Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Bilmore, if I were you, I would give up on this conversation now.

Are we that fungible? If you prick me, do I not bl . . . . (I mean, the 98 votes discussion ain't mine.)

[dtb]

Originally posted by bilmore
Are we that fungible? If you prick me, do I not bl . . . . (I mean, the 98 votes discussion ain't mine.)

Yes it is -- it was brought up in response to your claim that I was ignoring the "actual numbers" to show that "actual numbers" don't mean shit without knowing what goes into them.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by dtb
This is another debunking of the "98 votes" spin:

• The president said, as he often has elsewhere, that Mr. Kerry had voted for tax increases 98 times. That is probably true. But many, if not most, of those were multiple votes on the same bills or on nonbinding resolutions and motions.
  
  Mr. Kerry has voted for two large tax increases - the 1990 budget law backed by the president's father that put the country on the road to a balanced budget and President Bill Clinton's 1993 bill, which imposed most of the increases on upper-income taxpayers.

This is the article where this came from. There are other "fact check" items in there as well.

luhsirsahzwhuut



284!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Steve Clemons (who writes for UPI) on his blog:

• WHAT IS IT WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE SOUTH and disgusting political flyers and mailers?
  
  A nasty flyer has turned up in Tennesse politics which depicts a handicapped athlete running on a track with George Bush's face pasted on.
  
  The text reads:
  
  Voting for Bush is Like Running in the Special Olympics -- Even if You Win, You're Still Retarded.
  
  The Traditional Values Coalition and other right wing operations in the South jumped on this fast alleging that Tennessee Democrat Craig Fitzhugh's office, which shares space with the Kerry/Edwards Campaign, was distributing this flyer.
  
  I have just spoken to Fitzhugh's office -- and here are the facts so far.
  
  First, the Chairman of the Democratic Party Randy Button and Craig Fitzhugh have denied that these flyers were produced and/or distributed by Fitzhugh's or the campaign office.
  
  Remember when the equally nasty RNC mailer emerged in West Virginia and Arkansas? It took more than a week for Ed Gillespie and the RNC, which originally disavowed knowledge of the mailer, to own up that the "ban the Bible" mailer was an RNC product. In this case, the denial from the Dems is immediate and firm.
  
  Fitzhugh's office reported to me that they have asked the District Attorney's office to investigate and looks at this flyer and the attempt to pin it on Fitzhugh as a disgusting -- but more importantly -- an illegal act.
  
  What has been reported is that these flyers were left in a trash can in Fitzhugh's office. No one on Fitzhugh's staff or among campaign volunteers saw that these flyers had been deposited by anyone in the garbage. Shortly after some unknown individual dropped the flyers in the trash can, another individual came into the office and found the flyers in Fitzhugh's trash -- and then made this public.
  
  Coincidence? I think not. I hope the D.A. goes after these culprits and nails them hard.
  
  This appears to be a classic dirty trick.
  
  But when the dust clears on this one -- despite the efforts of Fox News and the Traditional Values Coalition to try to keep this mailer linked to Democrats -- the RNC has to not only live with its admission of producing and distributing a duplicitous, homophobic mailer but that it has produced a culture in its party where this kind of political prank seems to be becoming a norm.

The Washington Note (internal links omitted)

[bilmore]

Originally posted by dtb
Yes it is -- it was brought up in response to your claim that I was ignoring the "actual numbers" to show that "actual numbers" don't mean shit without knowing what goes into them.

Ah, sorry, I thought Club picked that one up.

I understand that you can massage the "he voted" thing to your hearts content. But, the article I posted had to do with fairly hard numbers, and I thought that was more conducive to discussion.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Steve Clemons (who writes for UPI) on his blog:

• WHAT IS IT WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE SOUTH and disgusting political flyers and mailers?
  
  A nasty flyer has turned up in Tennesse politics which depicts a handicapped athlete running on a track with George Bush's face pasted on.
  
  The text reads:
  
  Voting for Bush is Like Running in the Special Olympics -- Even if You Win, You're Still Retarded.
  
  The Traditional Values Coalition and other right wing operations in the South jumped on this fast alleging that Tennessee Democrat Craig Fitzhugh's office, which shares space with the Kerry/Edwards Campaign, was distributing this flyer.
  
  I have just spoken to Fitzhugh's office -- and here are the facts so far.
  
  First, the Chairman of the Democratic Party Randy Button and Craig Fitzhugh have denied that these flyers were produced and/or distributed by Fitzhugh's or the campaign office.
  
  Remember when the equally nasty RNC mailer emerged in West Virginia and Arkansas? It took more than a week for Ed Gillespie and the RNC, which originally disavowed knowledge of the mailer, to own up that the "ban the Bible" mailer was an RNC product. In this case, the denial from the Dems is immediate and firm.
  
  Fitzhugh's office reported to me that they have asked the District Attorney's office to investigate and looks at this flyer and the attempt to pin it on Fitzhugh as a disgusting -- but more importantly -- an illegal act.
  
  What has been reported is that these flyers were left in a trash can in Fitzhugh's office. No one on Fitzhugh's staff or among campaign volunteers saw that these flyers had been deposited by anyone in the garbage. Shortly after some unknown individual dropped the flyers in the trash can, another individual came into the office and found the flyers in Fitzhugh's trash -- and then made this public.
  
  Coincidence? I think not. I hope the D.A. goes after these culprits and nails them hard.
  
  This appears to be a classic dirty trick.
  
  But when the dust clears on this one -- despite the efforts of Fox News and the Traditional Values Coalition to try to keep this mailer linked to Democrats -- the RNC has to not only live with its admission of producing and distributing a duplicitous, homophobic mailer but that it has produced a culture in its party where this kind of political prank seems to be becoming a norm.

The Washington Note (internal links omitted)

Homophobic? Was there something on there about Mary Cheney that I missed?

[dtb]

Originally posted by bilmore
I understand that you can massage the "he voted" thing to your hearts content.

As you can with the other numbers you cited -- as Ty pointed out.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Steve Clemons (who writes for UPI) on his blog:

WHAT IS IT WITH THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN THE SOUTH and disgusting political flyers and mailers?

So, after it was reported that those were available for two weeks (yesterday's news), you're going to base this on one guy saying "it wasn't us", and start in with "dirty tricks"? Seems awful quick.

(It may have been a dirty trick. It seems like far too stoopid of a poster for anyone to seriously print. I'm just saying, this is a bit thin.)

(P.S. What was the homophibic thingie referring to?)

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Yes. Now see here as to why many find this less than convincing. (spree - no big VF article, just a post on lawtalkers)

Yes, when faced with inconvenient facts, attack the messenger, in this case career lawyers at the DOJ.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore
So, after it was reported that those were available for two weeks (yesterday's news), you're going to base this on one guy saying "it wasn't us", and start in with "dirty tricks"? Seems awful quick.

(It may have been a dirty trick. It seems like far too stoopid of a poster for anyone to seriously print. I'm just saying, this is a bit thin.)

(P.S. What was the homophibic thingie referring to?)

It would be thinner were it not for Rove's history:

A typical instance occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove's client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up—absent any trace of who was behind them—viciously attacking See and his family. "We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people," the staffer says. "You'd roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, 'Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you're with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn't have your tags.' So I borrowed a buddy's car [and drove] down the middle of the street … I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I'd cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees." The ploy left Rove's opponent at a loss. Ingram's staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order "to create a backlash against the Democrat," as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. "They just beat you down to your knees," Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove's attacks. See won the race.

Also quoted by Ty's sock.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Yes, when faced with inconvenient facts, attack the messenger, in this case career lawyers at the DOJ.

Those are not facts, those are conclusions. I don't know whether the report's "author" was a careerist at Justice or not, but I do know who his boss was. And I do know that whoever was there at that time had to join in Ashcroft's prayer meetings or be frozen out. And I believe it is no secret that Ashcroft has been remaking Justice in his (or is it His) image. Sorry, but I wouldn't trust any public official who has himself annointed in oil before assuming office.

eta Ashcroft's justice wouldn't interfere in an investigation of GOP dirty tricks? http://www.theunionleader.com/articl...?article=45614

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Note that Kerry didn't say "net," and bilmore's source did. Coincidence?
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No, logic. Kerry's implication is net. If you want to argue that it's not, then it would be logical to make that same statement if 1.6MM jobs were lost in W's first year, and 44MM were gained in the next three.

Wait, so now the argument is that Kerry said something accurate, but that it was calculated to mislead? Oh Mr. Ironic Minnesotan Guy, you're killing me.

I've seen jobs figures and can't find them again, so I can't check this attack on Kerry. Be that as it may, two things are indisputable: (1) The percentage of the work force with employment is low, and has dropped during Bush's term, and (2) By the terms used by the White House in selling them, the Bush tax cuts have been a lousy, lousy way of creating jobs.

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And enough about the excuses about the hand that he was dealt -- given that we are now 2,700,000 jobs below where the White House predicted we'd be when it sold the tax cuts, there can't really be any dispute that the White House's policies have been a collosal failure in the jobs department, right?
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A failure in the prediction department, maybe, but tell me where we'd be without the cuts? What's unemployment right now - 5.4%? Not too shabby.

Not a failure in prediction, a failure in performance, by design. No serious economist thought Bush's tax cuts were a good way to boost employment. He sold them that way, hoping to take credit for a subsequent natural rebound in employment. It hasn't worked that way. The sad thing is that all of that money could have been used to create jobs for the middle class instead of distributed so inefficiently to the wealthy.

And you know what's misleading about the UE number, so don't even start with that stuff again.

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Is it possible that Kerry was talking about real income (after inflation), and that bilmore's source is conveniently ignoring inflation?
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Don't know, can't tell. Seems like it owuld have made sense for Kerry to specifiy if that were the case.

Not if you're trying to keep things simple and punchy in a debate. He wasn't drafting a policy paper, he was talking to John Q. Public.

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But this isn't responsive, is it? Without supporting evidence, bilmore's source calls Kerry's statement an urban legend, and then shifts to talk about rates of increase instead. (Think about it this way -- the fastest growing counties tend to be those with the smallest population, while larger counties add more population, but aren't growing as fast.)
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Tell me Kerry's source for this statement about the $9k. The HF article at least calls out some objective measurement.

I'm glad that you don't deny that your source changed the subject. Of course I don't know what Kerry's source was. Do your own research.

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More mendacity: Bilmore's source restricts the question to "income taxes," but that's not what Kerry said, is it?
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Only while dealing with that percentage thrown out. The rest is in dollars. And, besides, what subject was being discussed other than income tax?

The tax burden that us non-wealthy people pay includes payroll taxes. Middle-class voters in places like Ohio understand this, even if Bush supporters would prefer to ignore it.

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I don't know the details of Kerry's plan, so RT has my proxy on the first part of this one. On the second, I note only that Bush seemed to think that Kerry's plan involved providing health care to all, gratis, so perhaps he's not the most credible source on which to base an empirical attack on it?
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Kerry's plan is to form our own version of Swiss Re for health insurers, taking all the cat risk to be paid out of my pocket. Great plan. He says that, because the feds (uh, my paycheck, I mean) will cover all losses above some determined amount, insurers can charge employers less, and so employers will voluntarily cover more people. (Except, he says it won't really be voluntary, cuz he'll hit them with penalties if they don't.) He's taken a bigger step towards HilaryCare than even Hilary dared, and he leaves a great situation for continued gradual and quiet lowering of that cat level until we truly do have single-payor. Not only does this not touch actual costs, (it just changes who pays), it puts the onus of efficiency and cost-cutting on . . . wait for it . . . federal government. Get ready for the $600 office visit, paid for by taxes.

Here is another, lengthier description of what Kerry proposes:

• While the Bush approach puts more of the onus of cost on the individual, John Kerry’s proposals aim to reduce and spread the costs of health insurance. Some provisions would make private plans more affordable, while other elements would expand public programs for low-income people. Kerry’s plan, unlike Clinton’s in 1993, calls for little institutional change and does not include any mandates. It uses new financing to stabilize and extend existing forms of coverage and to create incentives for greater efficiency. In this sense, his program is incrementalist -- “ambitious incrementalism” is the term that some have used to describe it. According to estimates by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, Kerry’s proposals would cost $653 billion over 10 years and result in coverage of 27 million of the nation’s 45 million uninsured, raising the proportion of Americans with health insurance to about 95 percent. Unlike Bush, Kerry indicates how he would pay for his plan: The required revenue would come from rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent in income.
  
  To cut private insurance premiums, Kerry proposes that the government provide “stop-loss” protection to private plans, picking up 75 percent of the cost of catastrophic care. The threshold for this protection would be set so as to relieve private plans of 10 percent of their costs. In 2006, that level would be $30,000 in annual expenses for an individual, rising to $50,000 in 2013. Employers that wanted to get the stop-loss protection would need to have a certified disease-management program (aimed at controlling expenses and preventing recurrences for specific high-cost conditions such as heart disease). They would also have to offer health coverage to all their employees on a nondiscriminatory basis -- that is, if they pay 75 percent of premiums for some employees, they would have to extend the same offer to all.
  
  The stop-loss protection would have benefits to the public beyond the immediate savings of 10 percent. Reducing the risk of high-cost cases would make it less risky, and therefore cheaper, to insure small firms. All employers would have less incentive to discriminate against job seekers who are older or disabled or who have family members suffering from costly medical conditions. In the past, Blue Cross plans used to offer a single “community rate” to all firms, large and small. Competition did away with that practice. Under Kerry’s proposal, the government would, in effect, restore “community rating” for catastrophic medical care.
  
  In another measure aimed to increase the pooling of risk, Kerry would use the framework of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to create a national pool open to all employers to buy insurance. The federal program today offers government employees, including members of Congress, an array of private health-insurance plans (indeed, it has long been cited as a model of “managed competition”). Under Kerry’s proposal, private employers could also purchase health coverage through a parallel, albeit separate, pool.
  
  Kerry would also extend substantial tax credits to enable the unemployed and small businesses to buy insurance. Currently, those who lose jobs with health benefits have a right to buy COBRA coverage for up to 18 months, but they usually must pay for it entirely on their own. Kerry would give the unemployed a refundable tax credit for health insurance equal to 75 percent of their COBRA premium. His plan also includes tax credits to cover up to 50 percent of premiums for employees of small businesses, scaled according to their wages.
  
  Kerry’s primary means for reducing the number of uninsured, however, is a major expansion of public coverage. Since 1965, Medicaid has been the primary channel for financing health care for people with low incomes. The federal government sets minimum standards and provides much of the money, but the states run their own programs at varying levels of inclusiveness and generosity. In 1997, Congress added a second federal-state program to expand coverage of children, but both Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program have suffered from cutbacks in recent years.
  
  Under Kerry’s plan, the federal government would pick up all the costs for insuring the 20 million children from families with incomes below the poverty line ($18,811 for a family of four in 2003). The states would then extend eligibility to children in families with incomes up to three times the poverty level; children in school would be automatically enrolled if their parents did not report other health coverage. As a result of these measures, coverage of children would come close to universal.
  
  With federal money, the states would also expand Medicaid coverage of parents with incomes up to twice the poverty level and other adults up to the poverty line. Kerry’s proposal also includes federal bonus payments to states as they meet enrollment targets.
  
  The combination of provisions in Kerry’s plans helps to address the risk that expanded eligibility for Medicaid would lead employers to drop coverage of low-wage workers. Small businesses would receive substantial tax credits to cover low-wage employees. If firms wanted to get the stop-loss protection under Kerry’s plan, they would have to offer the same coverage to all their workers. Some firms could decide to forgo stop-loss protection rather than cover all their employees; in that case, they would be “paying for” Medicaid through the stop-loss subsidies they give up.
  
  There is, however, an unresolved problem with the use of the federal employee program as a framework for a national insurance pool. Because participation in the pool would be voluntary, the employers most likely to use it would be those with older, higher-cost workers. In pricing coverage for the pool, health insurers would necessarily adjust their rates upward to reflect that risk. The national pool, however, would cost less to administer than plans purchased by small firms through insurance brokers. The program could also attract healthier employee groups if the small-business credits in Kerry’s plan were at least partially contingent on use of the national pool. Many such details will need careful analysis if Kerry is elected and the program gets turned into legislation.

I'll leave it to others to reconcile bilmore's account with this one.

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If bilmore's source doesn't understand what Kerry was saying, how can he debunk it? Perhaps by addressing health-insurance premiums instad of costs?
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Seems to me that Kerry is talking to "us" about "our" costs. Doesn't premium cost describe that burden most accurately?

Not necessarily. E.g., if insurance is providing less coverage, say by limiting types or scope of treatment, then the premiums would not reflect the increase in costs. In an era of mounting costs, I would expect this to happen. Again, I'll defer to RT, who seems to know more about this stuff.

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Can anyone say with a straight face that preventing the government from negotiating with drug companies might cost the drug companies money and in any event won't earn them profits? Can we just call it the Hackitage Foundation?
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Apparently, Price Waterhouse could, and did, say just that. But I know what you mean - I've always been impressed with fedgov's abilities to negotiate costs and increase efficiency.

Who paid PWC, I wonder? I ask only because that's about the stupidest thing I ever heard. And if forbidding the federal government from negotiating with drug companies was actually going to cost them money, why did the GOP pass the bill with that provision?

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Did Kerry talk only about public universities? And does anyone here live in a world in which college tuitions have been dropping? (Not in California they haven't.)
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No. Does anyone live in a world in which student subsidies have been dropping? (Not in the USA they haven't.) Do public university costs tend to mirror the costs of all universities? I believe so.

On the planet where I live, two things have been happening in recent years: (1) the costs of providing education have been increasing faster than inflation, and (2) state budgets have been squeezed like we haven't seen in a long time. The natural and obvious result is that private school tuitions have gone up, and state governments and schools have increased tuition and fees to their students. Financial aid has not kept pace. Maybe Minnesota has been exempt from these trends. If so, don't tell anyone, unless you want new neighbors. Democrats are inclined to use government to address these problems; Republicans are not, but -- recognizing that this is politically problematic -- they like to do things like pretend this all isn't happening. Swing voters are unlikely to be fooled.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by bilmore
A start:

"Moderator: You have a new plan.

Senator Kerry: Can I just say here Chris for one moment that I have a new plan?

...

http://www.interocitor.com/archives/000444.html

Politicians saying "I have a plan, but it's a double super secret plan and I can't tell you about it" no longer surprises (or amuses) me at all. The thing I found oddest about K's performance was the way he kept directly addressing "America." "America, I have a plan!" or "You know, America, cole slaw is better with raisins" or whatever. It occurred to me that this is probably a pretty common conceit of politicians, but DAMN if it wasn't awkward, coming from Kerry at least. He didn't do it in the last two debates, and, while I suspect this was an attempt to "connect" or be more folksy or personal, I think he should have left well enough alone.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Can't argue with the specifics, huh?

This sounds like any number of conversations between you and Ty, only with the roles reversed.

S_A_M

P.S. You really want to talk about numbers tending to show that what the candidates have said is untrue?

Reminds me of a time a few years ago when I asked my wife: "How could you have ever been with such a loser [referring to past long-term relationship]?" The wife looks at me and says "Do you _really_ want to have 'The Exes- Conversation?" I fled.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Politicians saying "I have a plan, but it's a double super secret plan and I can't tell you about it" no longer surprises (or amuses) me at all. The thing I found oddest about K's performance was the way he kept directly addressing "America." "America, I have a plan!" or "You know, America, cole slaw is better with raisins" or whatever. It occurred to me that this is probably a pretty common conceit of politicians, but DAMN if it wasn't awkward, coming from Kerry at least. He didn't do it in the last two debates, and, while I suspect this was an attempt to "connect" or be more folksy or personal, I think he should have left well enough alone.

I think when he said "plan" he meant all the tiny type stuff Ty quoted earlier. It's shorthand designed for the debate format. Kind of like when Hank tells me my sources suck.