Mining through the crap October 3, 2009

Do you own a bed? Do you have food in your cupboards or food that is easily accessible? Are you able to watch TV? Do you have to swear allegiance to President Obama or anyone else? Can you reasonably go where you want to go? Are you able to believe what you want? These are blessings that not everyone enjoys.

I watched Crossing last night. It’s a Korean film (we watched it with English subtitles). It was brutal; I recommend it to everyone. I think if we all watched it–meaning, everyone in this country–the whole mood of politics would change. We would become so much less greedy and be concerned about so much less. There are people in the world who really are deprived and suffer so much. I am proposing a national day of humility and service: we all watch Crossing and then go out and serve people who really live with very little. Then we can get back to the normal moaning and griping of politics–maybe we’ll be able to tone it down a little. I think we’d be able to really mine through the crap and focus on what we really need and what is really important.

Powerless February 27, 2009

Do you ever feel like nothing is in your control? That’s kind of how I feel about politics. I think about things, and how I’d like to see something change, or for the country to take a new direction, but I don’t know how to effect that kind of change. I find it especially hard becuase I’m a registered Republican, but really, I’m conservative which is not the same as Republican. So who is my voice? What is my avenue for change? And I’m not a genius, I’m not a lawyer, and a lot of times, I’m pretty lazy.

Democrats and Healthcare and Money January 30, 2009

I guess it’s not just Democrats. The Republicans sure spent a lot of money the past few years too. I sure am glad they said no to the “Stimulus” Plan though. (And here I am reacting when I said just a few posts ago that I was only going to ACT which means philosophizing constructively). But anyway, I guess it feels more unwise to spend so much when so many people are losing their jobs because where does the money come from? The government gets money from us the citizens or from loans. If the citizens don’t have money they can’t pay taxes. And the government can’t keep on borrowing, can it? Doesn’t it have to stop somewhere? Observing this moment–the recession, the House Democrats passing a huge stimulus plan that is just so HUGE and by huge I mean ecclectic and not inuitive, gross even, people losing their jobs–makes me feel like something is eventually going to give. I don’t know when, but we have already paid a price as a country for spending beyond our means, for having a national average savings rate that is in the negative. That price has been an inflation. When we are going to learn the same lesson applies to our government? We can’t go on spending more than we have forever. And I say WE because we are essentially the government. WE are responsible; that’s the beauty of a republican democracy. What is the cost going to be? And when is the due date? I don’t know. We have expensive healthcare, but is it really necessary for the government to solve the problem? Is that really a solution? Why is the government enabling people who make over 65,000 dollars to use government health care? What else would those people be doing with their money? What is the government allowing them to do with the money they’ve “saved” by not buying into their own healthcare? And why is it an all or nothing deal? Why can’t people pay a part of the government healthcare? Are Democrats allowing people to pay for their mortgage that they shouldn’t have bought into in the first place? Are they allowing them to pay for those unlimited family cell phone plans or even for just one cell phone? Are they allowing them to go out to eat all of the time like they are used to doing? Are they allowing them to have nicer cars? I guess maybe they would say yes to all of those things, and then justify it by saying that doing all of those things help drive the economy. But maybe the economy shouldn’t be driven that much, it’s not tenable, and that’s how we came to where we are.

I’m including an article from today’s WSJ by Kimberley A. Strassel about the Democrats’ healthcare efforts: “Democratic Stealth Care”.

With the nation preoccupied by the financial crisis, Democrats have been quietly working to nationalize health care.

Tom Daschle is still waiting to be confirmed as secretary of health and human services, not that he’s in any rush. Democrats are already enacting his and Barack Obama’s agenda of government-run health care — entirely on the QT.

This was the real accomplishment of this week’s House vote for the $819 billion “stimulus,” and is the overriding theme of Congress’s first month. With the nation occupied with the financial crisis, and with that crisis providing cover, Democrats have been passing provision after provision to nationalize health care.

If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they’ve pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. “What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus],” says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, “is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector.”

It began one week after the swearing-in, when Nancy Pelosi whipped through a big expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. The Schip bill was Democrats’ first stab at stealth expansion, unveiled in 2007, though vetoed by George W. Bush.

Initially designed for children of working-poor families, this new Super-Schip will be double in size, and even kids whose parents make $65,000 a year will be eligible. The program will also now cover pregnant women and automatically enroll their new arrivals. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 2.4 million individuals will drop their private coverage for the public program.

Still, it’s the “stimulus” that has proven the real gift horse — a behemoth that has allowed Democrats to speed up the takeover of health care under cover of an economic crisis. They initially claimed, for instance, the “stimulus” would provide Medicaid money to states struggling to pay existing bills. What in fact it does is dramatically expand the number of Americans who qualify for Medicaid.

Under “stimulus,” Medicaid is now on offer not to just poor Americans, but Americans who have lost their jobs. And not just Americans who have lost their jobs, but their spouses and their children. And not Americans who recently lost their jobs, but those who lost jobs, say, early last year. And not just Americans who already lost their jobs, but those who will lose their jobs up to 2011. The federal government is graciously footing the whole bill. The legislation also forbids states to apply income tests in most cases.

House Democrat Henry Waxman was so thrilled by this blowout, it was left to Republicans to remind him that the very banking millionaires he dragged to the Hill last year for a grilling would now qualify for government aid. His response? A GOP proposal to limit subsidies to Americans with incomes under $1 million was accepted during markup, but had disappeared by final passage. In this new health-care nirvana, even the rich are welcome. CBO estimates? An additional 1.2 million on the federal Medicaid dime in 2009.

The “stimulus” also hijacks Cobra, a program that lets the unemployed retain access to their former company health benefits — usually for about 18 months. The new stimulus permits any former employee over the age of 55 to keep using Cobra right up until they qualify for Medicare at age 65. And here’s the kicker: Whereas employees were previously responsible for paying their health premiums while on Cobra, now the feds will pay 65%. CBO estimates? Seven million Americans will have the feds mostly pay their insurance bills in 2009.

The bill even takes a whack at the private market. Under the guise of money for “health technology,” the legislation makes the government the national coordinator for electronic health records, able to certify what platforms are acceptable. This is an attempt to squelch a growing private market that is competing to improve transparency and let consumers compare providers and costs. In liberal-world, only government should be publishing (and setting) health-care prices.

Add it up, and Democrats may move 10 million more Americans under the federal health umbrella — in just four weeks! Good luck ever cutting off that money. Meanwhile, the Democratic majority is gearing up for a Medicare fight, where it may broach plans to lower the eligibility age to 55. Whatever costs accrue, they’ll pay for by slashing the private Medicare Advantage option.

Mr. Obama will, of course, offer his health-care reform at some point. But he’s clearly happy to get what he can, when he can. Despite talk of entitlement reform, he’s voiced no disapproval of this vast new health-care grab. And don’t forget he chose Mr. Daschle, who appreciates stealth himself. In his 2008 book outlining his health-care reform, he offers his party two pieces of political advice: Move fast, before there can be a public debate, and write as vague a bill as possible.

Guiding all of this is the left’s hope that by the time America wakes up to what’s happening, it’ll be too late. Democrats might be on to something.

Write to kim@wsj.com

Peacemaker January 29, 2009

Not to be confused with pacemaker. I would like to be one. A peacemaker that is. There are certain people that I like. Alexis de Tocqueville for instance. He has good ideas and isn’t reactionary. Well, I guess he is because he was reacting to the French revolution, but he wasn’t angry (sidenote: I first spelled that “angery.” Doesn’t angery get the emotion across more?) but he was inquisitive, hopeful, intellectual, deep thinking. I am sure both conservatives and liberals like him. Right? I hope so. I am conservative through and through, but I don’t like angery (there it is again!), reactionary conservatism. I like deep thinking which I swear leads to conservative conclusions! I like understanding. I get mad sometimes, and those are the times when I want to come on and vent on my blog, but i don’t want to REACT. I want to ACT with thought. I guess it’s just easier to be spurred on by something, to react to it because it creates a lot of passionate furvor. Call me crazy. Or better yet, call me a peacemaker. A conservative one.

Why doesn’t the government plan for a rainy day? January 22, 2009

I don’t understand why governments don’t plan for a rainy day. Are they like normal people in thinking that the good times will always roll and that they won’t ever be held accountable for spending more than they have? I am sure it is hard to say no to good causes, but there is going to be a penalty and it’s not fair to the taxpayers who are entitled to their tax refund and the government can’t pay it back. I liked that part in President Obama’s inaugral speech when he said that governments should be accountable for how they use the taxpayers money. We give almost a quarter of our earnings to the government. Surely they can be smarter with it and really be prepared to help us out when we need it most.

Being for Traditional Marriage, does not Equal being a Hater November 9, 2008

So much to say, but I need to think more about it. But this does need to be said, just because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supported Proposition 8 in defense of traditional marriage does not mean the Church hates gays and lesbians. And also this: even religious people have the right to vote according to what they believe. Here’s an informative article from the LA Times:

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest7-2008nov07,0,3827549.story

From the Los Angeles Times

Prop. 8 protesters target Mormon temple in Westwood

Gay-rights activists criticize the church for helping to collect millions to aid passage of ban on gay marriage.

By Jessica Garrison and Joanna Lin

November 7, 2008

More than a thousand gay-rights activists gathered Thursday afternoon outside the Mormon temple in Westwood to protest the role Mormons played in passing Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in California.

It was the latest in an escalating campaign directed against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its role in marshaling millions of dollars in contributions from its members for the successful campaign to take away same-sex marriage rights.

Members of the Mormon church, who were strongly urged by church leaders to contribute to the Proposition 8 campaign, had an undeniable role in the measure’s victory. Opponents of Proposition 8 have accused the church of discriminating against homosexuals, but the backlash against the denomination has also sparked accusations of discrimination.

During the campaign, a website established by Proposition 8 opponents used campaign finance data and other public records to track Mormon political contributions to the Yes-on-8 campaign. Opponents estimated that members of the church had given more than $20 million, but the amount is difficult to confirm since the state does not track the religious affiliation of donors.

Critics of the website noted that the religious affiliations of other political donors are not generally researched.

A commercial opposing Proposition 8 also drew criticism. In it, two actors portraying Mormon missionaries forced their way into the well-kept home of a married lesbian couple.

“Hi, we’re here from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” one says.

“We’re here to take away your rights,” says his partner.

The missionaries then rip the wedding rings from the women’s fingers and ransack their house until they find the women’s marriage license, which they destroy.

“Hey, we have rights,” one of the women says.

“Not if we can help it,” answers the missionary.

The ad was produced by an independent group not affiliated with the official No-on-8 campaign and was shown on MSNBC and Comedy Central, according to Rick Jacobs of the Courage Campaign, a progressive political group.

Jeff Flint, strategist for Yes on 8, called the ad “despicable” and said it “crossed every line of decency.”

“I am appalled at the level of Mormon-bashing that went on during the Proposition 8 campaign and continues to this day,” he said. “If this activity were directed against any other church, if someone put up a website that targeted Jews or Catholics in a similar fashion for the mere act of participating in a political campaign, it would be widely and rightfully condemned.”

Members and leaders of the Catholic Church and other Christian churches were also heavily involved in the campaign to pass Proposition 8. The Knights of Columbus, which is tied to the Catholic Church, gave $1 million, and several evangelical groups gave millions more. But they have not come under the same kind of attack.

Leaders of the No-on-8 campaign said they did not believe they were engaged in Mormon-bashing. “This is not about religion,” said Jacobs. “This is about a church that put itself in the middle of politics.”

Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said she had grown up in the Mormon Church and thought it was “very disappointing what the church has done and the alliances they have made with churches that don’t even like them and have called the church a cult.”

Church officials made few public statements during the campaign. On Thursday, they issued a statement asking for “a spirit of mutual respect and civility.”

“The Church acknowledges that such an emotionally charged issue concerning the most personal and cherished aspects of life — family and marriage — stirs fervent and deep feelings,” church spokeswoman Kim Farah wrote in an e-mail. “No one on either side of the question should be vilified, harassed or subject to erroneous information.” She did not elaborate.

Outside the Los Angeles temple Thursday, dozens of protesters screamed “Bigots” and “Shame on You” at half a dozen men in button-down shirts and ties who looked out at the demonstration from behind the temple’s closed gates.

The men did not respond.

Benjamin Wiser, 27, came to the protest dressed as a Mormon missionary, complete with black plastic name tag.

It was not a costume, he said. He was a missionary and a member of the church until age 23, when he left because he was gay.

Wiser said he did not feel the protesters were unfairly targeting the church.

“I don’t think the Mormon church should be involved,” he said.

Some gay-rights activists said they plan to continue to question the church’s involvement.

Lorri L. Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, which organized the rally outside the temple, announced the launch of a new website, invalidateprop8.org, which will raise money to fight for same-sex marriage rights in California.

For every $5 donated, Jean said, a postcard will be sent to the president of the Mormon church condemning “the reprehensible role the Church of Latter-day Saints leadership played in denying all Californians equal rights under the law.”

“It is a travesty that the Mormon Church bought this election and used a campaign of lies and deception to manipulate voters in the great state of California,” she said.

David Loder, 40, a business manager from Corona and a member of the Mormon church, heard about the protest on the radio. He said he was saddened by the anger directed against the church.

Loder said he had not given money to the Yes-on-8 campaign because finances are tight raising five daughters, but he did put a sign in his frontyard. It was vandalized, he said.

“As a member of the LDS church we have known [and still do] the feeling of being ridiculed and mistreated because of our faith,” he said.

Garrison and Lin are Times staff writers.

Why don’t we talk about what we know October 31, 2008

It seems a lot of pundits, and that could include sportscasters or political pundits, spend a lot of time writing about what could happen. So and so has better defense, but the other team has a great QB and overall, so and so is going to win. Exhibit A: “Which Obama Could America Get?” by Stuart Taylor Jr in the National Journal Magazine. Exhibit B: “Why McCain Will Lose” by James Carville in the Financial Times. Exhibit C: “For Many Americans, Tuesday Will Be a Leap of Faith” by Chuck Raasch. I suppose these sorts of things have value especially in politics. I don’t think it’s worth anything in sports (sorry!). Or at least not worth spending more than 30 seconds to decide. People want to know what WILL happen. Because we live linearly–there is no way to predict because, as they say, time will reveal itself. Is that how they say it? Anyway, people want assurances–what will happen if they vote for Obama? And no one really knows. Electing a president IS a leap of faith. Hopefully you know them well because you know their history. They’ve said stuff and made promises–hopefully they are trustworthy, but ultimately, we don’t know what they’ll do once we elect them. That’s why I think we should talk about what we know. Then we stuff happens, we can decide if it’s what we want or not, because we’ll have something to compare it to i.e. our ideas.

Ah ha! Obama’s Tax Plan October 25, 2008

Obama is saying that he’s happy to provide services to all people (but mostly underprivileged people) while having the top 5% income earners pay for them. How is that fair? How is it fair to have other people pay for a service? Is that how the rest of the economy works? No, but he’s happy to do it. I wish he would just be honest with people and say, “Look (as he always does), I’m happy to provide you the services, but you need to pay for them.” That’s how life works! Make it clear! Draw the connection for people. Don’t be willing to hide it, to obfuscate it. Why are rich people paying for something poor people receive? Spell it out for us. Don’t just go on about how you’re doing us a favor by not taxing 95% of people.

Optimism! October 24, 2008

The media depresses me, but also uplifts! Here is a good article from Peggy Noonan from today:

43% Isn’t Nothing

Obama looks like a winner, but it’s not over yet.

It’s all going fast, the whirl of images on the screen, words on the page, data flashing by. Barack Obama’s up here, his lead now in the double digits there. In green rooms on book interviews, I see quietly angry former Reagan staffers, defensive former Bush aides, harried McCain spokesmen, and almost-jaunty Democrats. A network correspondent with a reputation for fairness—no one knows how this reporter votes—came by one day and shrugged with frustration. Everyone asks me about media bias. Of course the media loves Obama, but I can’t say it. I didn’t take notes, but I think that’s word for word. Soon after, I received an email from a different journalist who referred, in passing, to where many journalists stand.

Neither of these people is conservative. When nonconservatives see the Obama love, and refer to it without prompting, the Obama love is deep. Remember how John McCain used to refer jokingly to the press as “my base”? Now it’s part of Mr. Obama’s. But if Mr. McCain loses, the reason will not be press bias.

The press knows who the press is for, and it isn’t generally the one to the right. This has been true all my life. What has also been true is that the Republican had to get around it with the truth of his stands, the force of his arguments, the un-ignorability of his words, the power of his presence. You have to go over the head of the interpreters and gently seize the country by its lapels. Mr. McCain never got much over their heads. This is not because they’re so tall. His campaign was not so much about meaning as it was, in the end, a series of moments—a good interview with Rick Warren, a good convention, Joe the Plumber . . .

And yet: It’s not over. For one thing, Mr. McCain has got to be reading Steven Stark’s piece in the Boston Phoenix, which imagines the forces that could produce a McCain upset. What if Mr. Obama underperforms on Election Day, just as he did in the final primaries with Hillary Clinton? What if senior citizens turn out in record numbers and vote for the older guy, and the financial crisis seems to fade, and Mr. McCain finds new grounding on the issue of taxes, and the Obama campaign undermines itself with premature triumphalism . . .

Mr. McCain has endless faith in his ability to come back. He’s been doing it for 40 years, from Vietnam, where, with the injuries he’d sustained and the torture he experienced, he might have died, was likely to die, and yet survived, to exactly a year ago, when he was out of money and out of luck. And then he won New Hampshire. When he says, “We got ‘em where we want ‘em” he must mean: They think they are looking at a corpse. No one in politics has so repeatedly relished coming back from the dead.

Not a single poll has Mr. McCain ahead. The RealClearPolitics average of national polls as I write, rounded off, is Obama 50%, McCain 43%. Actually Mr. Obama has 50.1%, and if that is true and holds, it would make him the first Democratic presidential nominee since Jimmy Carter to break 50%. But I find myself thinking of what that 43% means. It’s a big number, considering that this is the worst Republican year in generations. Amid two wars, a deep economic crisis, a fractured base, too much cynicism, and a campaign with the wind not at its back but head on in its face—with all of that working against Mr. McCain, 43% of the American people say, right now, in these polls, they are for him. And there are a significant number of undecideds. Four years ago about 122 million people voted. Forty-three percent of 122 million is 52 million people, more or less. A huge group, one too varied to generalize about because it includes flinty elderly Republicans from New England, home-schooling mothers in Ohio, libertarianish Republicans in Colorado, suburban patriots outside the big cities, and many others.

They are the beating heart of conservatism, and to watch most television is to forget they exist, for they are not shown much, except at rallies. But they are there, and this is a center-right nation, and many of them have been pushing hard against the age for 40 years now, and more. For some time they have sensed that something large and stable is being swept away, maybe has been swept away, and yet you still have to fight for it. They will not give up without a fight, and they will make their way to the polls.

And they will be a rock-hard challenge to Mr. Obama if he wins.

This is the thing: If Mr. Obama wins, and governs as a moderate liberal, not veering left, not seeming to be the cap that pops off a kettle that’s been boiling for eight years, but governs to a degree, at least in general approach, as Bill Clinton did—as a moderate Democrat well aware of the terrain—he may know some success. And he may be able to tamp down the insistence of the long-simmering left by the force of his own popularity, which will grow once he is president among grateful Democrats, and others. But if he goes left—if it comes to seem as if the attractive, dark-haired man has torn open his shirt to reveal a huge S, not for Superman but for Socialist, if he jumps toward reforms such as a speech-limiting new Fairness Doctrine, that won’t yield success. It will yield trouble, and unneeded domestic arguments. We have enough needed ones.

In a way, Mr. Obama can more easily go left in foreign relations for the precise reason no one knows what going left is, because no one knows what going right in foreign relations is, at least if “right” means “conservative.” Mr. Obama has a great chance, in this area, to confuse the world. And a confused world is not all a bad thing. His persona, name, color, youth and approach will, at least initially, jumble up long-settled categories. Radicals enjoy hating America, but a particular picture of America. He is not that picture. He will give calculating Western European leaders an opening to be friendly to America again; they will feel that Mr. Obama’s victory constitutes the rebuke of the Bushism they desire. They will befriend the rebuker.

People wonder if he is decisive. It is clear he is decisive in terms of his own career: He decides to go for president of the law review, to move to Chicago, to roll the dice for a U.S. Senate seat, to hire David Axelrod, to take on Hillary, to campaign with discipline and even elegance. When it comes to his career, his decisions are thought through and his judgments sound. But when it comes to decisions that have to do with larger issues, with great questions and not with him, things get murkier. There is the long trail of the missed and “present” votes, the hesitance on big questions. One wonders if in the presidency he’ll be like the dog that chased the car and caught it: What’s he supposed to do now?

It is mean out there, and in the next week it will get darker still, perhaps spectacularly so. To me, the biggest nightmare would be a tie. The worst resolution would be no resolution. And the quarrel would not, for even a moment, abate.

I need to remember that there are lots of good people out there. By good, I mean, conservative. Heh. I especially like this part, “They are the beating heart of conservatism, and to watch most television is to forget they exist, for they are not shown much, except at rallies.” Because that is exactly what has happened to me. The media depresses me, and I know it does, but I still read and listen.

I should not be so moved by what I read though. I should have the integrity and thought to sustain me and give me confidence despite what others are saying.

Oh what depressing times October 17, 2008

I’m a conservative Republican, but mostly I’m just a conservative. I’m not sure what the Republican party is about anymore. Well, I know what I THINK it is about, but not what the Republican “leaders” think it is about. I mean, we have nominated John McCain. Is that because he didn’t betray any expectations? As my husband said, I ended up liking Obama better in Thursday’s debate because he surpassed the very low expectations I had for him. I had somewhat higher expectations for McCain and he didn’t even meet them. Except on issues like taxes. He is right–why should people, any people, pay more taxes right now? Obama said he doesn’t like taxes, but he’s still going to raise them. That is dumb. Be honest. You want to have social programs so you want to raise taxes. You like social programs better than cutting taxes. McCain was right to call him out on that. But McCain: are you going to cut spending too? Anyway, the point is, we should be a party that loves America, hates spending money, is wise, is for traditional marriage, is against pork barrel spending, loves people, stands for what is right, encourages family, is financially prudent and encourages Americans to be as well, has leaders, encourages people to give to each other and take care of each other, is tough on terrorism, defends religion, works to have a small government, communicates with Americans often, helps paint a big picture, helps people understand the relationship between government and the people, defends the family, takes responsibility, owns up, is honest. Yeah, in a perfect world right?