insitute. However most Americans don't see a tax hike on the wealthy to pay for more soical services as draconian. Has her friendship with Norquist effected her ideologically?
Indeed many of the wealthy say, "I can pay more, tax me more!" to no avail-including the world's two wealthiest men Buffet and Gates have asked.
And of course, for the most part Jane's FDL site is full of diaryists who you would be hard pressed to come up with any scenario which they found to be too hard on the rich or taxing the rich too much. Jane herself certainly wants to see the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire-as I do-so this was out of character for her borrowing from the Cato Insitute's playbook.
Her next knock on "ObamaCare" was about drug importation, she complained that this wasn't in it. I too would have preferred it to be though it was strange to here this argument made on FOX who as the propaganda network for the GOP never has been much of an advocate for drug importation. I agree though I would have liked to see that in the bill.
She also complained about no negotiation on Medicare part D prescription drug prices. This too I do agree I wanted to see that. One of the things we in the liberal blogosphere have suffered from in recent years-I spoke with someone who reads KOS regularly about my recent banning- see previous two posts!-
and she suggests this problem begun to really show itself in the 2007 "pie-throwing contest" (actually this was Hamsher's word at the time) surrounding the Obama-Clinton primary-is more and more visceral polarization right in the heart of supposedly Blue America.
This is why though my blog name makes clear, Republicans are my enemy and all who want a progressive future for our country, I've had to speak to some of these conflicts in recent posts. I feel that to not do so would not ring true, to ignore a major current in today's blue state America.
As someone who has posted-4 times so far-in the belly of the beast-I know firsthand how they feel about anyone who supports Obama at all. While they claim that we are mindless "Obamabots" incapable of criticizing the President it's actually the opposite: they simply don't allow any support for him, the idea that you can support him but not unreservedly seems to not have occurred to them.
They take major offense at the word "firebagger" yet they have no greater pleasure than yet another post razzing "Obambots" with Lady Hamsher herself recently declaring all Obama supporters "dumb motherfuckers."
Speaking only for myself, I have criticsms of Obama in his first term, and have always made them, some quite serious. I too actually was disappointed there was no public option and wondered if-as FDL-believes he ever tried very hard for it. It didn't seem so to me either. And I certainly was disappointed with no drug importation from Canada and no negotiation for prescription drugs.
As you can see then I actually agree with Hamsher, et al. on some of their criticsms of HCR. My difference is it still on balance is a marked improvement over the status quo.
A lot of it comes down to glass half empty/half full. Sure it was not single payer(which I myself don't support) or was there a pubic option-this to me is the optimum scenario. We can test the private and public options against each other. If after this few want private insurance then people have voted with their feet.
While I'm not a socialist it is possible that health care could be like education-even though we live in a capitalist economy we have had public education since the 19th century because this is recongized a public need which will be served best by public insitiutions. But as this is America and we are much more market based than other countries-and you do here stories that public healthcare has it's drawbacks too-namely lack of choice-the pubic option seems optimum.
The glass is half full when you realize that liberal Democrats have sought health insurance for all starting with FDR-he was able to get everything else in his Social Insurance agenda by the 1950s-Old Age Insurance(what we think of as Social Security today was oringinally just one of the 4 pillars of FDR's vision of Social Insurance which later came to be called Social Security), Unemployment Insurance, Disability Insurance and Health Insurance(the definitve book on this is Nacy Altman's "The Battle for Soical Security)-and none to Obama was ablle to achieve it-LBJ was closest with his Medicare program which gave it at least to the old, eventually expanded to Medicaid.
Even if you find HCR wanting-as I've made clear I find it wanting in some ways too-what the history of FDR's SS shows is that it can and will be improved upon. No reason why in the future, drug importation or prescription drug negotiaton can not be phased in. This is what happened when Medicare later phased in Medicaid and with SS itself where it originally covered so few people and promised much less than it came to.
Even the criticsm of HCR for waiting all the way to 2014 is exactly how SS started with where it was initially supposed to wait till 1942-7 years after it's passage, eventually FDR got it started in 1940 in time for the election.
One of the problems I have with Hamsher's forays into "transpartisanship" is she never scruples about why her strange bedfellows might join with her. This is true of her alliance with Norquist to demand that Holder go after Emmanuel-she even demanded he step down prior to any investigation. She never wondered why Norquist-whose state goal is to shrink the government till it can be drowned in a bath tub might join hands with her-who presumably feels quite differently about the role of government in a good society.
You would think so as she has being pushing the panic buttion recently that Obama has even mentioned the possiblity of cuts in SS-never even admitting that whatever he said was vague, well too vague to please Errick Erickson or Eric Cantor.
If Norquist has this goal for "big governemnt" isn't it likely that whatever his motivations, he must have understood them as furthering his goal of downsizing government?
When Hamsher worked with the tea party-and though she tries to dfferentiate in this case also with the Congressional GOP leadership-did she ever consider that in taking their line: HCR has to be scrapped, we should go back to the drawing board, the reason for their position-whatever hers was-is because they didn't want a bill at all?
Maybe she really believed it was possible to scrap the entire framework and come back to it in the near future this was not their assumption? And considering that the last time a health care proposal was defeated-Hillary's back in 1993-it took 16 years to get back on the table, that they're assumption is much more realistic than hers?
To have scrapped HCR would have meant perhaps another close to 20 years till it got on the table again. And again, her premise that no matter what it's shortcomings could not be revised and imporved on through the years as with SS and Medicare is not easy to understand.
Beyond that some of her alliances are with people who are just odious
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/22/817902/-Tea-Party-activist-David-McKalip-agrees-with-Jane-Hamsher
"For those who don't know, Tea Party activist David McKalip is the Florida neurosurgeon who sent the now famous picture of President Barack Obama as a Witch Doctor last summer. Now this teabagger leader, who describes himself as "libertarian", is reaching out to Liberal critics of the current senate bill in order to build an alliance with thim to derail the Health Care reform."
Alliances with people like McKalip and Errick Erickson just increase the question begging.
The reason I find the question of someone like Hamsher and her site FDL so vexing is because it honestly seems that there are people there who seem to either want the defeat of the Democrats in 2012 or who are very naively tyring to bring it about.
I will have more to say about this presently. For now my main concern is that we must build on the real opportunity to take back the House in 2012. The GOP has so manifestly overeached since November that there is real opporunity alongside in the state recalls in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, et al.
Honestly believe that if Obama were to lose in 2012 this country could be in for some real troubling times ahead-civil war, violence, anarchy for his defeat would more or less show there is no electoral solution to our predicament and there would be those who will see some pretty serious extra-electoral means.
But as you can see, blue state America there is no justified reason to give in to such defeatism! Continue to do what you do, support places like Wisconsin, and elsewhere and feel free to leave links to other things we can do in your comments.
Obviously any perspective in the comments are welcome whether you love FDL hate it, never read, it, same goes for KOS
It seems to me that there is still a book that needs to be written about the rise of the liberal blogosphere.
In 1998 I-as many liberals did-would be stuck listening to Limbaugh Lewisnsky-bait all day with no comparable popular medium for us.
Now we seem to have many such mediums but they often seem to be getting away from all of us. The closest we have for a book about all this so far is Media Matters own Erick Boehlert' "Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press" which talks about Hamsher some, actually a lot more about Daily KOS but they were first so not surprising.
But there are a lot of chapters to write since Bohler's book, though it is good.
Alliances with people like McKalip and Errick Erickson just increase the question begging.
The reason I find the question of someone like Hamsher and her site FDL so vexing is because it honestly seems that there are people there who seem to either want the defeat of the Democrats in 2012 or who are very naively tyring to bring it about.
I will have more to say about this presently. For now my main concern is that we must build on the real opportunity to take back the House in 2012. The GOP has so manifestly overeached since November that there is real opporunity alongside in the state recalls in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, et al.
Honestly believe that if Obama were to lose in 2012 this country could be in for some real troubling times ahead-civil war, violence, anarchy for his defeat would more or less show there is no electoral solution to our predicament and there would be those who will see some pretty serious extra-electoral means.
But as you can see, blue state America there is no justified reason to give in to such defeatism! Continue to do what you do, support places like Wisconsin, and elsewhere and feel free to leave links to other things we can do in your comments.
Obviously any perspective in the comments are welcome whether you love FDL hate it, never read, it, same goes for KOS
It seems to me that there is still a book that needs to be written about the rise of the liberal blogosphere.
In 1998 I-as many liberals did-would be stuck listening to Limbaugh Lewisnsky-bait all day with no comparable popular medium for us.
Now we seem to have many such mediums but they often seem to be getting away from all of us. The closest we have for a book about all this so far is Media Matters own Erick Boehlert' "Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press" which talks about Hamsher some, actually a lot more about Daily KOS but they were first so not surprising.
But there are a lot of chapters to write since Bohler's book, though it is good.
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