Mad as hell

Those who might have consulted this page in the past 3 months will have noticed that there's been nothing new. Truth is, I had pretty well convinced myself that I lacked the energy to keep coming up with new fusillades. But the assaults on truth, sense and honesty multiply and, to quote a famous speech from a two-star movie, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.

So be warned: Expect to see more fulminations in the coming days.

(Oh, and I hope that future quotations will be less trite.)

Safety doesn't pay

While the rest of the world is waiting to see if the BP well in the Gulf can be capped, NPR has been looking at our last industrial disaster, the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that killed 29 miners. The network discovered that mine owner Massey Energy routinely pulled the wool over the eyes of Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors.

Fortunately, under the Obama administration, the MSHA seems to be taking its role of protecting mine workers more seriously than it did in former years. The agency has made a number of surprise inspections of Massey mines. Inspectors were following up on tips that the company was not hanging safety curtains that are supposed to direct air to the face of the shaft, dilute methane and keep down coal dust, which can not only explode but is the cause of black lung. The result:

MSHA coal administrator Kevin Stricklin said inspectors blitzed the Massey mines and stopped people from tipping off workers inside. "We captured the phone and we went underground and unfortunately in all three of these cases, we found the anonymous tips were true," Stricklin said.

Massey is worse than other employers--and its errors are more likely to cause loss of life--but its behavior is perfectly understandable when we remember what corporations exist for: to make money. Not to be nice to workers. Not to provide safe workplaces. To make money.

Now, some people (like your editor) would argue that better working conditions mean more productive workers, a greater likelihood of being able to hire high-quality employees and less turnover. All of which contributes to profitability, or should. But it's hard to measure such things, whereas dollars saved on safety equipment, and more hours spent cutting coal, because the time supposed to be spent on safety is cut, all go directly to the bottom line.

The tendency to cut back on safety--and analogous measures like environmental protection--is exacerbated in a climate in which the stock market values the last quarter more than the last quarter-century. In today's economy, the company that cares about worker safety or protecting the environment starts out behind those who don't.

So industry cannot be left to its own devices when it comes to the health and safety of its workers or the protection of the public. Capitalism is fine when it comes to separating companies that can make money in a dog-eat-dog world from those that can't. But pure capitalism does not care whit about other matters. So Massey Energy and BP will go on their merry way, killing people and harming the world we live in, as long as they can.

Which is why we need strong, effective government. Which ought to be obvious, and was for many years, but is today threatened by a rising tide of ignorance.

Grayson strikes again

The irrepressible Alan Grayson asks why you'd want to put Republicans in charge of government, when they "don't want to do it. " And more. Watch.

Political Self-Destruction 101

You've probably heard that newly-anointed Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul had a very long 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday evening. First, he went on Rachel Maddow's show and suggested that the public-accommodations section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was so problematic that he might have voted against the entire act had had he been in Congress then. (For some of us, he actually made it worse by suggesting that the law should not ban people from carrying weapons into restaurants. If the Long Branch could do it, why not us?)

The Paul tried to walk it back, saying that, yes, the federal government may ban racial discrimination in private business. That may have been less of a change in his position than it may sound like; I don't hear his original comment as saying that the Constitution prevents legislation to outlaw discrimination, just that it's a bad idea. Not exactly a full-throated endorsement of the Civil Rights Act.

Then, at about 2:00 p.m. yesterday, Paul said that he does not support repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Which puts him on the same page as every member of the US Congress and everyone this side of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation. And, by saying that he does not favor repeal of an act that's sacrosanct, he raises the question of whether he actually does.

Finally, at about 5:00 p.m., the would-be senator told CNN that, yes, he would have voted for the law had he been in Congress when it came up.

Quite a first day as his party's candidate. Welcome to the big leagues, Dr. Paul.

This incident tells us several things about Rand Paul, and the forces he is said to represent. First, he is an ideologue, and one who has not thought through the implications of his philosophy. The problem with libertarianism is that, carried to its logical conclusion, it leads to results that are anything but liberty. May a group of people, exercising their individual rights, form a lynch mob?

Then, too, Dr. Paul (he's an ophthalmologist) seems proud that he is not a "professional politician;" rather than serving an apprenticeship in local or statewide offices, he makes his first attempt at what is often called the second-highest office in the land. But legislating is a skill. It needs the ability to master detail, to deal with multiple issues at the same time, to understand the implications of positions on bills--even those that might not be immediately apparent--and to negotiate. Senators vote on trillions (that's "trillions" with a "T") of dollars in appropriations and borrowings each year. The Senate is no place for amateurs.

Update: The hits just keep on coming. Today on Good Morning America, Rand Paul accused President Obama of putting his "boot heel on the throat of BP," and called criticism of the company "un-American." That's going to endear him to the 98 percent of Americans who think the government isn't grinding that boot heel in hard enough. And doesn't he realize that the company is BRITISH Petroleum?

Where are you going to spend eternity?

That was the title on a pamphlet handed to me today. Distributed by the Fellowship Tract League of Lebanon, OH, it is "free as the Lord provides." Pardon my cynicism, but I see the hand of man involved in the process, although I think that is good. If God can't get man involved, maybe he's doing something wrong.

I'm not going to comment on the content of the brochure I got. Some will, undoubtedly, find its message attractive and perhaps comforting. Fine for them.

As for me, as I've noted before, I'm going to Hell. No disrespect to the folks at the Fellowship Tract League, whom I don't know--their pamphlet was given to me as I walked by--but after seeing the folks who are sure they're on their way to Heaven, the idea of spending eternity with them is, well, hell. So I'm on my way to the other place.

Four words

Four words make a complete case against the "small government" folks--the ones who want to limit government in its dealings with corporations and agglomerations of private power.

Actually, the case is made by a pair of two-word phrases. They are:

Massey Energy

and

British Petroleum

Doesn't look good

This page tends to downplay the so-called anti-incumbent fervor said to be sweeping the nation. For instance, while it's true that Sen. Arlen Specter (R/D. PA) was voted out in Democratic Party's primary, recall that until a year ago he was a long-time Republican. To paraphrase an old saying, Democrats may have welcomed the convert, but were unlikely to elect him Pope. Or in this case, Senator.

I don't mean to say that there is no anti-incumbent feeling abroad in the land--there is. We saw that in Utah, where Bob Bennett (R. UT) was swept from office. Will that feeling last to November? There, we have doubts.

For one incumbent, Blanche Lincoln (D. AR), things do not look good, however. Check this graph of her poll numbers vs. those of her Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.

Lincoln does not have until November to see if hostility to incumbents fades; the primary run-off will be held June 8th.

Have you noticed?

I've said for a long time that the secret to being a pundit is never to look back. You predicted that Specter would trounce Sestak, that John McCain would beat that young guy Obama, that W was toast after he invaded Iraq? Never give a hint that you said those things--just go forward with your fearless forecasts.

The point of my maundering is to note that we're not hearing much from all those people who complained that democracy was broken, that incumbents had such a lock on public office that the voters couldn't make themselves heard. Now, all we hear is how incumbents are an endangered species.

That is an exaggeration, too. Just don't remind me that I said so...

The end of civilization as we know it

NBC cancels Law and Order.

(Now we know why it is the 3rd place network.)

Making Mississippi look good

In its campaign to make Mississippi look progressive, Arizona has decreed that those with "heavy" accents can no longer teach English.

Hmmm. So Arizona would keep Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, or Hugh Grant from teaching English?

As the lovely Diane points out, wouldn't it make more sense to keep people who can't speak other languages properly from teaching them? Legions of French teachers who, with the best will in the world, could not pronounce "J'entre dans la salle de classe" come to mind.

Just a thought

David Cameron does not look like a Prime Minister. He looks like the Prime Minister on a BBC sitcom.

The wrath of G_d?

As you've probably heard, Oklahoma recently passed a pair of statutes designed to place further obstacles in the way of women seeking constitutionally-protected abortions. Shortly thereafter, the state was pummeled by a series of tornadoes.

So, how come we don't hear any of the panjandrums who are so certain that they know the will of the Almighty telling us that this is Oklahoma's punishment?

Just wondering.

Wingnuts rule!

The saying goes that revolutions eat their young. The Tea Party faction of the Republican Party exhibited such behavior over the weekend, when their supporters ended the senatorial career of Robert Bennett (R.UT).

Bob Bennett is extremely conservative. Like really, really conservative. But he is not a yahoo, like, say Tom Coburn or James Inhofe (both R. OK). No firebrand, Bennett is the kind of person that conservatives need--a steady, reliable vote who is willing to speak civilly with those across the aisle and will not terrify the legion of independents.

That's not good enough for the radicals who are taking over the GOP. They only want fire-breathing true-believers.

I've already gone out on a limb and said publicly that the Democrats will not do as badly in the mid-term elections as is widely expected. They may lose seats--that's normal in off-years. But as the six months to November unreel, I expect that the sensible center will begin to reject the anger and simple-minded nostrums of the extremists. Even if I am wrong about 2010, even if the anger in the nation is even deeper--and broader--than it seems, the Republican Party has taken a turn down the road to irrelevance.

The right place?

Palestinians and Israelis have begun indirect peace talks under US auspices. We should hope that they will be successful, but no one expects rapid results.

It strikes me that a more important locale for the US to expend energy on peacemaking would be between India and Pakistan. I make no claim to expertise, but it seems as if the issues in the sub-continent, though anything but simple, are less complex than those in the Middle East. And if a real peace treaty could be attained, it would have direct and immediate benefits to American interests. To begin with, it would free the largest part of Pakistan's military to cope with the Taliban and al Qaeda, and probably permit the nation to reduce its overall military expenditures as well, thereby much improving its economic prospects.

The time for gun control is past

Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square car bomber, was the legal owner of a Kel-Tec Sub Rifle 2000, a weapon that The New York Times described as "fearsome looking, a hybrid of a pistol and a long gun." A semi-automatic weapon with a telescoping stock, it could be concealed with ease under a coat, and provide a terrorist with just the weapon he needs to kill a large number of people in a place like Times Square.t s

And this weapon was bought legally in Connecticut, not obtained at some gun show or bought from a gun-runner in Georgia or Virginia.

It's time to stop talking about gun control and start talking about gun sanity.

Debatable

A GOP candidate for governor of Alabama wants to give drivers' license tests only in English. "This is Alabama; we speak English," Tim James says in a new ad.

That, of course, is a debatable assertion.

Give it back

I didn't see the Senate hearings where Goldman Sachs executives got grilled for sending the financial system into a ditch, but from what I've seen and heard about it, something was missing.

At one point, Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO, was asked how much of a bonus he got last year. $9 million was the answer.

And that was where one of the Senators should have told him to give it back. Indeed, all of the 2009 bonuses at G-S--which were "earned" directly or indirectly thanks to the willingness of the American people to clean up the mess the bankers made--should be given back.

Now I know that G-S did not get bailout money, at least not directly. And no part of it is owned by the government; whether the reverse is the case is an open question. But its bankers could return some of the largesse they received by contributing their bonuses to the Treasury. That's legal. Indeed, every year, the Treasury receives gifts from grateful citizens. The bankers could even earmark (yes!) their contributions to reduce the deficit, to which they contributed so mightily.

So, why didn't any of the Senators say, "Give it back!"

Just a thought

The conventional wisdom is that the greatest contribution to resolving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be a peace between Israel and the Palestinians. While that would be a development of tremendous importance, wouldn't a peace between India and Pakistan be of even more value?

And while we're talking about the sub-continent, isn't the obvious solution to more than sixty years of war and tension to re-unite the two parts of what was India before the partition of 1947?

Is he a Senator or a 4-year old?

The Constitution says you have to be 30 to serve in the Senate. But that doesn't mean that you have to act like an adult.

Exhibit A: Lindsay Graham (R. SC), who has withdrawn support for climate change legislation, because he's in a snit over Harry Reid's decision to advance immigration on the Senate agenda.

Graham charges that Reid is playing politics over immigration. Well, duh. What game does Graham think he's in?

What I've been up to

Well, one thing: Three of my friends in the plaintiffs' civil rights bar and I went to today's Tea Party rally in Boston to distribute free copies of the Constitution.

In case you can't read the sign, it says: Unconstitutional?

Read the actual Constitution of the United States

Free!

We gave away our entire supply (approximately 300 copies) of Constitutions in 40 minutes. At which point I left. So, no, I did not have to listen to Sarah Palin's maunderings.

President Hu is coming to Washington

Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend a summit conference on nuclear security later this month. Which, inevitably--given a sophomoric sense of humor--inspired the following (with obeisances to Bud Abbott and Lou Costello):

President Hu is coming to Washington!

Who did you say?

Yes.

Who?

That's right!

What?

I just told you, President Hu is coming.

He is?

Yes.

Who is he?

Yes, that's it.

Ok, let's try it this way. What is he president of?

China.

Who is?

you've got it. He is!

That's what I'm trying to find out. Who is he?

He's the President.

Who is?

Haven't you been listening to me?

Yes. And I'm still waiting for you to tell me who is the President of China.

I've BEEN telling you that.

The challenge to the Pope--and the Papacy

The headline on yesterday's Boston Herald echoed a question I have been asking since last week: "Can the Pope Survive?"

As the lovely Diane pointed out when I expressed that, short of murder there is no way for the Church hierarchy to remove a Pope, and despite a number of popular novels positing plots for papal homicide, we surely don't expect that.

On the other hand, there are levels of survival. Given the burgeoning sexual abuse scandal across Europe, the present occupant of St. Peter's throne might conceivably be "forgotten but not gone," if the Vatican does not do much more to address what has happened, and the responsibility of high officials in the church for allowing it to continue for so long after the pattern became clear. Today's New York Times has an account of Palm Sunday reactions to the scandal from several cities in Europe and the United States. Including this telling comment from an Austrian woman in her '60s:

To think of Jesus Christ is one thing. To think of the pope is another.

Coming from an older woman from one of the most Catholic countries on Earth, that is exactly what the Church hierarchy should fear: the separation of the Church from Jesus, and Jesus from the Church.

(You might wonder why I, a non-Catholic, comment on this issue. Coming from the most Catholic large city in the United States, the Church has always had a presence in my life. And the Church is a very important institution, for good, ill or neither, and thus of significance to all of us.)

A crock

So there was Sara Palin campaigning for former running mate John McCain (R.AZ) on Friday, and NPR had a clip of her saying, "I'm a commercial fisherman, and we know that only dead fish go with the flow," followed by predictable cheers from the crowd.

You've probably heard that phrase before, but have you ever stopped to think about it?

It's a crock. In truth, all fish spend most of their lives going with the flow, and I daresay that many of them never go against it. Why do sharks and whales appear in northern water in the summer, but not the winter? Because they go with ocean currents, that's why. Even the salmon--the fish that we think of as going against the flow--goes with the flow on its way down rivers to the sea. And when it mounts that fight back upstream--impelled not by courage but by atavistic biological imperative--remember that it's going to spawn and die.

Yesterday, Palin and allies gathered in Searchlight, Nevada, hometown of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.NV). Strikes me that pretty much all of the countries where they could do that without getting hit with water cannon, tear gas or police batons are governed by the kind of social democratic governments that the Tea Partiers disdain. Maybe they should think about that.

The best gift Democrats could wish for

Have you heard about the new Harris poll of 2230 Republicans that found that:

57 percent of them believe that President Obama is a Muslim

45 percent believe that the President was not born in the United States

38 percent believe that Obama "is doing many of the things Hitler did"

24 percent believe that Obama "may be the Antichrist"

(Presumably Jewish Republicans--of which, I regret to say, there are some--were not among the last group.)

As Jim Farley said of FDR, "We love him for the enemies he's made." Or, to turn an old saying on its head, "With enemies like these..."

Maybe I was wrong

Regular readers may recall that I have taken Democrats to task for not reaching out to elements of the Tea Party crowd who are justifiably angry with a system that--even a year into Barack Obama's presidency--seems stacked against the "ordinary" American.

After seeing the disgraceful, racist, homophobic behavior of the Tea Party crowd in D.C. this past weekend--using the ultimate racist slur against the great John Lewis, a hero of 20th Century America, and insults at my congressman, the inimitable Barney Frank--maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps the Tea Partiers really do represent all that is evil about American populism.

Still, I have hopes that there are responsible citizens who were attracted by the Tea Party movement but will now be repelled by the antics of the demonstrators in Washington, and propelled into a more serious effort to change our politics to reflect the interests of the great mass of our people. If there are such citizens, Democrats should reach out to them.

The heat of the matter

The Indian Army weaponizes chili.

One more down

According to AP, Mit Romney told a book-signing in San Diego that the health-care reform package is unconstitutional, because it interferes with interstate commerce.

That view ought to disqualify the Mittster from running for President again. You'd think that it should be a basic requirement for wanting to be the person who takes an oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution that he or she would actually have some understanding of the document that established our Republic. Clearly, Mitt does not.

The Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution, part of Section 8 of Article I, defining the power of Congress, states, that "The Congress shall have the power...To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states..." Regulation necessarily implies interference. Commerce that is not regulated is, by its nature, not interfered with--at least not by the government. (As no less an authority than Adam Smith knew, government regulation is in some cases preferable to the interference in the market of unchecked private interests, but that is another matter.)

So Mitt turns the Constitution on its head.

Romney was at one time a serious figure. He has become--like most Republicans on the national scene--a buffoon.

(Josh Marshall is of the view that if health-care is still an issue in 2012, that will put paid to Romney's chances for the GOP nomination, because he would be too ripe a target for Democrats pointing to his sponsorship of health-care reform in Massachusetts that is strikingly similar to the plan passed by the House on Sunday night. Hypocrisy has not stood in the Mittster's way in the past, however; viz. 2008. Yet there are those who still think him a serious candidate for the nomination next time. The GOPher party has become such a rodomontade that anything is possible, even likely.)

Wages

The New Testament tells us that the wages of sin are death. What are the wages of ignorance? National decline, perhaps?

Consider this: Last month, the South Dakota House of Representatives passed a resolution declaring that astrology is a factor in global warming. Not only that, but the South Dakota solons also ruled that thermology is also a contributor to climate change. Not familiar with thermology? It is the analysis of detailed infrared images of the human body. Who knew? Apparently, only South Dakota's political elite.

(In fairness, the South Dakota Senate later passed a measure--but only by a razor-thin majority--to delete references to astrology and thermology. But the rest of the measure questioning global warming remained intact.)

This story would be merely an amusing instance of Churchill being right, if it were not one more example of the march of militant ignorance upon our society. Down in Texas this week, a bunch of right-wing zealots proud of their anti-intellectualism ordered the state to adopt a social studies curriculum that enshrines their simplistically-Christian, politically "conservative" view of the world; that decision will control the state's study of history and civics for a decade (likely long after the people of the Lone Star State have come to their senses and thrown these yahoos out of office) and, because Texas buys more textbooks than just about anyone, will spill over to the studies of millions of students in other states, many of which are markedly less hostile to actual knowledge.

As Prof. Steven Salzberg of the University of Maryland whose blog post discusses the South Dakota inanity in detail, points out, the tactic of the anti-intellectuals is familiar by now: challenge scientific knowledge with religion or, lacking support in someone's version of the Bible, the views of some minority of scientists (who have probably been bought off by industries with an interest in obscuring the truth), then demand that schools teach the controversy.

Americans like to think of themselves as fair-minded, so the idea of giving all sides equal time has strong appeal. Who could object? But what if one side is clearly right (the world is round) and the other is clearly wrong (the world is flat)? Then we are wasting time and energy by presenting both sides.

Oh, and those who argue for teaching the controversy don't really mean it. They want to teach both sides where they have the weak side of the argument. Evolution is the most common example these days. (When I was growing up, we thought the Scopes Monkey Trial had consigned literal belief in the Bible's creation story to the far, far boondocks. Apparently, ignorance is like kudzu.) But the proponents of giving both sides equal weight falter when that would mean giving equal time to those whose ideas they reject. Thus, the board that controls teaching in Texas rejected a book by a well known young-adult author, because (ignorance strikes again) they confused him with an author of Marxist bent. You won't find equal time for socialist ideas in the Texas social studies curriculum.

Meanwhile, the United States faces challenges from nations that take education seriously and use it to make themselves stronger in the challenge for world markets.

The NEA, I think it was, put out a bumper sticker a few years ago, that read, "IF YOU THINK EDUCATION IS EXPENSIVE, TRY IGNORANCE."

Ignorance is no bargain at any price. attributing global warming, in part, to "astrological dynamics." That's astrology to you and me. Yep. Not only that, the legislators declared that there are also thermological constituents to climate change. Not familiar with thermology, like the members of the South Dakota House (well, a majority of them; let's not tar the rest by association)? It's the study of

Miah

We are sorry to report that our beloved Miah passed away on Saturday February 20th. She seemed to be entirely healthy until this week, when she became listless and seemingly in some distress. A visit to the vet was inconclusive and we took her to Angell Memorial Hospital to see if she might have eaten something that had got caught in her digestive system. A doctor there noticed fluid around her lungs and suspected a heart problem. An echocardiogram revealed dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition that is always fatal in cats unless brought on by a deficiency in taurine, an amino acid. As all commercial cat food has taurine, that was not a realistic possibility. We hoped that Miah's condition might improve and that she would be able to come home for at least a short time, but it was not to be. Despite medication and a heated and oxygen enriched cage, her blood pressure stayed very low and she became increasingly sluggish. Further medication might have been tried, but it was clear that that would extend her life by, at most, only a few days. So we decided to save her further distress and to let her go.

This was all a shock to us, especially as Miah was the athlete in the family, always running and jumping and investigating new things. The photo above was taken just last week, as Miah checked out the wrapping paper from Diane's Valentine's Day present.

She did not have a long life--she was about two months short of her third birthday when she died--but we think it was a happy one. She had no pain and no distress until the last few days of her life. She certainly got lots of love. We'll always remember her with a smile.

Now her sister, Sassy, rules the house, although we have pointed out to her that she is going to have to put up with a lot more loving.

One of those amazing stories

Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction. Take the story of Joseph R. Beyrle, who jumped into Normandy with the 101st Airborne, and wound up fighting with the Soviets less than a year later.

And to top it off, his son is now the US ambassador to Russia.

An exhibit on Beyrle's life has now opened in a museum in St. Petersburg, and will move to Moscow in May. It is called, "Joseph R. Beyrle--a Hero of Two Nations," but his son said that his father maintained that the real heroes were the ones who never came back from the war.

He's a regular Nostradamus

Dick "The War Criminal" Cheney predicted to a group of conservative activists that Barack Obama will be a one-term president.

Didn't he also predict that Iraqis would welcome American troops as liberators?

(In fairness to the former VP, Obama is only serving one term. At a time.)

"Th' Supreme Court follows th' illiction returns"

No matter whether th' Constitution follows th' flag or not, th' Supreme Court follows th' illiction returns.

Finley Peter Dunne

Finley Peter Dunne's Mr. Dooley said that more than a hundred years ago, and it's been received political wisdom ever since. If Mr. Dooley was, indeed, right, the court is soon to undergo a huge shake-up. Seems that 80 percent of Americans think that the recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which opened up the floodgates of corporate money in political campaigns, was misguided. (TONE thinks it was worse than that.) Almost three-quarters of respondents think Congress should take action to reinstate limits on spending, with a majority feeling strongly about the issue.

In the past--viz. the 1930's--one justice (the "swing" justice) shifted his position. In 1937. it was Owen Roberts. Today, given the hard-right orientation of four of the justices, it would have to be Anthony Kennedy. Or, the retirement of one of those who were in the majority in Citizens United, although that does not seem likely. Still, in the end, justices of the Supreme Court are political persons. They know that the court can only get so far ahead (or behind) the people before it damages itself as an institution; some of us would say that Citizens United, especially following as it does the discredited Bush v. Gore has done so.

Time to follow the electorate.

Barney Frank on health care reform

My Congressman, Barney Frank, sent a lengthy message to those who wrote to him about health care reform. (My email included the phrase PASS THE SENATE BILL three times.) He is not only a Washington insider, but an extremely thoughtful and intelligent man. His words are, I suggest, worth pondering even if you don't necessarily agree with everything he has to say--as I don't, or at least didn't before I read what he has to say. Here are some of his thoughts:

Substantively, I support legislation to provide universal coverage. My own preference would be a single-payer system. I believe that the Medicare system - in which I am now enrolled and have been for several years - works better than the private insurance systems, although it is obviously not perfect and needs some changes. But I also recognize that we are not close to having the support in the country that I wish we had for a single-payer system, and therefore we should do what we can achieve. I believe that the Massachusetts system has worked, on the whole, better than what existed before, and one of the things in favor of the federal bill, in my mind, is that it does somewhat approach the Massachusetts system. I am troubled, I should add, in general, by the notion of a mandate on people to buy healthcare plans, and I would have preferred something that avoided this, but I believe that something of this sort is necessary because a great number of the reforms that are very desirable - and broadly supported - cannot go forward unless we are able to broaden the base of those who are being insured.

Having voted my approval of the concept of the general healthcare bill, I also want to express my differences with some aspects of what both houses passed, but particularly with the Senate bill. I disagree with the notion of taxing healthcare plans as taxable benefits. In an ideal world starting from scratch, that might make sense. In the world in which we live, where people have traded off higher wages for healthcare benefits and there are economic interests built in, I think it would be a mistake. I preferred the House proposal of raising revenues that were needed by increasing taxes on incomes above a certain level - I thought above $350,000 was appropriate, although in the end the House was only able to get support for a figure of $1 million.

I also prefer the House position of having a national exchange rather than a number of individualized exchanges, because I think the more that you broaden things here, the better off we all are. I was therefore hoping that there would be a conference between the House and the Senate to merge the bills and particularly retain those parts of the House bill where I prefer it to the Senate bill.

Until the election of Senator Brown, it seemed clear that the best way to proceed, in my judgment, was to negotiate a compromise between the bills and have it pass both the House and the Senate, with the Senate, of course, requiring the 60 votes that the filibuster rule, unfortunately but for now firmly, required. Then came the election of Senator Brown and the procedural questions that I referred to arose. I was troubled, to be honest, to hear some of my colleagues suggest that there might be some procedural shortcuts that would allow us to proceed after the election of Senator Brown, as if his election had not occurred. I do not believe that there was ever any realistic proposal to delay seating him solely for the purpose of allowing a compromise bill to be rammed through, but because it had been raised, I did speak out very harshly against it. I must say that I think it was more being forwarded by extreme conservative media than any realistic plan, but nonetheless I did want to repudiate it. I also spoke out against what I thought were some ideas about bending the Senate rules on the arcane procedure of reconciliation, so as to be able to do more with only 51 votes than is currently possible with 60. I want to be clear that I think the filibuster rule is a grave error, and I was for changing it back when the Democrats were in the minority and were using it as long as it was changed, not just for judicial nominations, but for all issues. But I do not think you should force changes in a particular procedure solely for one issue, and that is why on the Tuesday night of Senator Brown's election, I spoke out against what I thought were some proposals by some Democrats to manipulate the rules to get the bill through.

Several people who share my support for the substance of the bill have been critical of my objecting to certain procedures that they felt would work to pass the bill. My response is two-fold. First of all, it was clear by the day of Brown's election that if he were elected, there would be no way they'd simply get the House to accept the Senate bill. Some Members of the House were opposed to it because it did not sufficiently ban abortion. Of course, I was on the other side of that, but that did not mean that their votes would change. Beyond that, there were serious principal objections, which I shared, to several of the corkscrew provisions of the Senate bill, which were bad policy and bad procedure. Given this, I believe it would have been a great mistake to have tried to force things, because it would not have resulted in a bill being passed, and it would have added to the sense that we didn't feel that things are being done fairly. Increased anger and alienation from the government, and frankly from those of us now in the majority, are not in my judgment in the interest of either the country as a whole or trying to get a healthcare bill.

That leads us to the present situation. I have told the House leadership that I support an effort to pass as much of the healthcare bill as we can - and I refer here to the substantive bill without some of the Senate's obnoxious deals in it. Many have argued that it would be relatively easy to take those provisions reforming insurance - protecting people with pre-existing conditions, opposing any lifetime cap on reimbursements etc. - and passing them into law. But they would require either a sharply higher degree of regulation of insurance companies for which the support does not now exist, or an expansion of the pool of the insured, or a sharp increase in premiums. None of the three seem to me acceptable and so the question is, how can we find a way to continue with our efforts to expand the pool of those getting insurance so that we can get these other benefits. We can do some things with regard to the anti-trust exemptions that the insurance industry enjoys, and as I compose this letter, we are planning next week in the House to pass legislation that would take away the anti-trust exemptions. I think those are clearly in the interest of controlling healthcare costs and providing better choices for consumers.

Finally, I should add that I am not the best source of what exactly the current state of the negotiations is. As Chair of the Financial Services Committee, my main job for the last year and a half has been to put tough new financial reform regulations in place. I am now awaiting the Senate action, and I am concerned that some of what is going on in the Senate may weaken the bill in ways that are unwise. I did stand with President Obama and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker two weeks ago to support the proposals Mr. Volcker had made, and in fact as he acknowledged, elements of the bill that passed the House under my chairmanship set the groundwork for those. But because I have been as focused on these, I have not been a participant in the healthcare discussions. I have made it clear to the Speaker that my vote will be there to adopt the most elements that we can of a comprehensive bill and of course the problem will be figuring out what can be done in the Senate. There is a legitimate role for the reconciliation process, which requires only 51 votes - 50 Senators and the Vice President if necessary - but the problem here is that only some subjects are allowed to be considered under this procedure and not others.

Time to fold the big tent?

Democrats have suffered from the problems of a coalition party, especially when faced with a united opposition. Republican party discipline, coupled with the rules of the Senate, empowered each member of the Democratic/Independent majority: on issues such as health care, each Democrat and Independent had a veto over the bill. Which led to spectacles like the deals made to get the votes of Ben Nelson (D.NB) and Mary Landrieu (D.LA) and the demise of even a weak public option at the hands of the infamous Joe Lieberman (I.CT).

The cost of trying to govern this way has been scorn and derision, not merely from the Republican attack machine, but from those who have fueled the Tea Party movement, liberals and even some pundits who are not known for ideological purity. The 24-hour news cycle, combined with the usual myopia of day-to-day analysis did not help, either.

Another cost--and, I suggest, a greater one--is a loss of message: What do Democrats stand for?

So, should Democrats narrow their big tent and read out some who may seem all but indistinguishable from Republicans? Without Evan Bayh (who has taken himself out of the picture with spectacular bad timing), Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln (D.AR), the party would have a lot more intellectual coherence and heft. And if we sent Joe Lieberman to Senatorial Siberia, we'd feel a lot better about ourselves.

While it would be satisfying to have a more coherent party, the genius of American politics was, for many decades, the absence of ideological purity. The broad-based parties of 1950-1980 allowed a huge amount of important legislation to pass; Republican support was crucial to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Can we recapture that? Not with Republicans intent on being the Party of No, but would narrowing the range of the Democrats contribute to opening the other party to a more flexible stance? Hard to see how it could.

Still, the most potent forces for changing the present political dynamic are likely to be public pressure--will Republicans be forced to contribute to the nation's governance?--and the self-interest of individual GOP lawmakers; the latter depends on the ability of Democrats to present those across the aisle with opportunities they cannot dismiss and challenges they cannot refuse.

Rather than narrowing the Democratic Party, we need to refine what we are about. We need to do a better job of declaring what it means to be a Democrat (hostility to huge Wall Street banks would be one part). Will that mean that some now members of the party leave? Perhaps, but not necessarily. (What is Olympia Snowe doing in the same party with Jim DeMint and Mitch McConnell?)

Democrats, being a party that makes a virtue of openness and tolerance for differing views, should naturally have a broader membership than Republicans. The challenge is to keep from being so wide-open that we lose all meaning except to win elections, which is a formula for losing them.

Biathlon

I saw a little of the women's and men's biathlon over the weekend. For those who are not familiar, this sport is a combination of cross-country skiing and target shooting, and was clearly derived from the need for such skills among ski troops; indeed, according to Wikipedia, the event at the 1924 Winter Olympics dubbed military patrol was the direct ancestor of today's biathlon.

The US has done better at the biathlon in the last few Olympics, but we hardly dominate; indeed, I believe we have never won a medal, although an American man was leading the World Cup standings in biathlon this season. I want to know why Americans aren't the leading power in this sport. In particular, with our passion for guns and shooting, why doesn't the US rule the medal field? Where is the NRA when we need it? Why aren't the solons of that organization encouraging American youth to go skimming over the snowfields, rifles on their backs, taking time off to whale away at tiny targets? Great preparation for the day the black helicopters descend.

(Seriously, great respect is due to biathletes; their event may be the most demanding of all winter sports. To race over the snow, then stop and get your heart rate down enough to hit a target is terribly hard. And they labor in obscurity.)

Olympic spirit

I don't know about you, but I miss Eddie the Eagle, the nearsighted British ski jumper who endeared himself to fans who admired his enthusiasm, if not his skill at launching himself into the air at high speed in an attempt to see how far he could fall. His free-spiritedness seems to me to embody what I take to be the true Olympic spirit.

That, however, was not the view of the mandarins of the Olympic establishment, which tightened the rules for ski jumpers so that no one like Eddie can qualify today.

But let us celebrate Robel Teklemariam, a Nordic skier who is the one and only member of Ethiopia's Winter Olympic team. Indeed, to compete, Teklemariam not only had to do well in his sport, he had to create a ski association and a Winter Olympic Committee. Oh, and he trains by roller-blading on the streets of Addis Ababa. And he's a serious competitor, at Turin he finished ahead of 15 other competitors.

Now THAT's the Olympic spirit, or what it should be!

That didn't take long

Former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford has been making noises about challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D.NY). Now Gawker reports that Ford has not paid income tax in New York, but has continued to file in the Volunteer State (the volunteering in question being for the Confederacy), which does not tax income.

New Yorkers have a history of electing senators with tenuous ties to the state (Bobby Kennedy, Hillary Clinton), but especially in these parlous times, one suspects that voters in the Empire State would cavil at someone who has not been willing to pay the state's taxes.

What do you think?

Is Danny Boy the most beautiful song in the English lanaguage?

A gift, cont'd

A couple of days ago, I posted about Anthem Health's outrageous rise in premiums for non-group subscribers. Robert Reich weighed in on the issue on TPM Cafe. Here's part of what he has to say:

Anthem's argument[that it was forced to raise premiums because so many people dropped coverage due to the recession] is even more questionable when you consider that Anthem has been among the most aggressive opponents of the health-care bills passed by the House and Senate. If Anthem were sincere about why it's raising its rates, it would be embracing the legislation. The Senate and House bills would add tens of millions of Americans to insurance pools - thereby spreading the costs over more people and avoiding the very problem Anthem says is now forcing it to raise its rates so much.

Yep.

When we drag insurers, kicking and screaming, to accept reform, I predict they'll find that they were wrong--that, in fact, their bottom lines are fatter with more subscribers. But it's not the number of policyholders that concerns them--it's the threat of limits to their ability to gouge those whose interests they are supposed to serve.

Reich goes on: "Obama says he's open to any new ideas from Republicans for how to control health care costs and expand coverage. The problem is Republicans don't want to play this game. They don't care about controlling costs or expanding coverage. They care only about taking back the House and/or the Senate next November. And they believe a means toward attaining this goal is to prevent Obama from achieving a victory on health care." He then argues for passing the Senate bill in the House and using the reconciliation process to make the resulting enactment better.

I think Obama knows full well what the GOPhers are up to. As for passing the Senate bill in the House, there is tremendous resistance to that on a lot of fronts. Maybe the path Reich (and others) have suggested will ultimately work, maybe not. What we hope for--and must demand of our representatives--from the February 25th health-care summit is some breaking of the logjam.

Reaching out

Many liberal media outlets and public figures have spent the last six or nine months deriding and ridiculing the Tea Party movement. That is a mistake, one that may be extremely costly to President Obama and his Democratic allies.

Democrats and their allies should be reaching out to Tea Party voters. We should be asking for their votes and contesting any allegiance that they may feel for the GOP. Failing to do so is not only bad politics; it bespeaks an unwarranted arrogance toward a substantial segment of our fellow Americans.

True, many of the Tea Party's most vocal supporters are irredeemable extremists, racists and anarchists of the Right. But it is wrong to view the entire movement--if it can be called that--in that fashion.

From all that I have seen and read, it seems clear to me that a great many Tea Party supporters are motivated mainly by anger. That may not be much fun for us Democrats, coming so soon after we finally regained the White House and a solid congressional majority, but we should acknowledge that their anger is real and justified.

People are hurting. They have lost jobs, homes and farms. They saw a President who campaigned on a promise of change, but whose treasury secretary was at the heart of the big-bank bailout. They saw that those banks did not even get their wrists slapped, and were soon back to paying immense bonuses, while foreclosures continue and good people lose long-term jobs. They did not hear of real reform.

Of course, much of the Tea Party lexicon comes out of the Republican playbook of fear and ignorance. The obstructionism of the GOP plays well with the anger and negativity that suffuses the Tea Party movment. But that is not a reason for Democrats to ignore those angry Americans; instead, it should be a reason to go out to them, to make our case.

At bottom, it is about respect. Those who simply write off all Tea Partiers as unreconstructed racists and fools--and many Democrats and their allies do essentially that--are arrogantly dismissing a subtial number of our fellow citizens. Instead, we should be speaking to them, finding out about their freas and motivations, and showing why Democrats, not Republicans, will best represent them.

The fact is that many of those who are most afraid of health care reform can benefit from it. We can dismiss them as fools who can't see the truth, or ask why we have not made the case that convinces them. The fact is that many of those who rail about using government funds to stimulate the economy have and will benefit from the economic stimulus. We can write them off as right-wing ideologues too ignorant to see their own interests, or try to show them why they--and the nation--are being well served by the stimulus package. The fact is that Tea Partiers who rail against huge banks and big business forget--if they ever knew--that Republicans are the traditional allies of those whom the Partiers excoriate. We can scratch our heads over this confusion and ignorance, or we can push the Democratic congress to enact real financial reform to make the case that we, not the GOPhers deserve support from the disaffected.

Can Democrats win over most Tea Partiers? Probably not. Can I prove that forty percent, or even a third of them will even consider the Democratic argument? No, although I suspect that a lot more of them would prove receptive than is generally believed. But on some level, it does not matter. For the greatest benefit of reaching out to Tea Party voters may well be that it will involve Democrats with more Americans, and force us to listen to our fellow citizens, even those with whom we seem to have little in common. That should be a basic premise for any party that calls itself Democratic. Unfortunately, we seem to be backsliding toward the bad old days when we were, all too often, liberal elitists.

A gift

Think the folks at Anthem Blue Cross of California want health care reform to pass this year? They're acting like it. Anthem announced that rates for non-group subscribers will rise by almost 40 percent this year. The NYT profiles a policyholder whose monthly premiums have risen from $151 per month to $1,192, about eight times as much, since 1998.

And this story could hardly have been better-timed to help reform, with the President's health care summit only a couple of weeks away.

The question, and the challenge, is whether Democrats will make effective use of this development. Will enough Americans be convinced that this is the future of health care for all of us if reform is not enacted to force Republicans to back down from obstructing all meaningful change? The early signs are good, with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking the company to justify its new charges. But Democrats have a history of failing to keep the pressure on. Now is the time to learn from the past: Keep pushing this story; make sure that all Americans understand what is going on. Tell them to write to their Senators and Congressmen.

And this story is not just PR. Anthem explains its rates by pointing out that the recession has caused many policyholders to drop coverage, leaving the burden on the sicker group that has remained with the company. That is exactly what economists have predicted if coverage is not mandated. So Anthem is a textbook example of what we are headed for without meaningful reform.

How come?

How come Republicans never acknowledge that the lion's share of stimulus funds, not to mention virtually all public works projects, goes to private businesses? How come Republicans, the apostles of private enterprise and government subsidies for same, pay no mind to the contracts given to such companies to carry out public projects?

And how come Democrats don't point this out?

(TONE is not wholly in favor of this approach. We believe that the WPA should be re-established, with the original name: Works Progress Administration, and the same goals. But that's not very likely.)

Better late than never

After spending a lot of time on the sidelines in his first year in office, President Obama has finally emerged as the leader we hoped he would be. In the latest episode of the National Smackdown Tour, Mr. Obama has invited Republican leaders to a televised discussion of health care on February 25th.

This being the kind of offer you can't refuse, Republicans have accepted.

Will this be as entertaining as the President's evisceration of Republican House members? I hope so, but now that they know what they're up against, the GOPhers will perhaps be able to throw up obfuscation and sloganeering, not to mention a fog of disinformation. Still, it doesn't pay to bet against the tall guy from Illinois.

While the President's performances have been heartening these past couple of weeks, we have to worry that he is still having to do all the heavy lifting. Where are the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate? Well-nigh invisible. Mr. Obama may, indeed, be Superman, but he needs some support.

The freedom of impending retirement

Chris Dodd (D.Ct.) announces that he will introduce a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

I guess the freedom of knowing that you're not going to have to raise campaign funds any more can work wonders.

This is something that Democrats should get behind, strongly. Make the GOPhers stand up for corporate giving! The difference between Republican office-holders and the tea partiers over this could be instructive; it could be a powerful wedge issue for Democrats. Of course, to use it, many Dems would have to get over their addiction to support from corporate interests.

Amazing what a little leadership will do

Since the State of the Union, President Obama has been on a tear, showing the leadership that Democrats (and sensible people all over) have been hoping for. Unlike his Congressional colleagues, but that's a story for another posting.

And it's paying off already. You can see a new attitude in the press, typified by this piece in Time, by Joe Klein.

If Democrats can keep this up--and the President can't do it alone--the falsities and fatuousness of Republican obstructionism will at last be widely known.

Dr. Minyard, please call the Wolfman

If you read this blog, you probably read talkingpointsmemo.com, and you've likely seen this. But it's too good to pass up. From the New Orleans Parish race for coroner. (Yes, they vote for ghoul in New Orleans. What can I say?) Something is wrong with the thingy to embed video in the blog, but watch it here.

Fearless prediction

Scott Brown will prove not ready for prime time.

Bonus prediction: That will not prevent some pundits (and perhaps GOP insiders) from proposing him as a presidential candidate in 2012.

Giant among midgets

Did you see President Obama with the Republican House Members on Friday? Reminded me of nothing so much as Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Seeing some of the highlights, you could almost--almost--feel sorry for the GOPhers, having to contend with a man as intelligent and well-prepared as the President, and in a venue where they could not dominate the debate by talking over their opponent or shouting him down.

Think we'll see Mr. Obama meeting with Senate Republicans next?

If you're asking yourself whether there are congressional Democrats who can also dominate the opposition, I think there are. Barney Frank (my congressman) comes to mind. Alan Grayson, the Freshman from Florida who noted that the Republican health-care plan was "die sooner"is another, although he doesn't show a lot of intellectual heft. In the Senate, there's Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed (both of RI) and, of course, rookie-of-the-year Al Franken. But don't we miss Ted Kennedy?

Organizing for America distributed this video from yesterday's confab/confrontation. It's a bit more than 2/3 the length of the entire event.

Party of no

No surprise, but worth no-ting:

According to the NYTimes:

One day after the president upbraided Congress in his State of the Union address for excessive partisanship, Senate Republicans voted en masse against a plan to require that new spending not add to the deficit (it passed anyway as all 60 members of the Democratic caucus hung together). And some Republicans peremptorily dismissed Mr. Obama’s main job-creating proposal, expressing no interest in using $30 billion in bank bailout money for business tax credits.

When will the American people realize that the GOP is not just the Party of No, but the Party of No Policy, not to mention the Party of Hypocrisy?

Achilles heel

As you've probably seen, ad nauseum, by now, when President Obama attacked the Supreme Court's recent campaign-finance ruling, Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and seemed to mouth the words "Not true." (Some commentators thought he said more.)

Some people have compared Alito to Joe Wilson (R.Whacko), who called Obama a liar during a speech earlier this year. But give the Justice a pass: he had just been dissed, from about 12 feet away, by the most powerful man in the world, and dozens of millions of people around the world were watching.

The President's ire was understandable on a number of levels. As a constitutional-law expert (he taught the subject), he is aware of how the majority reached out for a case that would give it the opportunity to reach a decision that was (a) not required; (b) far broader than necessary to reach the issues raised; and (c) unnecessarily overturned 100 years of understanding about the nature of campaign-finance laws. From a political perspective, logic suggests that the decision will heavily favor Republicans. So it's not surprising that Obama was ticked.

In his address, the President raised a sore point about the decision: it seems to open the door to foreign money flooding into US elections. Although Justice Kennedy's decision said that the court would reserve a decision on foreign money to another day, in truth under his decision there is no way to keep contributions from other nations out.

The fact is, there is no clear way to define a foreign corporation for purposes of the Supreme Court's decision. If a corporation is organized in another country, but owned by Americans, is it an American company? If a corporation--like CITGO--is organized here, but owned by people from another country (in CITGO's case, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela), is it a US corporation? What about a US subsidiary of a foreign company? The financial world treats a public corporation as being effectively owned by anyone with a bloc of 15-20% of the outstanding stock (unless someone else controls as much or more). So, if a foreign person or company owns 20% of a large, otherwise American company, can that controlling foreign company direct the subsidiary's money to US campaigns?

That is the Achilles heel of the decision. There is widespread, indeed, I think general agreement that we should not let foreign contributions affect the selection of our leaders. And this is a question that the Supreme Court will have to confront. Indeed, the best chance for getting the court to re-think last weeks' ruling is for a state or, better, Congress to pass a law defining and restricting contributions by corporations that are defined as foreign. When confronted with having to decide what a foreign corporation is, the justices may realize how wrong-headed they're ruling was.

Button your lip

Last night, Cong. Bill Pascrell (D.NJ) was on the CBS Evening News, telling Katie Couric that he doubts the President can deliver on all the promises he was to make in his State of the Union address.

I have some advice for Cong. Pascrell and the rest of the Democrats who can't wait to tell tales out of school: SHUT UP!

Do you think you would have seen a Republican dissing George W.'s proposals on the day of the State of the Union, or after?

Democrats don't have to adopt Republican policies or principles to accept the fact that party discipline has given the GOPhers a big edge these past few decades. Keep the debate inside, and button your lip when someone sticks a mike or a camera in your face.

Showing the White Flag

We Democrats commonly complain that, whatever we do, Republicans accuse us of being weak on security. Thus, although President Obama has launched many more strikes at the Taliban in Pakistan than the Bush administration, the GOPhers still claim that he is not strong enough in fighting terrorism.

There is merit in this complaint--the shameless Republicans, unfettered by any attachment to mere truth, engage in demagogy whenever it will benefit what they see as their political interest. What we Democrats ignore, however, is that we are their enablers. The truth is that, although we are not weak on security, we are weak on so many issues that our posture gives Republicans credibility even when they lie outrageously.

Case in point: Republicans tried to distract attention from the disaster area that the economy became on George Bush's watch by raising the volume on their constant wail about the deficit and the need to cut taxes. They found allies in some anti-government tea partiers--people who don't believe government can do anything. Some feckless 'Democrats' got scared and started talking about the need to rein in the deficit. Fourteen months after the Republicans were vanquished with their tails between their legs, that view has become the conventional wisdom.

Now is exactly the wrong time to worry about the deficit. The economy has just started--maybe--to recover from Bush's disaster. Unemployment is high and stubbornly resistant to improvement. Big banks are paying huge bonuses, but not lending. As Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz (two Nobel laureates) and other economists have convincingly argued, what we need now is another big stimulus package, replacing the absence of private demand with public demand.

Yet we are now told that President Obama is going to call for freezing the non-defense part of the budget for three years. WHAT IS HE THINKING? That is a recipe for economic stagnation and political disaster. It plays into the Republicans' hands. Remember, the GOP has no interest in economic recovery; continued distress will play into Republican hands this fall and in 2012.

What the President should do tomorrow night is to stand in the well of the House and give the Republicans (and their Democratic enablers) hell. He should tell them some home truths about where we are and how the only path out of our distress is muscular government spending, because private enterprise is cowering in the bunkers. He needs to say that while the deficit is a real problem, in the present crisis it has to take a back seat to repairing the economy. In short, he needs to stand his ground--or what should be his ground.

Since Vietnam, Democrats have, unfortunately, become all too practiced at showing the white flag when opposed by tough and outwardly confident Republicans. Democrats cut and ran after Walter Mondale told the truth about taxes and got skunked in 1984--even though they knew he was right. Think of the Republican Lite years of the Clinton administration. What did Bill Clinton stand tough on, except when he, himself, was under attack? Think of how Democrats knuckled under to Bush's demand for unconstitutional powers in the so-called War on Terror. Even now, where is the prominent Democrat willing to stand up and say that dangerous terrorists must be released, because the Bush administration so traduced our Constitution that we cannot hold them?

One thing about Republicans: they don't act this way. They show matchless effrontery in maintaining their refrain about cutting taxes. That would be incredibly stupid and self-destructive as national policy, but at least the Republicans are consistent. They don't bend, they don't show fear. And as a result, they get credit for consistency, if nothing else.

We need to learn from our enemies. In Esther Forbes' wonderful Johnny Tremain, the patriot James Otis says on the eve of the American Revolution that Americans must fight for "the right to stand up." We won that right. It's past time for Democrats to exercise it.

Saying it all

Jusstice Stephens, dissenting, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission last week:

It might also be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of 'We the People' by whom and for whom the Constitution was established.

Now, are there any questions?