The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Dean Clancy At FreedomWorks Didn’t Get The Memo

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

And so here is Clancy, nattering on, in defiance of the Received Wisdom that the GOP has no ideas of how to improve health care in the United States. He even blasphemes the Holy Tax Code:

The Republicans do have a bunch of ideas for fixing what ails our health care system. I’ll just mention a few of them here. For example:

  • Reform state medical malpractice laws.
  • Incentivize hospitals and doctors to publish their prices, to promote comparison shopping.
  • Let people purchase insurance across state lines.
  • Let small businesses band together to obtain insurance for their workers at group rates.
  • Expand Health Savings Accounts and flex benefits.
  • Ease federal mandates that contribute to emergency-room over-crowding.
  • Block-grant the Medicaid program back to the states.

Here’s my personal favorite:

  • Let seniors join their Member of Congress’s health plan.

Those are just some of the ideas that various Republicans have proposed. And they’re by and large pretty good, common-sense ideas. I think they’d reduce costs without costly mandates, without a big new bureaucracy, without a 2,801-page bill that “they have to pass so we can find out what’s in it.” Oh, and by the way, with all of these ideas, you would actually get to “keep your coverage if you like it,” unlike under the president’s plan. Anyway, that’s all great.

But the one problem that I haven’t mentioned the Republicans dealing with — and it’s very important — is pre-existing conditions. You probably know what that is. It’s the most important problem in health care. If you fix the problem of pre-existing medical conditions, I think you fix the health care issue, as a general matter.

What is that, exactly? It’s the problem you face when, let’s say you have diabetes and you’re unemployed or you lose your job — you have no health insurance. So you go to buy coverage online or out of the yellow pages, and they want to charge you an arm and a leg because of your health status, because of your preexisting condition. That’s a problem for a lot of people, maybe 2 to 4 million people in this country, so not a huge percentage of us, but for each one of those people it’s a big deal.

And guess what? That problem can be addressed. It’s mainly caused by government policy. My line is whenever someone tells you that there’s a “market failure,” look closer: it’s a government failure. There’s some government policy causing the problem. And that’s definitely the case here. The problem with pre-existing conditions is primarily caused by the United States tax code. That’s right, it’s the tax code. And how does that happen? Well, basically the government doesn’t create a level playing field for health care versus health insurance, for health insurance obtained at the workplace versus health insurance obtained out of the yellow pages, for health insurance that has a low deductible versus health insurance with a high deductible. By the way, a deductible just means the amount that you pay out of pocket before the insurance kicks in. All of those distortions are caused by the way we treat health benefits in our tax code.

Read the whole contra-Narrative mess, and remember to savor the Ultimate Truthiness: the GOP has no reform ideas.

It’s either ObamaCare, or under the bus for every manjack among you.

Update: linked by The Lonely Conservative.

Update II: linked at Daley Gator.

Category: Health Care

SANTORUM DROPS OUT

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 154 Comments

UPDATE 6 p.m. ET: In a post at Rachel Maddow’s blog (!) lefty Steve Benen says, “Santorum has done something I honestly didn’t think was possible,” going on to list the miraculous successes of Santorum’s low-budget underdog operation. Beyond the credit due to the candidate and his family — his wife and kids were, at one point, nearly the only people working full-time for his campaign — much of the credit goes to the scores and hundreds of dedicated volunteers whom I mention below.

Also: Because he went so long without any significant media recognition, Santorum was always the most accessible of the candidates and was willing to answer almost any questions. That got him in trouble a few times, and drove his staff and consultants nuts, but the folks in the press corps — including liberals who totally disagreed with Santorum on the issues — appreciated the honesty and openness of his campaign.

UPDATE 4:50 p.m. ET: Video of Santorum’s speech today:

UPDATE 4:40 p.m. ET: A volunteer just started the “Rick 2016” Facebook page.

UPDATE 4:20 p.m. ET: In a message on the Team Santorum Facebook page, the campaign’s grassroots coordinator Shelley Ahlersmeyer links Rick and Karen Santorum’s note of thanks to their supporters.

The story of Santorum’s grassroots army has been seldom mentioned in the media, even in my own coverage of the campaign. Some people were mystified by how Santorum kept winning — from Colorado to Louisiana — and so often out-performing the polls.

Shelley Ahlersmeyer had run grassroots outreach for Mike Huckabee’s 2008 campaign, and when she joined Team Santorum, it was a big gain for his campaign that didn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserved at the time. Ahlersmeyer brought with her not only her experience, skill and energy, but also extensive connections with Huckabee’s volunteers from four years ago.

So: How did Santorum win, for example, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, states that had seemed likely to go for Newt Gingrich? How did Santorum stay competitive in Michigan and Ohio, despite being massively outspent by Romney?

Three words: “Phone from home.”

A comparative handful of fired-up, dedicated volunteers — mostly moms and grandmothers — each made many thousands of phone calls to Republican primary voters in those states. Exactly how many people participated in Santorum’s phone-from-home program, I don’t yet know, but there were a hard-core handful who have spent practically every day for the past four months calling up total strangers and asking them to vote for Rick Santorum.

God bless ’em, they pulled off a miracle or two — Rick’s campaign manager, Mike Biundo, told me that the top campaign staff didn’t think they could win Mississippi until they saw the votes come in — and those volunteers deserve far more credit than they got.

Linked by The Lonely Conservative, Republican Redefined and Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints — thanks!

UPDATE 3:50 p.m. ET: Michelle Malkin came through with a crucial endorsement of Rick Santorum on Jan. 31 — the day of the Florida primary — and says of his scrappy underdog campaign:

Rick Santorum fought hard, he fought well, and he gave voice to a large contingent of grass-roots conservative activists across the country who wanted a candidate who lived the values he preached. He held Mitt Romney’s feet to the fire on health care, challenged Newt Gingrich’s green flirtations and past support for the individual mandate, and took on Ron Paul’s foreign policy extremism. His presence improved everyone else’s game — and that will serve the GOP ticket well this fall, whoever ends up on it.

Let’s not talk about that yet, huh? By the way, Michelle Malkin is hereby formally invited to “DoomCon 2012,” which I hope to convene in Tampa the day before the RINO coronation Republican convention in August. The general theme will be, “How screwed are we?”

UPDATE 3:55 p.m. ET: I hope Jeff Goldstein can make it to Tampa, too.

UPDATE 3:40 p.m. ET: Chris Moody, my young friend who was covering his first presidential campaign this year, reminds us how it was:

In the final days before the first Republican caucuses in Iowa — a contest on which Santorum rested his entire strategy — it appeared that his campaign would be laid to rest in the state where it was born. Iowa Republicans did not turn their eyes to the man who had spent more time in their state than any other candidate until the very end, but they ultimately awarded him with a surprise, hair’s-breadth victory — not formally confirmed until weeks after the vote–that helped keep his fledgling campaign afloat into the spring.
The first public whispers of his impending rise came with a CNN poll released three days after Christmas that showed Santorum in third place among likely Iowa caucus-goers, higher than he had ever been before in a public opinion survey.

Oh, that wasn’t first whisper, Chris: Have you already forgottten the Dec. 1 earthquake in Vanuatu? And I was calling it the “Santorum Surge” for weeks before that CNN poll confirmed my insight. Just the other day, I recounted some of those headlines.

UPDATE 3:05 p.m. ET: Video report from Associated Press:

Donald Douglas at American Power:

Santorum’s campaign represented the great hope of “full-spectrum conservatives” in 2012, and his exit will leave a mark on the general election campaign, as social issues and working class concerns will continue to resonate with the electorate into the fall.

I’d been planning to travel tp Pennsylvania next week to cover the campaign leading up to the April 24 primary. Now? To look on the bright side, I can begin planning for “DoomCon 2012.”

*** PREVIOUSLY (2:36 p.m. ET) ***

The news broke online while I was sending an e-mail, and I just watched Santorum’s speech on TV.

UPDATE: You know what’s gonna hurt? Telling my son Jefferson.

UPDATE II: Lisa Graas must be heartbroken.

UPDATE III: Chris Stirewalt and his fellow Romneyites on Fox News are talking about how Mitt will win now. We won’t forget their glee.

UPDATE IV: More of the news I missed at The Hill. As one commenter said, “We’ll always have Iowa.” And New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Louisiana, to name some of the places I encountered Santorum on his long, wild campaign trail.

Category: Election 2012, Rick Santorum

Derbyshire, Goldstein and Lowry

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 63 Comments

The Bonfire of the Derbyshire has burnt itself out, although some latecomers are still poking around in the ashes. Liberals have reassured themselves of their moral superiority. Rich Lowry has reassured himself of his own editorial adequacy. And all is right with the world.

Except of course, it’s not really.

The wheels keep turning, and if Derbyshire’s downfall was just an isolated incident, rather than part of a larger phenomenon, it wouldn’t have resulted in such a carnival of finger-pointing and recriminations.

Mark Judge congratulates himself upon the theft of his bicycle? Meh.

The other day, I made a call to a Known Thought Criminal and chatted for a while about all this. Republicans have an amazing flinch reflex about race, I said, and the Left’s politicization of race is something the GOP can’t figure out how to deal with. National Review is a Republican magazine, and Derbyshire’s extracurricular outrage was a public-relations nightmare in an election year, which Think Progress seized on in a way no one had hitherto seized on Derb’s previous excursions into race-talk.

Having studied the ways of the finger-pointers — sanctimonious white liberals who are as eager as Ashley Judd to drape themselves in a borrowed mantle of righteous victimhood —  the whole ritual was to me entirely predictable. From the minute it was brought to my attention, I knew Derbyshire was doomed. If he wished to advocate freedom of association, certainly Derb understood that the proprietors of National Review must be extended the same freedom, eh?

We may therefore say they segregated themselves from Derbism, and the great misfortune may have been Derbyshire’s foolish belief that he could integrate himself into an unwelcoming community.

Perhaps no one will be offended (but my apologies in advance, anyway) if I extend the metaphor by saying that one day, Derb was minding his own business, wearing his hoodie and walking back from the store with some Skittles, when suddenly his career was ambushed by the Zimmermans of tolerance.

Like I said, apologies in advance.

Jeff Goldstein offers some wise words:

Eric Holder once told us were were afraid to have a real dialogue on race.  And he did so because he knew we were …

Goldstein’s theme is “defending the indefensible.” I know Jeff as someone who, like me, absolutely hates to see liberals win a fight — any fight — and especially hates it when liberals win because conservatives permit cowardice or convenience to persuade them to surrender.

You don’t have to agree with Derbyshire’s argument to say that liberals routinely get away with making worse arguments with more serious consequences: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” And isn’t politics about electing officials and enacting policies?

Isn’t it true that accusations of racism — overt or implicit — are a common tactic of the Democratic Party? So wouldn’t it have possible for Rich Lowry to say something like this?

“Wait a minute! I’ve called John Derbyshire on the carpet, read him the Riot Act, and suspended him from National Review until we can calm down and figure this out. I strongly disagree with what John wrote, and some of my colleagues are very angry at me for having let Derb drift along like this for so long without any attempt at enforcing editorial discipline. He’s an old man undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, and I think his ill health should be taken into consideration in dealing with this problem. It is not, and should not be interpreted as, an endorsement of Derbyshire’s opinions for me to refuse to fire a longtime employee, a writer whose work has been enjoyed for years by our magazine’s readers, under such extraordinary circumstances.
“We may be unable to work out any honorable solution, and in that case, a parting of the ways will be necessary. However, as matters stand, Derbyshire is suspended until further notice, and this seems like as good time as any — a ‘teachable moment,’ as our liberal friends might say — for National Review to have a thoroughing discussion about how issues of race relations have impacted our nation’s culture and politics. What Derbyshire did was both stupid and wrong, but if I’m the Boss around here, I must bear the responsibility for what my employees do.
“I am inextricably implicated in Derbyshire’s misdeeds, which happened under my negligent supervision. Therefore, as General Lee said to his defeated troops as they retreated from the failed assault on Cemetery Ridge he had ordered, ‘This is all my fault.’
“It would be dishonorable for me to say otherwise, and if the board of directors should see fit to require my resignation as the consequence of this embarrassment, I would tender my resignation without resentment, regretting only my costly failure.”

Yes, if Rich Lowry were a man, he might have said something like that.

But the word “if” denotes a hypothetical, doesn’t it?

Category: Journalism, Protein Wisdom, Racism

Do We Now Know Why Media Matters Dumped M.J. Rosenberg?

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 3 Comments

You may have missed it over the weekend when I mentioned that the lberal smear outfit Media Matters had parted ways with M.J. Rosenberg, who had been espousing the “Jews Against Israel” gibberish we’ve recently heard from the far-left “J-Street” movement.

Rosenberg tried to portray this move as voluntary, but in an update on the story, Jeff Dunetz remarks:

There is no evidence that MJ Rosenberg was fired. Perhaps he woke up one day and decided to quit a $130,000 a year job in a lousy economy just because he wanted to start a blog.

Doesn’t add up, you see? Permit me to suggest that the J-Street crowd have outlived their usefulness as “useful idiots,” and that some people who thought they were clever back in the day — when attacking “neocons” (nudge, nudge) was politically beneficial to Democrats — have overstayed their welcome.

What I’ve called the “Sirhan Sirhan Wing” of the Democratic Party is ultimately a liability to the party and, in a crucial election year, wisdom would suggest that they can’t afford to encumber their messaging apparatus (of which Media Matters is a key mechanism) with crazies who spew “Zionism is racism” bile and rant about the “Jewish Lobby.”

A public relations problem, at the very least, and so you can easily imagine how some of the folks at Media Matters must have reacted to this Internet video about Rosenberg’s anti-Israel rants:

 

Anybody want to guess who made that call? A Famous Friend of Hillary?

“Oh, the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round . . .”

Category: Israel, Liberals, Progressivism

John Hawkins Interviews Herman Cain

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 8 Comments

Herman Cain sees the bright side of his recent experiences:

At the colleges and the universities, it’s standing room only in these auditoriums with these college students which is very, very inspiring — and they are paying attention. They have awakened to the hypocrisy of this administration.  But I plan to continue to stay focused on the mission, which is to defeat Barack Obama.

Read the whole thing. It is Cain’s relentless, cheerful optimism that makes him such an inspiring figure, and I hope the college kids get that.

UPDATE: Almost forgot: Cain Solutions Revolution will have an event at the Capitol on Monday, April 16 — register now!

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, John Hawkins (Right Wing News)

LIVE AT FIVE – 04.10.12

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 29 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
WaPo/ABC Poll: Obama Leads Romney 51-41 Among Adults

President Obama

President considered to be more likable; Romney leads by only 4 points on handling economy

Facebook Buys Instagram For $1 Billion
Inflating a new tech bubble?


Syrian Troops Fire Across Turkish Border Near Refugee Camp
Also, no pullback from cities



POLITICS
Study: Obamacare To Add $340 Billion To Deficit

Fist bumps!

George Mason study avoids double-counting in White House, CBO estimates

Romney Halts Anti-Santorum Ads During Bella Santorum’s Illness



Teen Drivers Blowing Off Anti-Texting Push

Md. General Assembly Adjourns After Passing “Doomsday” Budget With No Tax Increases

Obama Visits Florida, Pushes For “Buffett Rule”

Attorney General Dismisses O’Keefe Video As A Stunt



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Falls Below $102 Amid Signs Of Weak US Economy
AOL Sells Over 800 Patents To Microsoft For $1 Billion
PRC Posts Trade Surplus In March
Time For A “Backdoor” IRA?
US Stocks Stumble Monday After Disappointing Jobs Report
Treasury Freezes Pay For GM, Ally, AIG CEOs
US To Propose New Mortgage Lending Rules
Treasury Yields Fall To One-Month Lows
National Database Planned To Combat Cellphone Theft
Iran Close To Internet Blackout
RIM Nuking PlayBook Side-loading Apps
AT&T Unlocking iPhones For Deployed Servicemen?
WinPhone Has Nasty Pr0n Addiction?
Commodore Founder Jack Tramiel Dies, 83
New York Phone Booths To Get A “SmartScreen” Digital Makeover



SPORTS
Goodell Upholds Bounty Penalties

Suspended Saints coach Sean Payton

Commissioner rejects appeals from Saints

Rangers’ Darvish Roughed Up, But Wins MLB Debut

Mavericks Done With Lamar Odom And Vice Versa

Matusz Struggles As Yanks Break O’s Win Streak

Marlins’ Guillen On Hot Seat Over Castro Remarks

Another Day, Another Bear Victim: Memphis Rips Clips 94-85

Fundamentals Fail Nats In 9th As Mets Pull Out 4-3 Win



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Her Dad Says Amanda Bynes Wasn’t Drunk On Night Of DUI Arrest

Amanda Bynes

Well, okay then!

Brooklyn Decker In The Sun

Canadian Actress Arrested After Traveling To NY, Stalking Alec Baldwin

Mandy Moore Pregnant?

Axl Rose Denies Dating Lana Del Rey

Kristen Wiig On Life After SNL

Jennifer Lopez Buys Casper Smart A Birthday Truck



Eva Longoria Says She’s Still A “Hopeless Romantic”

Mattel Debuts “Hunger Games” Barbie

Fox Renews “Glee”, “New Girl” And “Raising Hope”

Scarlett Johansson – Sex Shop Poster Child



FOREIGNERS
Syria Cease-Fire Unlikely After Cross-Border Attacks
Russia Warns Norks Not To Proceed With Launch
Muslim Brotherhood Chooses Chaos For Egypt
64 Yemenis Killed In Clash With Al-Qaeda
PM Cameron To Visit Burma As EU Mulls Sanctions Lift
Mugabe Battles For Life In Singapore, Cabinet Meetings Suspended
Mali’s Junta Leader Doesn’t Want Foreign Forces Fighting Rebel Tuaregs
Death Toll In Nigeria Bombing Rises To 41
PRC Jails Land Rights Lawyer



BLOGS & STUFF
Michelle Malkin: New Black Panthers Call For Race War (Again)
Gateway Pundit: Zimmerman’s Family Says Attorney General Holder Won’t Arrest New Black Panthers Because He’s Black
Volokh Conspiracy: Is Sotomayor The First Disabled Judge?
Riehl World View: Romney Embraces Huckabee – So Begins The GOP’s War On Traditional Conservatism
Weasel Zippers: WaPo Blames Trayvon Martin Shooting On “Dirty Harry” Movies
NYT Media Decoder: Limbaugh Leaving AM Station In Philly – For An FM Station
Lonely Conservative: Creepy – Image OF Obama Adorns White House Basketballs
Washington Free Beacon: Minority Report
Walter Russell Mead: The Myth Of America’s Decline
NRO Corner: Mead And The “Best Way Forward”
Belmont Club: The Apostate’s Screed

Category: Live at Five

Ashley Judd, Victim of the War on Women

Posted on | April 10, 2012 | 65 Comments

OK, I was ranting about this on Twitter and somebody said I should turn it into a blog post. I protested that this really deserves the Ace of Spades touch, but then I thought, “Oh, what the heck. I’ll give it a shot.”

Ashley Judd, rich and famous star of stage, screen and television, is now 43 years old, and maybe she’s gained a few pounds. So the tabloids and gossip blogs started in on her, saying she was a “cow,” and had “had some work done,” blah blah blah.

I didn’t notice or care. I’m trying to do politics here, not TMZ.

I don’t watch much TV. Except for news, the main thing I watch on TV is Storage Wars on A&E and Man vs. Food on the Travel Network. So as far as I know or care, Ashley Judd could be 300 pounds with a face as hideously overworked as Nancy Pelosi’s and who cares?

Well, Ashley Judd cares, and she wants you to know she’s a victim!

The Conversation about women’s bodies exists largely outside of us, while it is also directed at (and marketed to) us, and used to define and control us. The Conversation about women happens everywhere, publicly and privately. We are described and detailed, our faces and bodies analyzed and picked apart, our worth ascertained and ascribed based on the reduction of personhood to simple physical objectification. Our voices, our personhood, our potential, and our accomplishments are regularly minimized and muted.

(Oh, good Lord — she’s plagiarizing Naomi Wolfe, am I right?)

As an actor and woman who, at times, avails herself of the media, I am painfully aware of the conversation about women’s bodies, and it frequently migrates to my own body. I know this, even though my personal practice is to ignore what is written about me. I do not, for example, read interviews I do with news outlets. I hold that it is none of my business what people think of me. . . .

(Yadda yadda yadda. Not like I’m vain or anything.)

However, the recent speculation and accusations in March feel different, and my colleagues and friends encouraged me to know what was being said. Consequently, I choose to address it because the conversation was pointedly nasty, gendered, and misogynistic and embodies what all girls and women in our culture, to a greater or lesser degree, endure every day, in ways both outrageous and subtle. The assault on our body image, the hypersexualization of girls and women and subsequent degradation of our sexuality as we walk through the decades, and the general incessant objectification is what this conversation allegedly about my face is really about. . . . .

(Excuse me while I climb up on this cross and suffer as an atoning sacrifice, because you’re in need of a millionaire St. Ashley.)

The following examples are real, and come  from a variety of (so-called!) legitimate news outlets (such as HuffPo,  MSNBC, etc.), tabloid press, and social media . . .

(And here she cites the various things said about her recently. I’ll spare you the tedious details and cut to the Womyn’s Studies lecture.)

That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.
A case in point is that this conversation was initially promulgated largely by women; a sad and disturbing fact.

(Holy crap! If she keeps going this way, she’s gonna be name-checking Shulamith Firestone with footnote citations to Robin Morgan!)

News outlets with whom I do serious work, such as publishing op-eds about preventing HIV, empowering poor youth worldwide, and conflict mineral mining in Democratic Republic of Congo, all ran this “story” without checking with my office first for verification, or offering me the dignity of the opportunity to comment. It’s an indictment of them that they would even consider the content printable, and that they, too, without using time-honored journalistic standards, would perpetuate with un-edifying delight such blatantly gendered, ageist, and mean-spirited content.

OK, enough: You can go read the whole damned preachy treatise for yourself. I’m just stunned that this woman — a movie/TV star, which is by definition a looks-oriented gig — suddenly decides, at age 43, that being judged for her looks is a bad thing.

This didn’t bother her, apparently, when she was cast in 1996 to play a young Marilyn Monroe. But now, 16 years later, it’s bad to judge her for her looks because, well, the tabloids and HuffPo are saying not-nice things about her looks. She’s a multimillionaire star, and she’s also a victim of the misogynistic patriarchy.

Except it’s not really about her, it’s about all girls and women everywhere, on whose behalf she suffers on her cross, St. Ashley of Hollywood.

UPDATE: Thanks to the commenter who reminds us that Ashley “Don’t Objectify Me” Judd, posed topless for the December 2006 cover of Marie Claire magazine. The patriarchy made her do it!

UPDATE II: Linked by Bob Belvedere at the Camp of the Saints — thanks! — and by Dan Collins, who remarks:

The way the system is rigged, women can’t win, which is why Ashley Judd is so unsuccessful, so bereft of the rewards that society unfairly lavishes on men.

Victim of the effin’ patriarchy — and don’t deny it, you oppressors!

Category: Celebrities, Feminism, Hollywood

This Is Probably a Hate Crime

Posted on | April 9, 2012 | 9 Comments

WARNING: We apologize to readers for the disturbing neo-Confederate imagery in this shocking eight-minute video that shows Read more

Category: Video
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