Tag Archives: obama

Political Rants

The week that was (#47).

Big week in news, both domestically and internationally. As is my habit, I will comment briefly on a couple of items, run off at the mouth, and probably write way too much than is good for anyone. But what the hell – here goes.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The debate over the state versions of this legislation has focused on the opportunity for discrimination against LGBT patrons of businesses in the relevant states, and understandably so. Still, I can’t help but feel the media outlets and activists are burying the lead on this issue. There appears to be some correlation between the people pushing this legislation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which provides model, usually conservative legislation to state representatives.

Whether or not ALEC is involved, these RFRA-like bills appear to build on the Hobby Lobby decision handed down by the Supreme Court last year. This is a broader effort to extend religious freedom protections to corporate “persons”. You can guess the implications. Hobby Lobby can assert their religious reservations to including birth control in their employee health plan. If RFRA applies to corporate “persons”, they can claim religious exemptions to all kinds of regulations, including health, safety, and environmental laws. Something to look out for.

Expect to hear from Mr. Cartoon Bomb this week.Iran Pact. A framework agreement on Iranian nuclear development was arrived at on Thursday. This will be the subject of a great deal of hand-wringing, even garment rending, and some full throated protests from the usual folks. There is a strong impetus in the United States towards war with Iran. It is not a popular option amongst the American people at large, but pundits and politicians appear to savor the idea. None of them would suffer in the event of a war, of course, so their clamoring comes at a very low potential cost.

Frankly, I am skeptical that we as a nation can even begin to abandon our animus towards Iran. A generation of politicians have built their careers on this obsession. Whatever shape the final agreement takes, Congress will be against lifting sanctions. (Of course, they would oppose it simply on the principle that Obama is in favor of it.) Even so, the agreement is deeply rooted in the assumption the America calls the shots, America enforces global order, and America can dictate terms, threaten, and attack at will.

My own feeling is that the whole nuclear question is just a flimsy excuse, portrayed as a crisis, to isolate Iran for the unforgivable crime of “stealing” their country back from us in 1979. If they don’t have that issue, they’ll find another.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

To care and care not.

The Affordable Care Act went before the Supreme Court again this week, subject to a suit by a Koch brothers-funded right wing organization. The point of contention this time is some wording in the bill that suggests, in isolation from the rest of the bill, that only States can establish exchanges, thereby calling into question federal subsidies for coverage obtained through the federal exchange. Of course, the bill was structured to allow for the States to opt for having the feds set up an exchange if they choose not to do so. Badly drafted? Perhaps. But any bill the size of the ACA is bound to be full of technical errors, contradictions, etc.

Will they crash the clown car? Time will tell.Now, technical issues like this have historically been corrected by an act of Congress. This was the case with many major pieces of legislation, such as Medicare. But because our Congress is ideologically driven and dysfunctional in the extreme, this is not even a remote possibility. So it is left to the courts, thanks to the determination of many on the right to hobble and destroy the ACA, as well as many thousands of families who depend upon it. It’s manifestly obvious that disallowing subsidized coverage through the federal exchange will dramatically drive up the cost of health insurance in the affected States, crashing the system and throwing 9 million subscribers into chaos. Just as bad, it will initiate a death spiral of rising rates and canceled policies that will affect many millions more.

So what will it be? Will the Supreme Court knowingly throw the country into chaos? Remains to be seen. It just amazes me the extent to which the Republicans will undermine so quintessentially a conservative idea as the ACA – a market-based solution if ever there was one – just to get the better of this very middle-of-the-road president. They are willing to throw the economy under the bus at every turn. They could bury this problem with a very simple piece of legislation, but that will never happen. The ACA is a point of obsession for them, like Benghazi – it’s a talisman for Obama, and as such, it must be whacked repeatedly.

Lord knows, I loathe defending the ACA. But it’s the law of the land, duly passed and signed, and letting it implode will affect many, many lives.

Netanyahu. Just want to briefly acknowledge the utter stupidity of Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Personally, I think he was more convincing with the cartoon bomb.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

On “death cults”.

The president gave a speech this week about what labels to use in the prosecution of our now 14 year old war on terror. Apparently prompted by the usual bating about his supposed flaccidness in attacking radical Muslims, Obama attempted to frame the discussion in a way similar to though a bit more nuanced than George W. Bush – we’re fighting terrorists who seek the legitimacy of a major religion while violating its central tenets. We need the cooperation of Muslims, not their enmity. They’re not religious leaders; they’re terrorists.

More intimidating than a beheading.Okay, that’s all good. But as the president lists all of the horrors Islamic extremists have unleashed onto the world, there’s one question that begs to be asked: is ISIS responsible for more death than we are? How many Muslims have we dispatched over the last 15 years? Sure, ISIS is a bunch of crackheads, thugs, and killers. But they are bush league next to us. As all of these war-fevered pundits and Congresspeople run around fulminating over the “death cult” that is ISIS, do they give even a passing thought to our own 70 year history of threatening the entire planet with nuclear destruction? That’s not a “death cult”?

Finally, it’s patently obvious what ISIS is doing. They are trying to goad us into doing something really stupid and self-destructive. They saw what happened to the United States when we were stupid enough to let our government drive us into an invasion of Iraq. It killed thousands of us, wounded tens of thousands, and drove the American global enterprise to the brink of collapse. It built up a level of hatred of the United States around the world that was way beyond anything that preceded it. Best of all (from their perspective), it created the scorched landscape from which rose Al Qaeda in Iraq, the immediate predecessor of ISIS. How would American “boots on the ground” not be good news for ISIS?

Recent polls show the propaganda campaign is working – something like 57% of Americans think we should send troops into the fight against ISIS. A couple of things: we’re already there in the thousands. Second …. Would any of these folks send their own kids … or go themselves?

Doubt it.

Luv u,

jp