Free Stuff


Mitt Romney is an accomplished flip-flopper.    But there are common strands through his rhetoric.    Later in the day after his speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People last week, the former governor remarked at a fund-raiser in Montana

I want people to know what I stand for and if I don't stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that's just fine.   But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy-more free stuff.

In a speech (transcript here) last month to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Romney contended

Everybody likes free stuff, but there is no free stuff when government has to the pay and it has to tax the American people or when it borrows from future generations. Obamacare is depressing job growth. If priority number one is jobs, you have to get Obamacare out of there.

The day after the NAACP speech and the fund-raiser, Steve Benen wrote

As someone who's read the transcript of nearly every Romney speech for a year, I should note in fairness that he's used the "free stuff" line before. But in this case, this realization isn't especially helpful to his defense.

A few months ago, for example, the GOP presidential hopeful responded to questions about contraception access by saying, "If you're looking for free stuff you don't have to pay for, vote for the other guy." Soon after, Romney complained that Obama is trying to buy students' political support by offering them "free stuff."

There is a pattern to this. If you're a woman who wants access to preventive care you might not otherwise be able to afford, Romney sees you as wanting "free stuff." If you're a young student who can't afford higher-ed tuition, Romney assumes you expect "free stuff."

And if you're an African American supporter of the NAACP who wants your family to have access to affordable health care, Romney suspects you're just looking for "free stuff."

We know the presumptive GOP presidential nominee doesn't want women interested in occasional sex, or poor people needing health care, or students trying to get an education to get "free stuff," or even access.    So Romney opposes free stuff.

No, not for everyone he doesn't.    Last week we learned from The Boston Globe

Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

Mitt Romney says he left Bain in 1999 and has tried to leave the impression he had nothing to do with the company after that.   It didn't stop him, however, from pocketing $100,000.  (That is the gross figure; but given Romney's refusal to release tax returns, you're forgiven for suspecting it was darn close to $100,000 net.)    That's not chump change, but awfully good pay  for doing nothing.   It might even be considered "free stuff."



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All Worked Up About Nothing



The Cycle, MSNBC's new program at 3:00 p.m. Eastern on weekdays, is off to a rough start. Typical is the argument recently between S.E. Cupp and Ari Berman of The Nation, described by Mediaite:

“I have a question for my tablemates. Go with me for this,” Cupp began. “Should non-citizens of this country be able to vote?”

Touré quickly answered “no” but immediately tagged his response with the qualification that “voter fraud is a red herring.”

“But let me finish my premise,” said Cupp.

Touré replied that he would not and repeated that voter fraud was, in his estimation, a red herring. “The disenfranchisement of millions of black and brown people is the issue,” said Touré.

“Voter fraud exists,” replied Cupp. “We can argue over how much it exists, but it absolutely exists.”

“No, it does not exist,” Touré replied.

“No examples of voter fraud around the country, Touré? It’s never happened,” replied an increasingly frustrated Cupp.

Berman jumped in and said that the Bush administration prosecuted only 86 cases of voter fraud after an investigation into the elections that took place between 2000 to 2006.

“That’s 86 too many, Ari,” said Cupp. She again attempted to circle back to her original premise. “If we agree that non-citizens should not be allowed to vote — if we agree, then how do we enforce that?”

Cupp is the house conservative on The Cycle, though it is hardly conservative doctrine to set up an entirely new government bureaucracy because of wrongdoing (not involving violence) affecting approximately 14 people each year in a nation of 300,000,000+.      In 2007, 613 people in the U.S.A. died of an unintentional shooting.   Sixty-five of these were children under the age of 15.    Would Cupp support prohibiting all firearms, or at least possession of firearms in any household in which a child resides?

The figure of 86 cases cited by Berman emanated from an investigation by The New York Times.   Kevin Drum notes "Many of those appear to have simply made mistakes on registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, and more than 30 of the rest were penny-ante vote-buying schemes in local races for judge or sheriff."      Voter fraud is rarely committed, he notes

since there are few individuals willing to risk a felony charge merely to cast one extra vote and few organizations willing or able to organize large-scale in-person fraud and keep it a secret. When Indiana's photo ID law, designed to prevent precisely this kind of fraud, went to the Supreme Court, the state couldn't document a single case of it happening. As the majority opinion in Crawford admits, "The record contains no evidence of any such fraud actually occurring in Indiana at any time in its history."

Generally, suspected voter fraud turns out to be merely clerical errors or someone listing his/her name as, say, Mickey Mouse, which gets caught by a registrar anyway.   Voter ID laws- a solution in search of a problem- pushed by GOP legislatures and chief executives are designed only to catch someone trying to impersonate another individual at the polling place.

Drum believes there is little likelihood of Repub voter suppression efforts determining the results of an election.    And perhaps it is hard to imagine, not unlike a presidential election turning on a ruling by a court to prohibit full counting of election ballots in a state governed by the brother of one of the candidates.   Could never happen.


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That Moment Of Crisis



Evidently, the 43rd president was not nearly as stupid or dumb as some made him out to be. Say what you will about George W. Bush as president- and most of its deserved- he has had the good sense as ex-president to do as little and say as little as possible.

Dick Cheney, however, is a different sort of fellow.    Hosting a fundraiser in Wyoming for the presumptive presidential nominee of the Gas and Oil Party, the former V.P. remarked

Sooner or later there is going to be a big surprise.   Usually a very unpleasant one. Whether it’s 9-11 or the other kinds of difficulties or crises that arrive, they always do. That’s when you find out what kind of leader your president is.    When I think about the kind of individual I want in the Oval Office in that moment of crisis, who has to make those key decisions, some of them life and death decisions, some of them decisions as the commander-in-chief who has the responsibility of sending our young men and women into harm's way -- that man is Mitt Romney.

Cheney, oddly, wasn't referring to the kind of guy who would make the right decision about Osama bin Laden or Somali pirates.   He was, presumably, talking about the Bush-Cheney administration. Or the Cheney-Bush administration.

You'd almost think the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in the Obama administration, that it ignored the terrorist threat and was replaced by a Bush Administration which ramped up efforts, eventually ordering the elimination of Osama bin Laden.   Instead, as early as October, 2002 the UK Guardian reported

According to today's Time magazine, Mr Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger and Mr Clarke outlined the threat in briefings they provided for Condoleezza Rice, George Bush's national security adviser, in January 2001, a few weeks before she and her team took up their posts.

At the key briefing, Mr Clarke presented proposals to "roll back" al-Qaida which closely resemble the measures taken after September 11. Its financial network would be broken up and its assets frozen. Vulnerable countries like Uzbekistan, Yemen and the Philippines would be given aid to help them stamp out terrorist cells.

Crucially, the US would go after Bin Laden in his Afghan lair. Plans would be drawn up for combined air and special forces operations, while support would be channelled to the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies.

Mr Clarke, who stayed on in his job as White House counter-terrorism tsar, repeated his briefing for vice president Dick Cheney in February. However, the proposals got lost in the clumsy transition process, turf wars between departments and the separate agendas of senior members of the Bush administration.

It was, the Time article argues, "a systematic collapse in the ability of Washington's national security apparatus to handle the terrorist threat".

Documents released only last month by the C.I.A. include a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief written on 6/23/01 warned, under the sub-heading "International:  Bin Laden Attacks May be Imminent," "multiple reports indicate that extremists expect Bin Laden to launch lattacks over the coming days, possibly against U.S. or Israeli interests."     And there was one from 6/25/01 with the sub-heading "Terrorism: Bin Laden and Associates Making Near-Term Threats," which warned "Expect Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days."    A document from five days later read "operative linked to Usama Bin Laden's organization expect the near-term attacks they are planning to have dramatic consequences, such as major casualties."

From June through September, there were four additional CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs maintaining attacks were imminent.     But the Administration, whose National Security staff had ignored a CIA proposal to increase drone attacks, did not call a Principals' Meeting (downgraded to a Deputies' Meeting) until just days before the 9/11/01 attack.    

Not all of the documents were revelations, some of the information having been contained in the 9/11 committee's report.     And we learned a lot from publication in 2004 of Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine," which slammed Vice-President Cheney's fanatical approach to foreign policy.     Most famously, while President Bush was in Crawford, enjoying what was tied with one of Richard Nixon's vacations as the longest vacation ever taken by a U.S. president, he was presented by a CIA briefer with the famous 8/6/01 Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S."     Bush's reply: "All right, you've covered your ass now."

There is little doubt that Dick Cheney is suggesting that Mitt Romney would- well, we don't quite know quite what he could be thinking.    From the evidence, though, it appears that the former Vice President envisions Mitt Romney as his kind of President, one who, when confronted with evidence of an imminent terrorist attack will go jet skiing, water skiing, maybe waterboarding.

   

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A Road Not Paved With Good Intentions



"My goal," Grover Norquist once famously boasted, "is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

The founder of the euphemistically-named Americans for Tax Reform never stated that he wanted to eliminate government altogether because he would face the opprobrium of the media for such brazen and colorless extremism.   He is reported to have maintained "I don't want to abolish government," presumably because there are actions taken by government to enhance the health and welfare of the top 10%.   That he would not want to see end.

This is where Mitt Romney comes in.      There was not one extraordinary moment in Mitt Romney's speech (transcript, from a conservative source, here) yesterday to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, nor one clear objective he had in mind in accepting the organization's invitation.     Rush Limbaugh says "Romney knows, get 3% of the black vote and you throw this election into a tizzy.  Get 5% of the black vote, and Obama loses.  So he shows up today."    Romney has no intention to compete for votes of black Americans- even for 5%- and if he did, his share of the white vote would drop.   More likely, he hoped to create doubt in the minds of moderates that he is just another paleolithic right-winger, just as George W. Bush successfully softened his image among moderate whites with his "compassionate conservative" misdirection.   Perhaps, additionally, he wanted a twist on Clinton's Sister Souljah moment, this time a candidate boldly speaking falsehoods to an organization which would not vote for him, anyway, and which most of his supporters don't especially care for.

Joan Walsh believes it most likely that Romney, who admitted afterward that he expected to get booed at the convention, lusted after film which would show him being booed by a group representing his opponent's most ardent supporters.   Nancy Pelosi sees it the same way.

Walsh criticizes Romney's attack in his speech on "Obamacare," the signature legislative achievement of the first black president, which unsurprisingly resulted in boos from the assemblage.    But she finds even more troubling, given the NAACP's effort "for a century to expand voting rights for African-Americans,"  the speaker's claim, as she puts it, "that he'd be a better president for African-Americans than Obama." Still other critics were distressed by Romney's pledge to "defend traditional marriage," a far less serious offense, especially given that our (Democratic) President, even as of April, was on the same side of the marriage issue, at least publicly.

Otherwise, the speech consisted mostly of boilerplate conservative myth, including the former governor's assertion

If our goal is jobs, we must, must stop spending over a trillion dollars more than we earn. To do this, I will eliminate expensive non-essential programs like Obamacare, and I will work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security, in part by means-testing their benefits.

Whoa! Let's back that up.    In order to "stop spending over a trillion dollars more than we earn," Romney wants to eliminate "Obamacare," which is projected by the CBO to cut the deficit by approximately $210 billion.

But more significant is Romney's vow to means-test Medicare and Social Security. Though Medicare and Social Security are both earned benefits (derided by the misleading appellation "entitlements"), they differ in more than one critical aspect.   The rise in the cost of Medicare is not the problem, not a problem, not any problem.  The problem, which Romney is loathe to concede, is health care costs.   In making health care accessible to old (no, old is not an insult) people, Medicare is considerably more efficient than the private health-care system upon which we would be more dependent with a reduction in Medicare services.     And the Affordable Care Act, which Romney has promised to begin to repeal "on Day One," appears already to have begun reducing health care costs.     

Still, means-testing Medicare and Social Security would further a critical objective of Romney, and his party generally.    Following the Supreme Court's Medicaid determination in its ruling on the PPACA, several states (virtually all, if not all, GOP-dominated states) are threatening to refuse to expand the program- one designed to provide health care for poor people- even though the states themselves would bear less than 10% of the cost of expansion.   If they were promised that the federal government would send them more than 100% of the cost, thus affording them a profit, some Repb officeholders still would balk at strengthening a program which, benefitting the needy, somewhat resembles a welfare program.   Means-test programs directed toward the elderly, and we're headed down the same road.

This is, admittedly, speculation, though reasonable and realistic.   But it is not speculation to note two words Romney slipped in:   "in part."     Means-testing is only the first spoke in destruction of these (thus far) popular programs to aid the elderly, primarily because they are the most politically palatable.   There would be more to come.

Like Grover Norquist, Mitt Romney, who yearns to conduct a testosterone-fueled foreign policy and lusts after additional job-killing trade deals to destroy more American jobs, does not want to destroy government.     Cutting it down to the size of a bathtub drain, starting with the poor and the elderly, is quite enough, thank you very much.

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Bluster, Bluff, And Bull



Sure he does.   The Huffington Post reports

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has become the latest leader to condemn the now 40-year-old war on drugs.

"The war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure," Christie said Monday during a speech at The Brookings Institution. "We're warehousing addicted people everyday in state prisons in New Jersey, giving them no treatment."

Christie stressed the merits of legislation recently passed by New Jersey state lawmakers that institutes a year of mandatory treatment for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders instead of jail time. The mandatory treatment program, slated to be put in place in at least three counties during its first year, will eventually expand statewide over the next five years.

Christie stressed the merits of legislation recently passed by New Jersey state lawmakers that institutes a year of mandatory treatment for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders instead of jail time. The mandatory treatment program, slated to be put in place in at least three counties during its first year, will eventually expand statewide over the next five years.

With the treatment mandatory and the governor unwilling to advocate sufficient funding, individuals who voluntarily seek treatment will find long waiting lists.   Meanwhile, most of the offenders forced into treatment will fail, drop out, and return to what, in most instances, was a life of crime. 

Considering the source, however, this remark by the governor is precious:

You can certainly make the argument that no one should try drugs in the first place, I certainly am in that camp but tens of millions of people in our society do every year, and for some people they can try it and walk away from it, but for others the first time they try it they become an addict, and they're sick and they need treatment.

Few know more about drug users or criminal offenders "walk(ing) away from it" than does Chris Christie.   The New York Times in June reported

Many of these halfway houses are as big as prisons, with several hundred beds, and bear little resemblance to the neighborhood halfway houses of the past, where small groups of low-level offenders were sent to straighten up.

New Jersey officials have called these large facilities an innovative example of privatization and have promoted the approach all the way to the Obama White House.

Yet with little oversight, the state’s halfway houses have mutated into a shadow corrections network, where drugs, gang activity and violence, including sexual assaults, often go unchecked, according to a 10-month investigation by The New York Times.

Perhaps the most unsettling sign of the chaos within is inmates’ ease in getting out.

Since 2005, roughly 5,100 inmates have escaped from the state’s privately run halfway houses, including at least 1,300 in the 29 months since Governor Christie took office, according to an analysis by The Times.

Some inmates left through the back, side or emergency doors of halfway houses, or through smoking areas, state records show. Others placed dummies in their beds as decoys, or fled while being returned to prison for violating halfway houses’ rules. Many had permission to go on work-release programs but then did not return.

While these halfway houses often resemble traditional correctional institutions, they have much less security. There are no correction officers, and workers are not allowed to restrain inmates who try to leave or to locate those who do not come back from work release, the most common form of escape. The halfway houses’ only recourse is to alert the authorities.

And so the inmates flee in a steady stream: 46 last September, 39 in October, 40 in November, 38 in December, state records show.

“The system is a mess,” said Thaddeus B. Caldwell, who spent four years tracking down halfway house escapees in New Jersey as a senior corrections investigator. “No matter how many escaped, no matter how many were caught, no matter how many committed heinous acts while they were on the run, they still kept releasing more guys into the halfway houses, and it kept happening over and over again.”

No doubt Christie has championed use of halfway houses rather than prisons because he's so humane.   Or maybe not:

Mr. Christie, a Republican who took office in January 2010, has for years championed the company that plays a principal role in the New Jersey system, Community Education Centers.

Community Education received about $71 million from state and county agencies in New Jersey in the 2011 fiscal year, out of total halfway house spending of roughly $105 million, according to state and company records.

The company first obtained substantial contracts for its “re-entry centers” in New Jersey in the late 1990s, as state financing began increasing sharply. In recent years, it has cited its success in New Jersey in obtaining government contracts in Colorado, Pennsylvania and other states.

William J. Palatucci, who is the governor’s close friend, political adviser and former law partner, is a senior vice president at Community Education.

Mr. Christie himself was registered as a lobbyist for the company in 2000 and 2001 when he was a private lawyer, according to disclosure reports that his law firm filed with the state. In early 2010, he hired the son-in-law of Community Education’s chief executive as an assistant in the governor’s office, according to state personnel records.

Fortunately, Governor Christie, having been made aware of the problem, is taking aggressive action to rectify the situation.    Or maybe not:

Gov. Chris Christie today limited an effort by the Legislature to learn more about the state's halfway houses, which have been criticized for being rife with mismanagement and violence.

In their budget proposal, Democrats inserted language that would have required the state Department of Corrections to report quarterly on the halfway houses, including the number of inmates convicted of violent and non-violent crimes, and the number of days they were imprisoned.

The Democrats also sought information on the amount of money reimbursed to halfway houses for taking inmates, the rate of reimbursement, the number of escapes and the number of incidents involving physical violence.

The governor, however, struck out language that would have required the department to report the actions taken to protect inmates imprisoned for non-violent crimes from those imprisoned for violent crimes. Christie also batted back a request for disciplinary actions against inmates accused on violence, and actions taken to prevent violence.

Christie said in his veto message that those requests would compromise the safety and security of the facilities and the inmates. But Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) said in a statement the governor's moves were "concerning and troubling."

"This language was placed in there to ensure the public safety of the general public, inmates and employees, and according to recent reports is sorely needed," Oliver said, referencing a recent series by the New York Times on problems at the state's halfway houses. "The Assembly will certainly be moving forward on plans for hearings."

The governor also deleted a provision that would have required the corrections department to make quarterly reports. As it stands, the budget does not specify when or how often the reports must now be made.

The language was inserted into the Democrats' budget after the New York Times earlier this month detailed escapes, rampant drug use, weak security and violence at halfway houses, which are intended to transition individuals back into the community, often after serving jail time.

Still, at least one DailyKos contributor is impressed by the Governor's claim "the war on drugs has been a failure" and blogs- in whole-

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) spoke out against the country’s decades-long War on Drugs during aspeech at the Brookings Institution today, saying, “The war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure. We’re warehousing addicted people everyday in state prisons in New Jersey, giving them no treatment.” Christie is a proponent of mandatory drug treatment programs rather than jail time for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders. Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) also recently described the War on Drugs as a “failure.”

The governor doesn't like federal efforts to fight use of heroin, cocaine, LSD, and other dangerous drugs.   Marijuana, however, appears to be different, given that

New Jersey legislators voted on Monday to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Governor Chris Christie (R), however, has vowed to veto the legislation.

The New Jersey Assembly voted 44-30 to approve a measure (A1465) that would make possession of 15 grams of marijuana or less a minor civil offense similar to a parking ticket. Fines would range from $150 to $500, with mandatory drug education classes for repeat offenders. The current fine for marijuana possession is $1,000 and violators face up to six months in jail.

Even if the bill passes the state senate, Christie's veto threat ensures it's unlikely to become law. "The federal government still says marijuana is an illegal drug," Christie said to a town hall on Friday. "I don’t think we should send any sort tacit approval to our children that somehow this is not bad anymore."

O.K., O.K.   Christie simply wants to avoid a conflict with the federal government.    But maybe not, as this description of a segment from Jon Stewart on June 27 revealed (video below- although, Jon, it's gambling, not "gaming"):

“Alright, as much as I disagree, I don’t think marijuana should be illegal, but it is illegal on the federal level. Christie is a former prosecutor, a man of conviction, of principle, doesn’t believe that the state should supersede federal law,” Stewart said.

But then Stewart played a clip of Christie saying he intended to ignore federal law and allow sports gambling.

“What the fuck?” Stewart responded. “Wait. How did governor ‘guys, stop smoking pot it’s against the law’ just go Dirty Harry on ignoring the federal ban on sports gambling? What’s the difference between the two?”

Apparently, the difference is that nobody “is under the illusion that betting on sports games isn’t happening every week in New Jersey.”

“OK,” Stewart said incredulously. “I have an idea. Lets replace the phrase ‘betting on sports games’ with the phrase ‘getting high.’ Different how?”

Stewart then played a clip of Christie saying “there may have been a different feeling thirty or forty years ago, but the fact is now gaming is everywhere.”

“OK,” he said. “Lets replace the word ‘gaming’ with the phrase ‘getting high.’ Still not seeing why challenging federal law for gambling is OK, but challenging it for pot is not OK.”

Stewart then played yet another clip, where Christie added: “lets have the people that benefit from it be the people of the state of New Jersey, not criminal organizations across New Jersey who are benefiting from it now.”

“OK, well, lets replace,” Stewart began to say, “actually, you don’t need to replace any words in that.”

New Jersey has a medical marijuana law, passed in the last throes of the Administration of Christie's immediate predecessor, Jon Corzine.   But you would never know it:    there are few licensed marijuana dispensaries, and the Governor is working overtime to make sure it stays that way.   But that's fine, too:   at least Chris Christie says the war on drugs has been a failure.

Talk is cheap.     Whether it's acting like a child and doing the tough guy act on the Jersey shore (video way below) or talking about drugs, no one better illustrates that than Chris Christie.





















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Irresponsible, Not Insane



You might think they're crazy or at least hopelessly foolish.  But they're not.

Under terms of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government pays  state governments 100% of the cost through 2017 of expanding Medicaid, with the percentage dropping to 90% in 2020.

Chief Justice Roberts deserves much of the blame for the resistance remaining to Medicaid expansion of many of the 26 states which filed suit against the PPACA.     He ruled that Congress could not deny full Medicaid funding to states choosing not to expand coverage, but only funding for the additional individuals added to the program under the Act.

No doubt some Repub legislators and chief executives fear that, with a growing national debt, the federal government would not follow through with its promise of future funding.    But they know that Democrats would continue the funding.   It is only the members of Congress belonging to their own GOP who would plausibly put at risk the nearly 100% subsidy for the needy citizens of their states.    An analogous situation exists with the effort to expand job opportunities for Americans in need of employment is demonstrative.   Think Progress found

This trend of public job depletion puts the Republican jobs agenda in stark contrast with the administration’s approach. President Obama’s American Jobs Act would not only add 1.9 million jobs next year, but makes targeted investments to arrest the trend in layoffs. The plan includes $35 billion in direct state aid infusion that will “prevent up to 280,000 layoffs of teachers, who are — along with cops and firefighters — particularly vulnerable to local government budget shortfalls.”

However, Republicans continue to block Obama’s much-needed plan because, in part, they see public job loss as a positive.

With such a sweet deal being offered the states, it is becoming increasingly clear that a large chunk of the GOP sees health care loss (for poor individuals) as a positive.   A Forbes contributor reasons
  
Are these red state governors really going to sit by and watch the taxes their citizens pay to the federal government flow to the benefit of their neighboring states as the recalcitrant governors allow their own residents to miss the benefit of that money?

I don’t think so. Ideological opposition is one thing—denying access to health care to voters who could certainly use it when, to do so, would cost the state a relatively tiny amount of money, is just dumb politics.

Ron Pollack, director of Families USA, notes "it would be an act of fiscal malpractice for states to turn this down."   And Ezra Klein, acknowledging the resistance of several legislatures and chief executives nonetheless argues

that won't last forever.  and governors also have to answer to non-Republican voters who don't want their state missing out on billions in federal dollars, and to the hospitals in their state who have to treat uninsured patients that end up in their emergency room,s, and the insured voters who end up paying for their uninsured brethren.

Plus,when they want to flip-flop on the issue,they'll have an easy argument with which to do it:  It's a way to stick it to those blue states that put Obama back in Office.

Hospitals generally support the expansion.   The president and chief executive officer of the Texas Hospital Association explains "without the Medicaid expansion, many will remain uninsured, seeking care in emergency rooms, shifting costs to the privately insured, and increasing uncompensated care to health care providers.     With a strained state budget, it's hard to imagine addressing the uninsured problem in Texas without leveraging federal funds, which will now go to other states that choose to expand their Medicaid program."

Still, the Republican governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, now has joined the GOP governors of Louisiana, Florida,, Iowa, Mississippi, and Texas in announcing opposition to acceptance of federal dollars to boost provision of health care services to poor residents.  There will be more.   Digby comments

Here you have the Federal government paying for 100% for the first years and then 90% thereafter and they still won't ake yes for an answer.  So I think we can feel fairly confident at this point that it isn't really about the funding at ll, can't we?  It's about their belief that "those" people who don't "deserve" medical care shouldn't get it.

On the same site, and linking to Digby's commentary, David Atkins adds

It's not just about giving rich people more money.  The modern Republican establishment is most obsessed with enforcing a cosmic law of reward and punishment wherein poor people suffer and die early because they din't pull themselves up by their bootstraps enough to be rich.  It's a matter of principle, and they're more than willing to anger their allies in the hospital, health insurance and pharmaceutical industries to make ti happen.

The Ayn Rand nonsense isn't just rhetorical cover to enrich their already wealthy friends.   These People really believe in it.   They cannot be bargained with and cannot be reasoned with.  Its clear that pity and remorse are off the table, and they don't even fear the retaliation of the electorate.

Republicans (and much of inside Washington) were appalled- appalled!- when California congressman Alan Grayson, during the health care reform debate, had the temerity to declare on the House floor "if you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this:  Die quickly."

Health care reform passed, the prescient Grayson was defeated for re-election, the Supreme Court (somewhat) upheld the legislation, and GOP-dominated states are balking  at implementation.    There are factors at work beyond what Heather Digby Parton, David Atkins, and Alan Grayson point out.   When patients continue to flock to emergency rooms whose hospitals must, under terms of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), continue to treat them without reimbursement, many administrators wil blame "the government."   Many of the patients, lacking Medicaid and receiving inadequate care in emergency rooms, will blame "the government."     And when South Carolina and Texas, among the national leaders in health care, are further stigmatized, residents and voters will blame "the government."

But while GOP politicians are all too pleased to see government continue to be a scapegoat, they are not reluctant to accept credit when they can.     Tuesday, Texas governor Rick Perry sent to HHS Secretary Sebelius a letter in which he declared opposition to both the state health care exchanges and medicaid expansion, arguing "the PPACA would simply enlarge a broken system that is already financially unstable."     The Medicaid provision, he wailed, "would threaten even Texas with financial ruin." Perry concluded  "I look forward to implementation of health care solutions that are right for the people of Texas.  I urge you to support me in that effort."    

That approach is not as cryptic as it appears.   Appearing on Fox News only hours after he sent the letter, the governor stated "If the federal government were serious about working with the states … what they would do is block grant those dollars back to the states."    Rick Perry to American taxpayers:  "Send money.   A lot of it.   I'll decide where it goes and take the credit.   You stink."


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The Chameleon Who Would Be President



Inadvertently, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania has cogently demonstrated the fair and balanced myth.   She asks "So can an honest candidate, who doesn’t distort his opponents’ records or rhetoric, win the presidency?"  She answers  "Yes. Now more than ever, with a public highly anxious about the economy and worn down after years of promises that things would get better, the time is ripe for a candid candidate."

Even-handedness seems to be a fetish with the well-meaning Jamieson.    She writes

When they can lure candidates into interviews, the Sunday talk-show anchors reliably tie rhetoric to reality and promise to performance. Obama has been interviewed by each of the Sunday anchors, albeit not recently. But in September 2009, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos persisted while Obama denied that the individual insurance mandate in his health-care legislation was a tax, even though, as Stephanopoulos noted, it forces “people to spend money, fining you if you don’t.” 

How is that not a tax?” Stephanopoulos asked. At issue was whether Obama had violated his 2008 campaign pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class. Recently the Supreme Court agreed with Stephanopoulos.

With similar tenacity, last month Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” asked Romney about his plan to lower income-tax rates: “When are you going to tell us where you’re going to get the revenue? Which of the deductions are you going to be willing to eliminate?” When the candidate answered that “we’ll go through that process with Congress,” viewers could surmise that he considered a candid answer politically costly and therefore chose to be evasive.

Let's make it a little clearer for the Professor.    Romney pledges to increase defense spending, cut taxes, and move toward a balanced budget.    He cannot do it without cutting the heart out of tax deductions which largely help the middle class.    He won't tell us that.

While political considerations probably played a role in President Obama's insistence that the fee for healthy individuals refusing (until when needed) health care is not a tax, there was another reason.   It is not a tax.   It is a fine, notwithstanding whatever rhetorical gymnastics Chief Justice Roberts had to perform to claim the penalty is constitutional under Congress' taxing authority.    

While lamenting the lack of candor from Obama and Romney, Jamieson contends

When voters are anxious about the well-being of future generations, they also are more likely to tune in to longer forms of political communication — such as debates and other televised presentations — that are conducive to honestly explaining more complex topics.

There may be a problem with that, professor.      The New York Daily News' Thomas DeFrank reports 

It’s 13 weeks away, but Mitt Romney has already begun quietly prepping for his high-stakes inaugural debate with Barack Obama.

Romney sources told the Daily News that during a three-day retreat he hosted late last month for big-time Republican contributors and party mandarins at Park City, Utah, the candidate also found time to squeeze in the first two rounds of what staffers call “debate prep.”

Romney convened six to eight campaign aides around a conference table at the elegant Chateaux at Silver Lake. They sorted through a variety of topics sure to come up in the three Presidential debates, like the state of the economy and the war in Afghanistan, and kicked around the best “test responses” to questions they expect Obama and debate moderators will toss at the ex-Massachusetts governor.

It's not enough that Mitt Romney is frightened of offending the right wing of his right wing party.    Now, during the debates the GOP candidate will have, his answers evidently will have been vetted by focus groups.    Romney not only will not give honest answers or broach the hard truth as Jamieson sees it, he'll tell the American people the believes what his handlers have found the electorate believes.

Still, Jamieson believes "Sunday talk shows and fact checking columnists" can keep candidates honest.  She concludes

The victor’s reward for treating his opponent fairly and being faithful to the facts could be a majority that trusts its president and his administration — and awards him an enhanced capacity to govern. He might even earn a place in the history books for shepherding the country through a challenging time.

And that’s a prize more enduring than four years in the Oval Office.

The "reward for treating his oppponents fairly and being faithful to the facts,"  Jamieson rightly notes, "could be a majority that trusts its president and his administration."    Could be, but won't be.    Unfortunately, while Barack Obama is not completely faithful to the facts, Mitt Romney is faithful only to the determination to avoid saying what he believes about anything.




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