Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
The words communicated what fair minded representatives wanted to say, what fair minded voters needed to hear.
But Pelosi and Schumer looked like they had been pushed together into an invisible locker. It was awful.
Then I saw the polls.
Continue reading “Tag Teams: Pelosi and Schumer vs Trump and the Oval Office”
From Michael Kinsley:
People seem to like the ACA. They especially like the provision forbidding insurers to discriminate against those with preexisting conditions. This formerly obscure technical term of the insurance business has become the center of the healthcare discussion. You can’t call it a debate, because there’s no basic disagreement. Everyone’s for covering preexisting conditions. The question is, Who got there first?
Healthcare is now like Social Security, the famous “third rail of American politics” — that is, the one that will kill you if you touch it, like the third rail of the New York subway. (What? The subway has no fourth rail? Relax. It’s only a metaphor.) So Republicans are claiming, preposterously, that their many attempts to kill Obamacare — both before and after its enactment — were actually attempts to improve it.
From Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:
Government is the only institution that can legally compel obedience. When you say “use” government, you’re advocating use of force by some people against other people who simply disagree, but have committed no crime. Is that using government “appropriately”? The dirty little secret of representative democracy is that an elected legislature can trample a person’s rights as readily as any dictator. An appropriate government–a representative republic–is one restrained by constitutional protections of individual rights and limited to enumerated separation of powers designed for that purpose. No electoral faction should ever be allowed to use the government as the “hired gun” to impose their values on all others, regardless of the size of the majority or the small number of dissenters. The “people,” after all, is an assortment of individuals, not an omnipotent entity that reigns above and apart from the individuals who comprise it. Each person is part of “the people,” and thus has an equal right to plan for her own life matters such as retirement and healthcare so long as he respects the same rights of others. Both Social Security and Medicare violate those principles.
From Jonathan Bernstein:
Any televised response to a prime-time address will be flawed.
But surely they can do better than this.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a predictably bad response to President Donald Trump’s immigration speech on Tuesday night. Well, maybe even worse than most people would’ve predicted; at least on my television, the staging and lighting looked awkward, and Pelosi in particular was unimpressive. That’s not really a problem: Few people stay tuned for these responses, so bad ones aren’t that costly. And if presidential addresses aren’t very effective at changing public opinion, it’s no surprise that the responses aren’t either.
Yet the out-party feels obligated to offer such responses all the same. In fact, it will soon be time to give the traditional out-party rejoinder to the president’s State of the Union speech, scheduled for Jan. 29. So allow me to trot out my annual plea…
From Frances Langum:
The suits upstairs at Fox care about one thing: ratings. And only the most brainwashed Fox zombie will refuse to switch to Maddow (literally #1) on court-filing days to find out what really happened. You can only keep up the “crazed panda sex” coverage for so long.
But they’ve still gotta pander to their number one viewer in the White House. So after the fact check they whiplash right over to Hannity and Trump’s blackmailed (allegedly!) golf buddy, Lindsey Graham.
“This is the most presidential I have seen President Trump. It was compelling and everything he said was true.” said Lindsey, doing his best “Manchurian Candidate” brainwashed monotone ever.
From Iron Knee at Political Irony:
Donald Trump claimed that “all” the former presidents knew that they should have built a border wall, and that “Some of them have told me that we should have done it.” But all the living ex-presidents have denied even talking to Trump about the wall.
So which presidents is Trump talking about? Here’s a good guess…
From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has proposed adding a top tax rate of 70% that would only apply to income of over $10 million. Republicans are aghast about her proposal. They claim it would invite economic disaster. Of course they are wrong. This nation has had a top marginal tax rate of 70% or more for many years of the 20th Century (see chart above) — and the economy did quite well.
Her proposal actually makes good economic sense — especially in our current situation (with the government registering trillion dollar a year deficits and a rapidly ballooning national debt).
From Joe Hagstrom at MadMikesAmerica:
We Republicans fully understand that sometimes lies or killing of Middle Eastern children, or the occasional locking up or killing of an innocent black guy are necessary evils to send a message of Christian goodness.
The noted and highly respected man of God, the most Reverend Franklin Graham, has sanctified this through his total devotion to President Trump no matter how many times he lies. I pointed out long ago that Trump, through his policy of deregulation, had the Seventh Commandment eliminated, for Republicans anyway, we do understand some regulation is necessary, so when he lies it isn’t a sin anymore for Republicans.