I still think that Romney will be the Republican candidate for President, Adelson's $10 million (so far - in about a month) to Gingrich notwithstanding.
Showing posts with label President. Show all posts
Showing posts with label President. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Jon Stewart on Romney's taxes
This may be Jon Stewart's best opening monologue yet.
I still think that Romney will be the Republican candidate for President, Adelson's $10 million (so far - in about a month) to Gingrich notwithstanding.
I still think that Romney will be the Republican candidate for President, Adelson's $10 million (so far - in about a month) to Gingrich notwithstanding.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Bob Gates exploring not enforcing "Don't Ask Don't Tell" at times
Obama is getting a bad rap from the media and the homosexual community on "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT.) Should he abrogate the Rule of Law to prevent injustice to homosexuals who serve honorably in the military? The media and the homosexual community think so. They want immediate results because people are getting hurt and the security of America is being damaged by the injustices daily. The Obama administration is saying that Congressional action is required.
CNN News has a wire story that Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is exploring "...Obama Administration plans to selectively enforce the “don’t ask don’t tell” ban on gays in the military so that some gays could serve."
Here's what Bob Gates says he is doing:
But Obama is a Constitutional Law lawyer, he is very intelligent and capable, and he is simply not a person to take extreme actions on his own except in extreme situations. That's a major reason we elected him President after this last eight years. In spite of the personal injustices currently still being perpetuated on homosexuals in the military who have for one reason or another been accused or exposed as exemplified by Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, this is not a broad "extreme situation" that requires immediate Presidential action that violates the law. Obama is going to apply the Rule of Law, unlike the previous administration. He's right. Congressional action is required.
What Bob Gates is describing is the only set of executive branch actions that can alleviate any of the injustices prior to Congressional action, unless the courts provide an injunction stopping the current enforcement of DADT. The legal backing for such an injunction is either absent or supports the banning of homosexuals, so court action is not on the horizon. This is the best possible action possible prior to the necessary action by Congress. So Congress is where everyone should focus their wrath.
Media? Are you listening? Grow up and get it right. There's nothing complicated about this.
This one of my "Rule of Law" posts. The Rule of Law, together with the U.S. Constitution, are core to what it means to be "an American."I don't think we Americans can relegate the enforcement of the Rule of Law to the legal profession alone. The rest of us have to understand it and recognize when it is not being applied.
CNN News has a wire story that Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is exploring "...Obama Administration plans to selectively enforce the “don’t ask don’t tell” ban on gays in the military so that some gays could serve."
Here's what Bob Gates says he is doing:
“What we have is a law — be it a policy or a regulation — and as I discovered when I got into it, it’s a very prescriptive law. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination for a lot of flexibility. And so one of the things we’re looking at — is there flexibility in how we apply this law.”President Obama is catching a lot of flak for not unilaterally taking Presidential action to overturn or refuse to enforce the existing law that requires the Pentagon to discharge homosexuals when they surface or are exposed in the military. If it were a right-wing subject, George Bush showed he was not bound by law that the Congress has passed and the President has signed in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution. The misuse of signing statements was just one method the Bush administration got around enforcing law they did not like.
The secretary appears to be proposing interim measures. “If somebody is outed by a third party … does that force us to take an action? And I don’t know the answer to that, and I don’t want to pretend to. But that’s the kind of thing we’re looking at to see if there’s at least a more humane way to apply the law until the law gets changed.”
But Obama is a Constitutional Law lawyer, he is very intelligent and capable, and he is simply not a person to take extreme actions on his own except in extreme situations. That's a major reason we elected him President after this last eight years. In spite of the personal injustices currently still being perpetuated on homosexuals in the military who have for one reason or another been accused or exposed as exemplified by Air Force Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, this is not a broad "extreme situation" that requires immediate Presidential action that violates the law. Obama is going to apply the Rule of Law, unlike the previous administration. He's right. Congressional action is required.
What Bob Gates is describing is the only set of executive branch actions that can alleviate any of the injustices prior to Congressional action, unless the courts provide an injunction stopping the current enforcement of DADT. The legal backing for such an injunction is either absent or supports the banning of homosexuals, so court action is not on the horizon. This is the best possible action possible prior to the necessary action by Congress. So Congress is where everyone should focus their wrath.
Media? Are you listening? Grow up and get it right. There's nothing complicated about this.
This one of my "Rule of Law" posts. The Rule of Law, together with the U.S. Constitution, are core to what it means to be "an American."I don't think we Americans can relegate the enforcement of the Rule of Law to the legal profession alone. The rest of us have to understand it and recognize when it is not being applied.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
A new era for America begins
Today at 12:00 pm noon Eastern time, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as President of the United States of America. Here is a video of the swearing in.
This is only symbolic. Obama earned the right to become President, and we as Americans have given him the office through the procedures set down in the U.S. Constitution. But for being "only" symbolic, it still is a powerful symbol of what America is.
We have given him the office in trying times. We can only wish him the very best in the ways each of us sends out such wishes and prayers.
This is only symbolic. Obama earned the right to become President, and we as Americans have given him the office through the procedures set down in the U.S. Constitution. But for being "only" symbolic, it still is a powerful symbol of what America is.
We have given him the office in trying times. We can only wish him the very best in the ways each of us sends out such wishes and prayers.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
A couple of interesting/disturbing discussions
Kevin Drum has posted two blogs that present good views on getting out of the Iraq war and on the value of insurance companies in the American health care system.
On the subject of the Iraq war, can whoever becomes President in January either "win in Iraq" (almost certainly not) or "Get American troops out of Iraq in 2009"? (See IRAQ AFTER NOVEMBER.) The answer to getting the troops out immediately is, unfortunately, a very similar "almost certainly not."
As Richard Neustadt's excellent book Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership From Roosevelt To Reagan pointed out, every decision a President makes either enables or prevents future decisions that President will make. If the incoming President starts by implementing the decision to get the troops out of Iraq in 12 to 18 months, he will "...instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency." There will remain no room for any other action the President wants to take!
A lot of people consider immediately ending the disaster that is the Iraq occupation as their top single priority. A lot of other Americans consider staying there and not declaring defeat in Iraq their top single priority. Then there are a bunch of us who, while considering shutting the Iraq Occupation down very important, also want to see the federal government do some basic things to correct the destruction of the American Constitution, the American economy and the American government to be of even higher priority than immediately removing all American troops from Iraq. As important is ending Bush's mistake in Iraq is, is it worth the continued destruction of America to do it overnight? I don't think so. Go read Kevin Drum's blog and the articles he links to. If you don't see that the issue is a lot more complicated than "Win Now!" vs "Get out Now!" then you are the kind of single issue thoughtless individual who has made all politics about the either the abortion issue or gay marriage. The real decisions are a lot more complicated than those bumper stickers.
Kevin's other blog LIVING WITHOUT THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY is about one of those other issues that the incoming President needs to deal with starting in January and should not let precipitous action on the Iraq occupation sidetrack. What is the role of insurance companies in the American health care system? Their purpose is to make a profit by promising to pay for health care services to those who pay premiums. Note how the "make a profit" is the key word of that sentence and "by promising to pay for health care services to those who pay premiums is a mere prepositional phrase, as befits its status as merely a way to make money. Collection premiums in important, but not paying out benefits is almost as important.
The history of health insurers has been one of finding new ways not to pay benefits. Insure only healthy people, cancel policies on those who need expensive care, refuse to pay for specific treatments, deal only with physicians who will charge less by providing less in the way of services, and charge high administration fees to (1) cover selling the policies in competition with other companies doing the same thing and(2) pay for investigating patients to avoid sick ones and to show reasons for canceling policies when someone requests benefits.
A government single payer system would eliminate most of those negative behaviors and make it possible to lower the costs of medical care substantially, even while covering every American. Interestingly, the cost of excess bureaucracy is one of the faults of the Private health insurers that the government can sharply reduce.
Any organization has to be at least as large as the system that it is attempting to deal with. A lot of business organizations can be limited to sales in a single neighborhood, so they don't need to be very large. But the problems of the health care system are nation-wide. No organization that attempts to deal with a subset of that system is going to successfully provide care to all Americans. It is the nature of organizations for a set of organizations that are too small for the problem they are dealing with to (1) leave out a lot of people who need what they offer and (2) to be subject to runaway costs caused by forces outside the realm the small organizations deal with.
In short, there is no substitute for single payer health insurance. Every argument counter to that is a fantasy by know-nothings or a scam by scamsters.
On the subject of the Iraq war, can whoever becomes President in January either "win in Iraq" (almost certainly not) or "Get American troops out of Iraq in 2009"? (See IRAQ AFTER NOVEMBER.) The answer to getting the troops out immediately is, unfortunately, a very similar "almost certainly not."
As Richard Neustadt's excellent book Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership From Roosevelt To Reagan pointed out, every decision a President makes either enables or prevents future decisions that President will make. If the incoming President starts by implementing the decision to get the troops out of Iraq in 12 to 18 months, he will "...instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency." There will remain no room for any other action the President wants to take!
A lot of people consider immediately ending the disaster that is the Iraq occupation as their top single priority. A lot of other Americans consider staying there and not declaring defeat in Iraq their top single priority. Then there are a bunch of us who, while considering shutting the Iraq Occupation down very important, also want to see the federal government do some basic things to correct the destruction of the American Constitution, the American economy and the American government to be of even higher priority than immediately removing all American troops from Iraq. As important is ending Bush's mistake in Iraq is, is it worth the continued destruction of America to do it overnight? I don't think so. Go read Kevin Drum's blog and the articles he links to. If you don't see that the issue is a lot more complicated than "Win Now!" vs "Get out Now!" then you are the kind of single issue thoughtless individual who has made all politics about the either the abortion issue or gay marriage. The real decisions are a lot more complicated than those bumper stickers.
Kevin's other blog LIVING WITHOUT THE HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY is about one of those other issues that the incoming President needs to deal with starting in January and should not let precipitous action on the Iraq occupation sidetrack. What is the role of insurance companies in the American health care system? Their purpose is to make a profit by promising to pay for health care services to those who pay premiums. Note how the "make a profit" is the key word of that sentence and "by promising to pay for health care services to those who pay premiums is a mere prepositional phrase, as befits its status as merely a way to make money. Collection premiums in important, but not paying out benefits is almost as important.
The history of health insurers has been one of finding new ways not to pay benefits. Insure only healthy people, cancel policies on those who need expensive care, refuse to pay for specific treatments, deal only with physicians who will charge less by providing less in the way of services, and charge high administration fees to (1) cover selling the policies in competition with other companies doing the same thing and(2) pay for investigating patients to avoid sick ones and to show reasons for canceling policies when someone requests benefits.
A government single payer system would eliminate most of those negative behaviors and make it possible to lower the costs of medical care substantially, even while covering every American. Interestingly, the cost of excess bureaucracy is one of the faults of the Private health insurers that the government can sharply reduce.
Any organization has to be at least as large as the system that it is attempting to deal with. A lot of business organizations can be limited to sales in a single neighborhood, so they don't need to be very large. But the problems of the health care system are nation-wide. No organization that attempts to deal with a subset of that system is going to successfully provide care to all Americans. It is the nature of organizations for a set of organizations that are too small for the problem they are dealing with to (1) leave out a lot of people who need what they offer and (2) to be subject to runaway costs caused by forces outside the realm the small organizations deal with.
In short, there is no substitute for single payer health insurance. Every argument counter to that is a fantasy by know-nothings or a scam by scamsters.
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