It’s roughly two weeks shy of the September 12 march on Washington, and Glenn Beck is distraught. Behind him on the cavernous Fox News set is Beck’s familiar dry-erase board, upon which various insults are written in Beck’s looping print. “This is what people have said about me just this week ... the blogs and everything else,” Beck says, before proceeding to tick off a few: hysterical, cult leader, shameless opportunist.
Today's Wall Street Journal editorial page has one of those sentences that make the Wall Street Journal editorial page such a daily delight: "Last week President Obama sanctioned 'reconciliation,' a complex tactic that would jam ObamaCare into law on sheer power politics." The beautiful thing about this sentence is that it has no argument (nor is there any support for the argument in the sentences that surround it.) It's sheer hand-waving, an attempt to muster every adjec
For more than a month now, I've taken a stubbornly optimistic line on the fate of health care reform -- I've given it slightly better than even odds of passing all along. You've probably noticed that most political reporters have a very different take. They write about health care reform in the past tense, or at best as a very long shot.
The Financial Times is the six-day-a-week newspaper of the Pearson Publishing Group. It is, then, the sister of The Economist. Both are widely read, although the weekly magazine--that is, the latter journal--no longer has much competition in the English-speaking world. (And certainly not from Time or Newsweek.)
When President Obama launched a massive humanitarian-aid response to Haiti's earthquake last month, not everyone took his magnanimity at face value. Hugo Chavez, for example, accused him of "occupying Haiti undercover" and then upped the ante by saying the earthquake had been caused by an American "tectonic weapon." A minister from France, Haiti's former colonial ruler, complained that the U.S. response should be "about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti."
Timothy Jost is a professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law. He posts regularly on the Politico health reform arena and on Georgetown University’s Legal Issues in Health Reform blog.
Although President Obama's primary health reform message in his State of the Union was "do not walk away from reform,” “finish the job” and “let’s get it done,” he also said, “But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know.” At this invitation, congressional Republicans rose to their feet with John Boehner waving his hand, as Newsweek reports, “appearing to almost expect being called upon.”
So what are the Republican’s “better ideas”?
In November, 2009, the House Republicans submitted to Congress HR 4038, “The Common Sense Health Care Reform and Affordability Act.” It weighs in at 220 pages, less than one tenth the size of the current Senate bill. It is mostly a compendium of the same tired health reform proposals that Republicans have offered for years: association health plans, interstate insurance sales, limits on the ability of people injured by medical negligence to obtain justice, and more tax benefits for health savings accounts. It also repeals the federal comparative effectiveness council established by the stimulus bill, repeals the individual market guaranteed issue provision of HIPAA, undermines HIPAA’s group health plan health status discrimination prohibition by allowing reductions in premiums of up to 50% for participants in wellness programs, and adds yet one more prohibition against federal funding of abortion (which is already illegal).
It does include a few newer ideas: support for state reinsurance programs, incentives to the states to reduce premiums in the individual and small group markets and to reduce the number of uninsured, internet “health plan finders” to help people find and compare insurance, and a handful of insurance reforms.
Let's take a closer look at these proposals, one by one:
In the shadow of the intelligence failure that culminated with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lighting an explosive aboard a Detroit-bound flight, the titular head of the U.S. intelligence community was busy fighting another war. For months, in fact, Admiral Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence (DNI), had been waging an epic bureaucratic offensive. His job had been created in the wake of September 11 to foster cooperation and accountability among the 16 agencies sifting through the mounds of inbound data about threats to U.S. interests.
On July 2 of last year, Politico broke a startling story: The Washington Post was planning to host off-the-record salons at which sponsors would pay to mingle with D.C. eminences and Post writers. The dinners--the first of which had been advertised in Post fliers as an “exclusive opportunity to participate in the health-care reform debate among the select few who will actually get it done”--were to take place at the home of Katharine Weymouth, the Post’s publisher.
There's an interesting back-and-forth between Dan Gross and Tim Geithner in Newsweek's year-end interview issue:
GROSS: There have been, and continue to be, calls for you to go. How do you deal with those?
Apparently I found Newsweek's interview with Henry Kissinger and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton more interesting than Isaac did. Clinton makes what I think are a couple of interesting observations, including this one, about diplomacy in the modern world:
It is bad enough that Newsweek and Slate decided to run a long joint interview of Henry Kissinger and Hillary Clinton.
The good folks at Grant's Interest Rate Observer must have felt pretty lonely six weeks ago when they suggested the recovery might be "jobful" rather than jobless, as almost everyone was insisting at the time.
Megan McArdle has a post today in which she takes the media to task for what she deems "Palinoia." She writes:
Newsweek puts together a list of the dozen worst comedians of the last few decades, including Emo Phillips, Andrew Dice Clay, Paulie Shore, Carrot Top, and Gallagher. The memories still burn.
On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.
Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young man, Zazi--who was born in Afghanistan and spent part of his childhood in Pakistan before moving to the United States at the age of 14--kibitzed easily with the counter staff, joking that he had to buy such large quantities of hair products because he "had a lot of girlfriends."
On July 25, Najibullah Zazi, a lanky man in his mid-twenties, walked into the Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. The visit was captured on a store video camera. Wearing a baseball cap and pushing a shopping cart, Zazi appeared to be just another suburban guy.
Of course, not many suburban guys buy six bottles of Clairoxide hair bleach, as Zazi did on this shopping trip--or return a month later to buy a dozen bottles of "Ms. K Liquid," a peroxide-based product. Aware that these were hardly the typical purchases of a heavily bearded, dark-haired young man, Zazi--who was born in Afghanistan and spent part of his childhood in Pakistan before moving to the United States at the age of 14--kibitzed easily with the counter staff, joking that he had to buy such large quantities of hair products because he "had a lot of girlfriends."
Also noteworthy from that Newsweek oral history is this view, from a former Taliban deputy minister, of the trouble Arab "camels" brought to his cause:
Also noteworthy from that Newsweek oral history is this view, from a former Taliban deputy minister, of the trouble Arab "camels" brought to his cause:
Newsweek has a long and thorough profile of Obama's man in Afghanistan:
Newsweek has a long and thorough profile of Obama's man in Afghanistan:
Over the past few months, there have been several reports to the effect that Barack Obama's plan for drastic cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal is dead in the water. Newsweek reported that a draft of the new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)—which, when released next year, will determine the shape of the U.S. arsenal—envisioned only modest arms reductions; a detailed article from Global Security Newswire described a principals meeting in which only Joe Biden argued for an ambitious approach; and Marc Ambinder followed up by explaining how the Pentagon might "take control of the Nuclear Posture Review once more."
It seemed as if Obama's lofty words about deep nuclear cuts were about to be ignored by the Pentagon bureaucracy. And, relatedly, the president looked like he was losing an argument with Defense Secretary Robert Gates over how far to go in refurbishing the U.S. nuclear arsenal--and whether or not to develop a new nuclear warhead that would be seen as undermining the president's pledge to work toward nuclear disarmament.
But, on Monday, the Guardian reported that Obama is putting his foot down. According to the newspaper, "Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the Nuclear Posture Review as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether." It quotes a European source saying, "Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role." The article was short on specifics, but it said that Obama wants the ability to maintain a nuclear arsenal "measured in the hundreds" and to make doctrinal changes via the NPR that will reduce the number of missions for which we contemplate the use of nuclear arms. (Because of policies put in place by the Bush administration, the portfolio of missions for using nuclear arms is both broad and vague: We require them to be available for use in almost any situation--an approach that increases the number of weapons we need to keep available.) Additionally, the Guardian reported that Obama wants to assure our nuclear arsenal's reliability "without testing or producing a new generation of nuclear weapons."
Over the past few months, there have been several reports to the effect that Barack Obama's plan for drastic cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal is dead in the water. Newsweek reported that a draft of the new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)—which, when released next year, will determine the shape of the U.S. arsenal—envisioned only modest arms reductions; a detailed article from Global Security Newswire described a principals meeting in which only Joe Biden argued for an ambitious approach; and Marc Ambinder followed up by explaining how the Pentagon might "take control of the Nuclear Posture Review once more."
It seemed as if Obama's lofty words about deep nuclear cuts were about to be ignored by the Pentagon bureaucracy. And, relatedly, the president looked like he was losing an argument with Defense Secretary Robert Gates over how far to go in refurbishing the U.S. nuclear arsenal--and whether or not to develop a new nuclear warhead that would be seen as undermining the president's pledge to work toward nuclear disarmament.
But, on Monday, the Guardian reported that Obama is putting his foot down. According to the newspaper, "Obama has rejected the Pentagon's first draft of the Nuclear Posture Review as being too timid, and has called for a range of more far-reaching options consistent with his goal of eventually abolishing nuclear weapons altogether." It quotes a European source saying, "Obama is now driving this process. He is saying these are the president's weapons, and he wants to look again at the doctrine and their role." The article was short on specifics, but it said that Obama wants the ability to maintain a nuclear arsenal "measured in the hundreds" and to make doctrinal changes via the NPR that will reduce the number of missions for which we contemplate the use of nuclear arms. (Because of policies put in place by the Bush administration, the portfolio of missions for using nuclear arms is both broad and vague: We require them to be available for use in almost any situation--an approach that increases the number of weapons we need to keep available.) Additionally, the Guardian reported that Obama wants to assure our nuclear arsenal's reliability "without testing or producing a new generation of nuclear weapons."
One remarkable thing about watching the Middle East is how what’s celebrated as brilliant in Europe or America is errant nonsense.
Writing such stuff makes people successful and gives them an audience of millions. What they say is so ridiculous that one wants to laugh, yet so totally accepted as true in Washington and European capitals that the laughter would be laughed at.
One remarkable thing about watching the Middle East is how what’s celebrated as brilliant in Europe or America is errant nonsense.
Writing such stuff makes people successful and gives them an audience of millions. What they say is so ridiculous that one wants to laugh, yet so totally accepted as true in Washington and European capitals that the laughter would be laughed at.
In the latest issue of Newsweek, Jonathan Tepperman has a very confused piece arguing that nuclear disarmament is a bad idea because “[t]he bomb may actually make us safer.” Taking a stand against Washington’s allegedly overwhelming “nuclear phobia,” he writes, “Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy.” I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone suggest that they know “the truth” about nuclear weapons, but I’m quite certain that Tepperman hasn’t found it.
The thrust of the article is that nuclear-armed states won’t fight each other because “all states are rational on some basic level” and because the “iron logic of deterrence and mutual assured destruction is so compelling.” In other words, they won’t wage even a conventional war out of fear that it’ll go nuclear and destroy them in the process. This, of course, assumes that states are monolithic actors and that rationality precludes catastrophe, both of which are silly propositions, as Tepperman himself inadvertently shows when he cites the Cuban missile crisis as evidence for his thesis. During the crisis, he writes, “Both sides stepped back from the brink when they recognized that a war would have meant curtains for everyone.”
