PBS NewsHour: Shields & Gerson On Ebola & 2014 Elections

Source:PBS NewsHour– left to right: Michael Gerson & Mark Shields.

Source:The New Democrat

“Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including the response to Ebola in the U.S. and how it affects national politics, as well as the outlook for the midterm elections and the gubernatorial debate in Florida.”

From the PBS NewsHour

“The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a North American public broadcaster and non-commercial,[1][2][3][4][5] free-to-air television network based in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia.[6][7][8][9] PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States,[10][11][12][13] distributing shows such as Frontline, Nova, PBS NewsHour, Masterpiece, Sesame Street, and This Old House.[14]

PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, pledge drives, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source.[15] PBS has over 350 member television stations, many owned by educational institutions, nonprofit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government.[4]

As of 2020, PBS has nearly 350 member stations around the United States.”

From Wikipedia

Anyone who uses Ebola to gain political power (Right or Left) is unfit for office and perhaps should resign or give up their request to win the office that they are pursuing. This is a serious issue that affects millions of people who the U.S. Government and others have to deal with effectively, or millions of people could get hurt by it. And they need all the resources and people necessary to handle this problem as effectively as possible.

As far as the U.S. Senate elections: Mike Gerson might be right and maybe Senate Republicans are ahead in 8-11 elections right now. But I’m still seeing Kansas where Republican Senator Pat Roberts is in the fight for his Congressional career and is losing to Greg Orman. And I don’t think the debate this week helped Senator Roberts. And I’m seeing Georgia where Democratic Senate nominee Michelle Nunn has a small lead against David Perdue and they are competing for a Republican Senate seat.

In Kentucky, Allison Grimes has probably shot off too many of her own toes to win that election. You know a centrist or center-left Democrat not being able to admit that she voted for a Democratic President in Barack Obama, who is also center-left, shows she may not have the character and political knowledge as far as how much that could hurt her by not being able to admit the obvious, to win a U.S. Senate seat. Even against an unpopular Mitch McConnell who is also the Senate Minority Leader, Leader of the Senate Republicans.

Senate Democrats path to retaining the Senate even at 50-50 or 51-49, is to run the table and hold all the close Senate Democratic seats. They need to hold probably half of them and pick off a few Republican seats as well. Like Kansas and Georgia and they do that by holding North Carolina, where Senator Kay Hagan as a lead there. Holding South Dakota, which seemed impossible even a few months ago. Hold Colorado with Senator Mark Udall and somehow pull out Arkansas or Louisiana. And put Senate Republicans in a position where they have to run the table to even win a net of six seats, after dropping a couple of their own.

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Chris Brandt: U.S. Representative Steve Cohen Schools DEA Official at House Oversight Hearing

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

I agree with Representative Steve Cohen that marijuana prohibition is definitely a joke and overwhelmingly hurts ethnic and racial minorities compared with Anglos and Caucasians.  It is a war on freedom to criminalize what people do to themselves, especially when we are talking about a drug that can’t kill you immediately, unlike heroin or cocaine. We are really talking about a drug as it relates to health aspects like alcohol.  It is actually far less dangerous than tobacco, which is legal.

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The Young Turks: Jimmy Dore & Ben Mankiewicz: Simple Weed Question Destroys Deputy Drug Czar

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer, D, Oregon

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

This video is the perfect example of why the U.S. Government whoever is in charge since the creation of the so-called War on Drugs, why they have lost credibility. And no longer have much credibility on the War on Drugs. Especially with young adults let’s say early fifties and younger, but adolescents as well. When the Deputy Director of National Drug Policy Michael Botticeli can’t or won’t answer a simple basic question of whether or not marijuana is as dangerous as cocaine, heroine or meth.

Representative Earl Blumenauer Democrat from Oregon who I like and respect, but do not agree with him on everything. Asked National Drug Policy Deputy Director Michael Botticeli who probably has all the information about the dangers of these illegal drugs as well as legal drugs and may even know this information by heart. Because it is a big part of his job. Was asked point-blank by Representative Blumenauer, “is marijuana as dangerous as meth or cocaine or heroin.” And Mr. Botticeli dodged the question, can only speculate why not being a mind-reader. But he must know the answer, but refused to share that information.

Representative Bluemenauer also made another great point that we’ve reduced the use of tobacco in this country. Not by locking people up, but by educating Americans about the dangers of tobacco. And then people seeing and knowing that and if they aren’t currently smoking, not getting into tobacco. And if they are current tobacco smokers getting off of tobacco or getting help for it. Which is exactly what we should be doing as far as how we deal with marijuana in this country.

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The Fiscal Times: Opinion- Eric Pianin- Get Ready For One-Party Rule if GOP Wins The Senate

This post was originally posted at The New Democrat

I blogged last night that best ways to fix Washington as far as the national political scene goes, is first by fixing Congress. And that starts in the upper chamber the U.S. Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives has a lot of issues as well that contributes to the over partisanship as well. But the Senate is supposed to be that Congressional chamber where both parties are supposed to work together. At the very least get along after both sides get their say and can offer their ideas and plans to address whatever the issues are in the country. And currently the Senate is not like that.

Keep in mind here I’m a proud loyal partisan when it comes to ideas and philosophy Liberal Democrat. And my party is in charge in the Senate and I hope it remains that way in the next Congress as well. So I believe I have some credibility when I talk about too much partisanship in the Senate. Because it is in my party’s best short-term interest to keep things as they are and even advance them. And turn the Senate into the House as far as rules are set up until Senate Republicans win back the Senate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is one of the last people to be talking about too much Senate partisanship. Since he became Minority Leader back in 2007 has utilized every rule known to man, or least people who report on the Senate, to obstruct Senate Democrats and President Obama. And when he was Assistant Majority Leader from 2003-07, he and then Leader Bill Frist used every rule they could find to prevent Senate Democrats the minority party back then from offering amendments and alternatives to bills. And from even being involved in committee hearings. And Congressional conferences between the House and Senate.

But Minority Leader McConnell is right when he says that the Senate has become too much like the House. And it needs to be better and more like the old Senate. Where both sides can offer their own bills and amendments to the issues that the Senate Leader decides the Senate should focus on. The problem that the Minority Leader and why he has a credibility gap on this issue, is that he’s been a big part of the problem. And a big reason why Leader Reid has moved to more majority rule in the Senate. Since Mitch McConnell became Minority Leader back in 2007.

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Reform Party USA: ‘Core Principles of the Reform Party’

Source:Reform Party USA– the official logo of RPUSA.

Source:The New Democrat

“We, the members of the Reform Party, commit ourselves to reform our political system. Together we will work to re-establish trust in our government by electing ethical officials, dedicated to fiscal responsibility and political accountability.”

From Reform Party USA

I hope the title of this post is long enough, otherwise the hell with it. But I agree with the notion of this blog post from the Reform Party that governing simply shouldn’t be about compromise. That even with a divided government with two parties that do not like each other (which is putting it very mildly) and certainly do not trust each other that both sides at the end of the business day still have a responsibility to not only govern, but to govern well.

And in divided government like today that means taking the best from both sides and putting into a package that works. And throwing out the garbage from both sides instead of just splitting the difference on each key issue. As if that is governing even when trying to go half way on each issue may not and in most cases does not result in a good end result.

There are plenty of examples going back to the early 1980s when the Federal Government became very partisan with a new Conservative President in Ronald Reagan, with a Conservative Republican Senate. To go with a Progressive Democratic House where they managed to govern very well with divided Congress’s.

It is not so much the art of the compromise that should try to be reached. But the art of the consensus. What do both sides want and on a lot of key issues both sides tend to have the same end goals. And after that has been established now where are both sides, what would each side do if they were completely in charge. In other words: what is the opening offer from both sides so we know where both side is. And after that has been established you look to the common ground.

You find that and you put that in the final package and then after that you look for victories from both sides. The good from each side and put their ideas alone on certain key issues. For example the 1996 Welfare to Work Law is a perfect example. Republicans wanted time limits and work requirements in the new Welfare system. Democrats wanted job training, education, and childcare for people on Welfare. What happened is both sides won and the final bill had job training, education, childcare, time limits and job requirements.

You take the good from both sides and throw out the things that probably wouldn’t work. Or that both sides simply can’t live with. Meaning both sides get their victories, but do not get everything they are looking for. Instead of just splitting the difference and running for the middle on the key issues. And that is how you get good government in a divided government.

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Crooks & Liars: Richard Eskow- ‘Was This the Social Contract’s Comeback Year?’

Source:Crooks & Liars– U.S. House Minority While Steny Hoyer (Democrat, Maryland) speaking at a Third Way policy conference.

“What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time, a president and a party who had just won an election with progressive rhetoric were quickly pivoting toward a “Grand Bargain” which would cut Social Security and Medicare. Leaders in both parties were obsessed with deficits, and there was “bipartisan” consensus that these “entitlements” needed to be cut. The only questions left to debate were when they would be cut, and by how much. To resist these moves was to be dismissed as “unserious” and “extreme” — in Washington, in newsprint, and on the airwaves.

Today the forces of corporate consensus are on the defensive. It’s considered politically reckless to get too far out front on the subject of benefit cuts. Some of the think tanks who advocated Austerity Lite one year ago are focused now on inequality. And, as the leaders of Third Way learned recently, the same rhetoric which earned nods of approval all across Washington this time last year can get you slapped down today.”

You can read the rest of Richard Eskow’s piece at Crooks & Liars

“A promotional video produced by the US government to highlight the projects and programs of the Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression.”

Source:All Histories– a film about the New Deal.

From All Histories 

When it comes to things like Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Welfare Insurance, Medicare. Public Housing, Food Assistance (to use several examples) I prefer the term safety net or a public social insurance system or PSIS. Which are insurances that people who need them can collect when, well they need them. But if you able to take care or yourself and you have what is called economic freedom that is the ability to pay your own bills and be self-sufficient in life with money left over to spend in things you want, then that is essentially the American dream.

Then that is exactly what you and this is how a safety net or PSIS would be different from what is called in Europe especially in Scandinavia a welfare state. Where there are all sorts of public programs funded through taxes (not free for the people) there to take care of people.

I as a Liberal Democrat do not want to have to live off of government or anyone else if I’m able to take care of myself. That would be just one example that would separate me from a Democratic Socialist or a Social Democrat. Someone who bases their political philosophy on what government can do for people when it comes to economics.

If you want to use the term social contract, fine I’ll go along with that. But what I’m really in favor of when it comes to American capitalism is individual economic power. Again which is another way of saying economic freedom. And what I would like to see in this country and perhaps even go back to is an economic power system that is there for all Americans to be able to take advantage of to create their own economic freedom.

And this is where government plays its biggest role along with regulating predatory behavior. And this comes from making quality education and job training available for everyone universally to everyone K-adulthood if needed. So as many Americans as possible have that individual economic power or people power to be able to take care of themselves. And live a good life however they define that for themselves without having to use public assistance or private charity. In order to pay their own way and bills.

If you are talking about having a federal government so big especially as it relates to economic policy that it is designed to meet a lot if not most of people’s economic needs, you are no longer talking about a safety net or a social insurance system, but a welfare state. A socialist superstate big government at about as big as it can without nationalizing the entire economy and outlawing private property all together. And that is not what I’m in favor of.

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PBS NewsHour: Judy Woodruff- ‘Mark Shields and David Brooks Look At Impact of Senate’s Rule Change’

Source:PBS NewsHour– syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Source:The New Democrat

“Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss their takes on Senate Democrats’ move to invoke the “nuclear option” and how that rule change will affect partisanship. They also look back at how President John F. Kennedy shaped public service in America.”

From the PBS NewsHour

“The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor.[6] It is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational television programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America’s Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Barney & Friends, Between the Lions, Cyberchase, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Downton Abbey, Elinor Wonders Why, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Nature, Nova, the PBS NewsHour, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Keeping up Appearances and This Old House.”

From Wikipedia

As I said yesterday, Senate Democrats essentially had no choice, but to do this because of how Senate Republicans have changed the rules in how the Senate filibuster was used by saying:

“Even though we are the opposition and minority party in the United States and only have forty-five members of the Senate, we get to decide when the President of the United States that our party has now lost to twice both in Electoral College landslides and lost the Senate elections as well, we’ll get to decide when an if President Obama will get to make appointments to either his administration or the courts, based on whether we believe those offices should exist. And whether or not we believe that office needs to be filled right now.”

Senate Republicans were not blocking people based on whether they are qualified or not, which has been the tradition of whether or not presidential appointments should be blocked or not.

Again Leader Harry Reid was forced to do this, but Senate Democrats will pay a price for this. The next time there is a Republican president and Republican Senate at the same time and with the state of the Republican Party, that could be a while. (But stranger things have happened)

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The Fiscal Times: Nicholas Wapshott: ‘How The GOP Turned From Pragmatism to Tribalism’

Source:The Fiscal Times– from left to right: Speaker of the House John Boehner (Republican, Ohio) House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican, Virginia) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky)

“Once a happy band of no-nonsense, pro-business conservatives, cautious in everything from money to marriage — including their wary response to the onward march of 1960s liberal social values — they were prepared, within reason, to trim their policies to match the voters’ mood. After all, to achieve anything in government you first have to win elections.

But that was before the revival in fundamental conservatism that has turned the GOP from a pragmatic party to a collection of inward-looking ideological tribes. Republicans puzzled by the rise of dogma and division in their party can find answers in a new survey that explains how large the factions are and what they think. They will be surprised by the findings.

RELATED: MORE SHUTDOWN FALLOUT FOR THE GOP IN THE SENATE

The GOP has long been considered a three-legged stool: big business, Southern evangelical Christians and anti-government Westerners. But, largely since the world financial panic of 2008-9, these three have been joined by two new aggressive, popular movements: the Tea Party and the libertarians.”

From The Fiscal Times

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The Daily Beast: Jonathan Miller: ‘ObamaCare is Winning in Kentucky Thanks to Steve Beshear’

Source:The Daily Beast– From left to right: Governor Steve Beshear, (Democrat, Kentucky) U.S. Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky,

“We stuck with the Union in favor of our favorite son, Lincoln, but then joined in common cause with the Confederacy after the Civil War had ended. A century later, we boasted some of the nation’s most progressive civil rights laws; yet, to this date, we still feature many of America’s most segregated societies. And while Kentucky’s been one of the largest beneficiaries of the New Deal/Great Society welfare state, the dominant strain in our politics remains a fierce anti-government, anti-tax worldview.

Kentucky’s perplexing and hypocritical aversion to big government has been exploited brilliantly by our senior senator Mitch McConnell, who’s capitalized on our cultural resentment of elite interference to transform the Bluegrass State into a deep-red citadel in federal elections. More recently, our junior senator Rand Paul catapulted McConnell’s vision much further than Mitch intended, placing Kentucky in the crosshairs of the Tea Party revolution. But while these two political icons and their surrogates clash over the depth of government slashing, they’ve been steadfastly united behind one common vision: the defeat, and, more recently, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

It’s no coincidence then that Obamacare is beginning to expose the political fault line that divides the two Kentuckys. The GOP’s effective—and quite misleading—messaging plays into the anti-establishment populace’s greatest fears about out-of-control outside interference: the myth of a government-run-health-care system, engineered by a President with socialist tendencies (and whose skin pigmentation and exotic name frankly heighten popular anxiety in some of the nation’s least educated counties). And yet, when you wade through the propaganda and understand the law’s true impact, Kentucky needs the Affordable Care Act…desperately. It’s a state consistently ranked near the bottom of nearly every national health survey, where one out of every six citizens remains uninsured.

With our long-standing tradition of timid politicians fearful of incurring the wrath of the anti-government mobs, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see Kentucky join much of Red America and reject both Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion to the working poor, as well as its option of establishing a state-run health benefit exchange to provide affordable health care to the remaining uninsured.

But in a delicious irony, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul’s home state may ultimately serve as the proving ground of Obamacare’s success. That’s due to the political chutzpah of one man: Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear.

Over the past several months, Beshear used his broad executive powers to bypass resistance from the GOP-controlled state Senate to ensure that the Commonwealth is the only Southern state that both expanded its Medicaid rolls and opened up a health benefit exchange, providing access to affordable health care to our more than 640,000 uninsured citizens. And while the federal launch of the program has been plagued with technical difficulties, Kentucky’s experience has been exemplary: In its first day, 10,766 applications for health coverage were initiated, 6,909 completed and 2,989 families were enrolled. Obama himself bragged that Kentucky led the nation with its glitch-minimized performance.

It would be hyperbolic to crown Steve Beshear as a profile in courage. The Governor’s second and final term expires in two years, and he’s made clear that this is his last political hurrah. However, Beshear is keenly interested in the political prospects of his son Andy—the betting favorite in the 2015 race for Attorney General—and he understands that even a tangential connection to the unpopular Obama carries a heavy political burden. Furthermore, the Governor isn’t quietly going about the business of administering the new law: Beshear has been gleefully poking the eye of the Tea Party beast — and its subservient U.S. Senators—and channeling Harry Truman in the national media circuit: In a recent New York Times op-ed, Beshear crowed: “[T]o those more worried about political power than Kentucky’s families, I say, ‘Get over it’…and get out of the way so I can help my people. Here in Kentucky, we cannot afford to waste another day or another life.”

From The Daily Beast 

I’m not a mindreader (obviously) but if I had to guess I would say that the hyper-partisan, right-wing base of the Republican Party hates the Affordable Care Act (also known as ObamaCare) but I don’t think that’s who they really hate or what they really hate.

What the right-wing in America really hates is President Barack Hussein Obama, who the Far-Right of the party, which might be the dominant faction in the Republican Party, sees as an Un-American, Muslim-Socialist, from Kenya, who represents everything that they hate about modern America. And now that President Obama has ObamaCare on his legacy, that adds 20 million Americans to the health insurance roles in this country, they hate him even more.

Again, I’m no mindreader, but had a President John McCain got the Affordable Care Act or McCainCare (as it would’ve been called) and gotten the exact same law that President Obama gotten through a Democratic Congress in 2009-10, you wouldn’t see the Republican Party, even with a Republican House trying to repeal the ACA today. The Republican right-wing’s opposition to ObamaCare, is really about Barack Obama, not as much as the law itself.

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PBS: NewsHour: ‘Shields & Brooks On Shutdown’s Tectonic Effect For Republicans’

Source:PBS NewsHour– New York Times columnist David Brooks.

You can also see this post at The New Democrat , on WordPress.

“The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor.[6] It is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational television programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America’s Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Barney & Friends, Between the Lions, Cyberchase, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Downton Abbey, Elinor Wonders Why, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Nature, Nova, the PBS NewsHour, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Keeping up Appearances and This Old House.”

From Wikipedia

“Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s top political news, including how Republicans and Democrats have fared in the “catastrophic” polls coming out of the shutdown, and whether or not a solution to the stalemate is in sight.”

From the PBS NewsHour

The effect of the government shutdown on the House Republican Conference where most of the blame should be targeted, with the House Republican Leadership not being able to take on the Tea Party Caucus and the Tea Party Caucus setting out to destroy the Affordable Care Act at all costs and then a few Senate Republicans like Ted Cruz obviously, but go to Mike Lee and Rand Paul. So most of the blame for the government shutdown goes to Congressional Republicans.

And the consequences are Speaker Boehner looks like a bigger weakling than he already is. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who was already in danger of being reelected next year, facing both a strong Republican primary challenge from of course a Tea Party Republican in Mark Bevin, but whoever wins that race will face a well-funded with the backing of the entire Democratic Party, Democrat in Allison Grimes. And remember, Kentucky is not Mississippi. Democrats win at all levels in Kentucky. The governor of Kentucky is a Democrat and the state House is controlled by Democrats. Facing a very unpopular Republican in Mitch McConnell.

And the U.S. House of Representatives because the Tea Party Republicans who won Democratic seats in 2010, now have to go home and explain why they supported the government shutdown. And Northeastern Republicans, whether they are in the Tea Party or not. Who represent swing districts, will either have to take on the Tea Party. And risk a primary challenge from the Tea Party, or be in favor of the government shutdown. And risk losing their seat to a Democrat. And the Democratic Party will not let House Republicans forget about the government shutdown or be able to dodge it.

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