Monday, August 24, 2009

Open Thread and Links

This, of course, is a must read. A really good write-up on the Minnick teabagger meeting.

I also liked this account

More Republican Hypocrisy

Rep. Minnick to appear on Newshour with Jim Lehrer tonight.


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I probably won't have any content up today. I have a couple things in the works, but not much time. School started today, and I'm supposed to have two speeches written already. And work, have to go to work, too. Somewhere in there I'll fit in study-time for my LSAT. I definitely intend to get some content up either tomorrow or Wed. though.

Aside from that, here's a controversial conversation starter: Lately, I've been pretty angry with Rep. Minnick, but now I'm vacillating. I feel like I can forgive all his opposition on healthcare b/c I don't think his vote in the House really matters. I'm thinking that the Speaker, the Whip, and the Majority Leader probably all told him to do what it takes to keep his seat. And that makes sense, b/c more Democratic butts in seats means a majority for Democrats, which means Democrats run the show and the committees(which means, thank goodness, that Republicans don't). But, taking all of that into account, does that mean Rep. Minnick has to attend teabagger meetings where he bashes "North End Democrats" and gives credibility to crazy teabaggers who are definitely not going to vote for him anyway? Like I said, I'm vacillating.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Open Thread and Links

For the love of sweet baby Jesus, read This

What do you all think? Will Massachussetts be able to fill Ted Kennedy's seat fast enough to secure a 60 seat Democratic voting block?

Is Boise State University President Bob Kustra a Republican or a Democrat. One of my Prof.'s one time told me he was a Republican, but now I'm not so sure. . .

Ruh-roh! Minnick to attend. . .tea party?!

Today is my day off from work. . .Hooray! How's everyone else doing?

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

BaucusCare

Let's steal the (insert-name-here)Care meme from the right-wing.

This meme is a lame hold-over from the Clinton administration. Back then, in 1992, right-wingers branded healthcare reform as "HillaryCare". They won that battle, and so now we are seeing them trot out the same tired old meme(of course, they're calling it "ObamaCare" now instead of "HillaryCare"). But while this is a very tired old meme, it is also a meme that has worked it's way into the mainstream conciousness. Because of this, it can be useful to us.

So I say we steal it. Here's the situation as I see it: Some form of healthcare reform will be passed. It will either have a public option or it won't. If it doesn't, then it is basically TARP for health insurance companies. The reason I say it is TARP for health insurance companies has to do with the informal health insurance mandate that is contained within the bill. This is a mandate that is sure to be left in the bill. It is a 2.5% adjusted gross income tax on individuals without health insurance. Without a public option, the American people will be basically forced to buy private insurance, and the private insurance industry will have no real incentive to lower costs. Why would they? They'll be making record profits without having to even lift a finger b/c everyone in rhe entire country will have to purchase insurance from them in order to avoid the taxation penalty. Enter: TARP for health insurance companies.

Pretty sweet deal for the private health insurance companies, no? Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the Democratic Senator and Chairman of the influential Senate Finance Committee(which is currently drafting a version of the healthcare bill that has yet to go into reconciliation) has a lot of influence over what the bill will look like before it goes into reconciliation at this point. I suppose the two facts that he (1)has taken more money from the health insurance industry than any other Democrat in congress, and (2) just happens to be trying his darndest to strip the bill of the public option in the name of 'bipartisanship' are just coincidences.

We must avoid TARP for health insurance companies at all costs. This is why I fully support the recent liberal revolt. As far as I can tell, this bill can go the right way in one of two basic ways. 1)it can come out of committee with the public option intact. 2) it can come out of reconciliation with a strong, robust public option.

What should the Progressive base (i.e. us) do? Make it very clear to the American people through blogs, through talks with your friends, family, and neighbors, through your facebook postings, and to your elected representatives that we will NOT accept BaucusCare because BaucusCare is TARP for health insurance companies. Every time you hear a conservative talking about ObamaCare or how the public option is a deal-breaker, hit them with these two messages. Nail them with it the same way they hit you with "Socialism" and "government take-over".

This healthcare battle is coming to a head and the yelling is going to get faster and louder over the next few weeks. Those who yell the fastest and loudest win. Sometimes the best arguments win, but they never win unless the messages are clear and concise. And even if they are clear and concise, they still never win unless they can hold their own against the right-wing noise machine. This is what we are fighting against.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Messaging

As Democrats, liberals, and progressives, hopefully we have all read at least some George Lakoff. Mr. Lakoff does a very good job of detailing the immense difference between the messaging capabilites of the Democrats versus the Republicans. Messaging can make all the difference, and in my opinion, does- when it comes to almost every important issue. In today's posting I'm going to try to detail the importance of messaging when it comes to policy issues, provide some examples of political messaging in the past along with some current examples of Republican messages that have gone viral, and I will conclude with a very important progressive message I heard today that I would like to see become viral and how we can do that.

Messaging has always been a weakness for Democrats. Don't know why, but for some reason Democrats have trouble putting out messages that the American people can hear. One explanation might be the Democrats lack of a medium. You see, Republicans have the entire AM dial on their side. That's Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Micheal Savage, others, and in our neck of the woods, Zeb Bell. Heck, here in Idaho they even broadcat right-wing radio on the local Fox non-cable affiliate under the innocuous name "Idaho Talks Live". On top of that there is the highly disciplined Fox News. Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, plus all the right-wing anchors on that channel. We all know there is nary a moderate or left voice on that channel. I defy you to give me any time of the day where you cannot turn on either the radio or the television and find either on the AM station or Fox News right-wing ideologues blaring right-wing talking points at you.

The left has some messaging capacity. Not much, though. We have almost nothing on the radio. You could say we have NPR, but I don't count that b/c NPR is very moderate. It is not a bunch of ideologues. I mean, sure, you have Harry Shearer on Sundays I guess, but none of the voices could be described as anything more than "center-left". They always give the other side of the story. Unlike Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. So that leaves us with MSNBC. I'd like to claim this news organization in the name of progressives, but I just can't. Not in the way the Republicans can claim Fox News. Fox News is a complete right-wing mouthpiece, through and through, while MSNB is a news organization with three progressive pundits, one pundit that is a moderate but is lately pretending to be a progressive (Chris Matthews), and a few progressive anchors and guests(Davide Shuster, Lawrence O'Donnell). Other than that, you have a bunch of moderate anchors, and however many hours of Joe Scarborough in the morning. Scarborough is a conservative Republican with a large morning timeblock on MSNBC.

As of late, progressives have been cultivating a new medium. I am, of course, referring to the internet. We dominate this medium. It is the only way we are going to be able to push messages to the American people, because the traditional media sure ain't cuttin' it. Sometimes, MSNBC anchors will take internet memes and run with them. Keith Olbermann does this all the time. He is a regular contributor to The Daily Kos. The reason I am outlining all of this is because I want to explain the manner in which we, on the internet, can reach the viewers of traditional media so that we can deliver our messaging.

Messaging is very powerful. One of the most powerful examples of messaging that always springs to my mind is the way Republicans got rid of the inheritance tax. This tax was a very pro-capitalist, in my opinion, tax, that allowed for the free market to work even better than it would without it. The inheritance tax taxed the estates of the deceased. This makes perfect sense, because inheritance without taxation weakens the benificary's incentive to work. Anyway, through messaging, the Republicans turned the "inheritance tax" into the "death tax". This sort of messaging caught on with the American people through right-wing radio and the Democrats were defeated on this issue. But this is just one example.

More recent examples include the infamous "Death Panel" meme recently pushed by Mrs. Sarah Palin. Most progressives know that she was incorrectly mis-interpreting a provision in the House Health Care Reform bill that allowed for doctors to be reimbursed for end-of-life consultations with their patients (i.e; "should we pull the plug or do you want to be a vegetable if the situation arises?"), to mean that somehow the government was going to euthanize old people.

Ah, but this is old news now, isn't it? Let us look at the most recent messaging effort by the Republicans. Turn on Fox News right now, if you dare. You will find a pundit talking about how it took President Obama "six months to pick a dog", implying that he spends more time picking his dog than he does on allowing for healthcare legislation. Every right-winger everywhere will be repeating this within the week. You yourself will probably get a viral e-mail forwarded to you by your Aunt Heidi explaining this very conundrum involving Obama, his dog, and healthcare reform.

Whatever. Forget about all that. Here's what I want you to think about and push. It's got zing, it's got viral potential, and most importantly, it is the truth. I heard it while listening to Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and a staff writer for The New Yorker. He was on All Things Considered Saturday evening, and one thing he said really jumped out at me. Here's a portion of the transcript:


RAZ: We keep hearing in this sort of debate about health care overhaul. We keep hearing the word rationing being thrown around, and it sounds scary. But what do you say to someone who sort of wonders whether cutting back on procedures that you would argue are unnecessary, is a form of rationing?

Dr. GAWANDE: If there is any government or insurance company that is making the decisions about whether you need a CAT scan or don't need a CAT scan that is both bad medicine and rationing. If what you have is a physician who you have a relationship with, taking care of you and they're just making good evidence-based decisions about the right kinds of recommendations for you, that is rational care.

And what we've been missing in the system is rational care. The irrationality turns up in all kinds of ways. It turns up in the physician who wrote to me describing a situation where he's a part owner of a imaging center. They started losing money because the doctors weren't doing enough CT scans and he found that they were in board meetings where they were sitting around trying to figure out how to get more people to get more CT scans.

It had nothing to do with whether they had good care or bad care for those scans. And that's the disaster of our system is when you have medicine become a business rather than something about what the patient's needs are. And...

RAZ: But I mean, couldn't doctors make the argument that they're entitled to be paid well and maybe not just limited to receiving a salary but to receiving money based on the services they provide.

Dr. GAWANDE: I think that we are well compensated and that we're very lucky to live in a country that has valued the services of the medical profession so highly. There is nowhere else in the world that values their medical profession as well, and I think we have found real advantages to doing that.

But whether it is a salary or being paid a fee for each time that I take out a gall bladder, I still am in a country where we are well compensated, and I think it will continue to be that way.


It's a great piece of dialogue. And here is what I want my readers to take away from it. "Rational" versus "Rationing". This is the meme that I would like to see pushed everywhere. Alliterations in and of themselves have viral potential, but this one plays off an already established Republican message. Everone has already heard the "rationing" message, so the "rational" message should be easy for them to absorb.

"Rationing" is in the current system. It involves insurance executives and hmo's deciding whether or not someone is allowed to have a catscan, or an operation. "Irrational Care" occurs when the doctor, who gets paid more if he can convince his/her patient to get that surgery, convinces the patient to do so, whether it is in the best wishes of the patient or not. So when we are talking about "rational" versus "irrational care", we are talking about good versus bad decisions. As Dr. Gawande states, what we have been missing from the current system is "Rational Care".

The HealthCare Reform bill delivers "Rational Care" by taking these sorts of "rationing" decisions out of the hands of healthcare execs and hmo's, and putting "rational care" decisions back into the hands of patients and their doctors.

Anyway, if you've read this far, that's awesome. The main thing I want to stress is that we try out this meme a little bit. When you hear someone talk about health care "rationing", talk about "rational" healthcare. And explain why the current healthcare system is "irrational".

Thanks For Reading.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Cable News Ratings.

So, I just finished watching today's Hardball Clip with Lawrence O'Donnell. O'Donnell was substituting for Chris Matthews. I love it when this happens b/c O'donnell is a hard hitting son of a gun. He takes no quarter and he is one of the best cable news debaters on the scene. There is one other that is about as good as him, but I can't remember his name right now. Anyway, O'Donnell was interviewing a Republican Representative and, quite frankly, nailing him to the wall. The Republican kept trying to evade the question, but O'Donnell wouldn't let him do it and kept asking for a yes or no answer to his very cutting questions. The Republican was getting very frustrated and kept saying "This is why noone watches MSNBC. You won't even let your guests answer questions."

As though Fox News does. I remember during President Obama's New Hampshire town hall meeting last week that Fox News, in fact, cut to something else right in the middle of the town hall. None of the other stations did. And if you've ever seen a Fox News pundit interview a Democrat, well, you know just how "fair and balanced" that is. Pathetic, really.

But the O'Donnell interview got me thinking about cable news ratings. So I googled cable news ratings and found that Fox News has ratings through the roof while MSNBC has about half the ratings, if that, that Fox News does. How is this? What am I not understanding? Do right-wing crazies just have more time for television watching? Are the shows on Fox News just more entertaining than the ones on MSNBC? I wish I could understand this trend, but I really, really don't. Anyway, I do wonder what the ratings for Current TV are in comparison with these other stations. I've been watching Current a lot lately, b/c it has very good reporting and his very entertaining. On Dish Network it's channel 358. I heard that Al Gore owns that channel or is CEO of it or something like that. I heard it the other day when Big Dog Bill rescued Laura Ling and Euna Lee from North Korea. All the news stations that covered the event were talking about Gore's affilliation with Current TV. Right now, they're showing footage of Burning Man: What station does that!? Awesome.

There's not much else I can add to this rant, aside from admonishing MSNBC for running those stupid prison shows all the time that show what it's like inside prisons. Do those get good ratings? Who would want to watch that? Meanwhile, Fox is running Glenn Beck. Sure wish I could watch the Ed Show or Hardball with Lawrence O'Donnell right now.

I would embed the video but I can't figure it out right now. Every time I copy and paste the embedded link it shows up on the blog as something other than the actual embedded link. See? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDNw4EFUy4Q&feature=player_embedded


To anyone reading this: Can you explain why the drooling morons at Fox News have such ridiculously high ratings? And why MSNBC has ratings that only halve those numbers?

Wednesday, August 12, 2009