Where's the Outrage?

On Meet the Press, former Gov. Mitt Romney was asked about health care. The former Massachusetts governor, who is credited with getting health care in Massachusetts, is somehow seen as an expert on health care reform. Gov. Romney, when asked about health care reform, stated, “We have a model that worked.  One state in America, my state, was able to put in place a plan that got everybody health insurance, and it did not require a public government insurance company. That’s the last thing America needs.  You know exactly what it is.  President Obama, when he was campaigning, said he wanted a single payer system.  That’s would it would lead to.  He would subsidize this over time, it would become larger and larger, drive the private options out of the healthcare industry. It would be just disastrous for health care in this country.  And therefore the right way to proceed is to reform health care.  That we can do, as we did it in Massachusetts, as Wyden-Bennett is proposing doing it at the national level.  We can do it for the nation, we can get everybody insured, we can get the cost of health care down, but we don’t have to have government insurance and government running health care to get that done.”

I thought David Gregory was supposed to be the moderator of a policy debate. Instead, he acted as a pitch man for the Republican infomercial. Gregory had plenty of opportunities to ask a decent follow-up question but instead he asked none. Here’s a few follow-up questions I would have asked:

• Gov., you stated that in Massachusetts you have a model that “worked.” Exactly what you mean by “worked”? Massachusetts has a system that is spending 33% more on health care than the national average. Why is that?
• Why would driving private options out of the healthcare industry be disastrous for America?
• By expanding Medicare and Medicaid to cover the poorest people in Massachusetts haven’t you selected the healthiest people to be covered by private health insurance?
• Aren’t some of the very high profile hospitals in Massachusetts getting paid more to do the same procedures are smaller hospitals?  Why is this?  How does this help decrease costs?
• Finally, you said “we can get the cost of health care down” but in your state healthcare has done nothing but increase since the instituting of this reform program. Healthcare costs have increased since 2006 by 42%. How do you plan on controlling costs if you can’t even do it in the small state of Massachusetts?

Universal health care can control costs using several mechanisms.

• Eliminate insurance costs. This saves $700 billion.
• Negotiate drug prices. Give pharmaceutical companies longer patent times so they have the ability to recuperate their R&D costs.
• Fund research to find the best medical options for the most common diseases which include congestive heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, hypertension, diabetes and others.
• Pay primary care physicians and hospitals differently. Hospitals and primary care physicians should each take care of a population of patients. This eliminates the incentive to see patients over and over and over again. Instead, we should increase incentives to see patients once and get it right the first time.
• Truly look at medical products (wheelchairs, scooters, CT scanners and lab machines). The government working with physicians and other medical personnel should come up with guidelines for all of these devices. Who truly needs a scooter? Does every hospital need a CT scanner?
• Fix the immigration problem. By closing our borders, and only letting in people that we want in this country, we can decrease the strain on the emergency rooms across the country.
• Business saves. Businesses don’t have to spend any money trying to figure out healthcare plans. Instead, they can use that money to increase salaries and to increase investment into their business.
• End of life. We have to begin to discuss end-of-life issues.

Tags: Healthcare, Obama administration, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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I figured that it was just me.  I look at who is on the TV and whom journalists are interviewing and ask why?  Rick Santorum has been on the tube recently. Why?  He is a partisan politician who isn’t all that bright and was voted out of office.  What could he have to say that would be of any importance?  Why does Liz Cheney keep popping up on my screen?  Don’t we know what she is going to say before she says it? Tom Tancredo! Please.  This guy has the IQ of an empty soap dish.  He has never, as far as I know, said anything that was really worthwhile or insightful.  Why does anything that he thinks about any nominee to the Supreme Court have any relevance?  Steve has more:

Looking over the list of guests for tomorrow’s Sunday morning shows, we see that CBS’s “Face the Nation” will feature two guests: David Axelrod from the White House and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

It comes just two weeks after Gingrich was a featured guest on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He was the featured guest on “Fox News Sunday” just two weeks before that.

This isn’t quite as annoying as having Liz Cheney live on the cable networks, but it’s getting there.

Atrios asked a couple of weeks ago, “[Y]ou know, disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has precisely zero power but his every pronouncement is treated as Incredibly Important News. Any journalists want to explain why?”

That need not be a rhetorical question.

I suspect “Face the Nation” wants to hear from Gingrich about the Sotomayor nomination, since Gingrich led the way in smearing the judge, and then kinda-sorta-but-not-really backpedaled this week on the use of the word “racist.”

But here’s a little secret: whether Gingrich respects or loathes Sotomayor is of no consequence. He doesn’t have a vote in the Senate, and more importantly, he doesn’t have any real influence in the Senate, either.

In our reality, Gingrich was forced from office in disgrace more than a decade ago. His limited power comes by way of the media, which keeps putting him on national television.

Eric Boehlert’s recent take on this — before Newt had an op-ed published in the Washington Post and before his “Meet the Press” appearance had even been announced — still rings true:

[A]s often happens when I read breaking, this-is-what-Newt-said dispatches, I couldn’t help thinking, “Who cares what Newt Gingrich thinks?” And I don’t mean that in the partisan sense. I mean it in the journalistic sense: How do Gingrich’s daily pronouncements about the fundamental dishonesty of Democrats (Newt’s favorite phrase) translate into news? Why does the press, 10 years after Gingrich was forced out of office, still treat his every partisan utterance as a newsworthy occurrence? In other words, why does the press still treat him like he’s speaker of the House? It’s unprecedented.”

I’m still waiting to see the media frenzy surrounding the latest pronouncements from Jim Wright and Tom Foley. Remind me, when was the last time either of them was invited onto a Sunday morning show?

Tags: Media, Party Politics, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Sometimes I just have sit back and take in the stupidity.  If a Democratic president had twisted the law to make torture legal, conservatives would have been seizing in Congress.  I thought the Republicans were the Law and Order party.

Steve has more:

It was pretty painful over the weekend to see/hear so many political pundits whitewash torture. To hear many of the leading conservative media voices, the problem wasn’t with the Bush administration’s illegal policies, which embarrassed the nation and undermined our national security, but rather with the Obama administration’s transparency.

While most of the nonsense came from the usual suspects (Rove, Armey, Kristol), perhaps the most striking argument came from Peggy Noonan, the Reagan speechwriter turned Wall Street Journal columnist.

Noonan wants to walk away [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“Sometimes in life you want to just keep walking,” Noonan said, adding, “Sometimes, I think, just keep walking…. Some of life just has to be mysterious.”

It was, to be sure, one of the more ridiculous arguments of the debate. Noonan wasn’t prepared to defend the Bush administration’s abuses, but she suggested accountability is necessarily a bad idea because … well, apparently it has something to do with walking.

Today, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), after criticizing the Obama administration’s reluctance to prosecute alleged Bush-era crimes, marveled at Noonan’s absurd argument.

[T]he Senator took a swipe at some of the rationalizations for avoiding prosecution that have been voiced by Washington lawmakers and pundits.

“If you want to see just how outrageous this is, I refer you to the remarks made by Peggy Noonan this Sunday,” he said, referring to the longtime conservative columnist’s appearance on ABC’s This Week. “I frankly have never heard anything quite as disturbing as her remark that was something to the affect of: ‘well sometimes you just have to move on.’”

Of course, no one has been able to crystalize the stupidity of Washington into a bite sized nugget for us like Jon Stewart.

Tags: Bush Administration, Sunday Morning Shows, Torture by ecthompson md
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Once again, Tom Brokaw leads with a negative question for Senator Barack Obama: Why haven’t you been to Afghanistan, if you really think that it is the central front on the war on terrorism, before now? (That’s not quite as bad as “Have you stopped beating your wife?”– but close.) Again, Obama does a very good job getting out of this negative frame. He explains that he hasn’t been down at the corner barbershop playing dominoes. He states what he has been doing.

I would urge Obama to step back from phrases like “We must win in Afghanistan.” This type of phrase echoes of discourse on Iraq. All sorts of questions arise. What does “winning” mean? Will defeating the Taliban lead to a formal surrender with Mullah Omar (who is still on the loose) handing over his sword or AK-47 to our General on the ground?

Instead, Obama needs to talk about our goals. Afghanistan needs to develop a viable economy which exports something other than heroin. Farmers must have a reason to plant something other than poppy. We need to help the Afghans build roads, schools, and a real economy. I have no idea how to deal with the local tribal leaders who are used to having an enormous amount of power over their own regions, but these leaders must be made to work within the framework of their constitution.

Obama shows a national audience that he has command of foreign policy. His plan isn’t wimpy. Instead, it is aggressive and thoughtful.

If Obama made a mistake during this discussion it might have been with the phrase, “We know where they are.” However, he did qualify it by saying that military commanders have told him that they are… I don’t know. We’ll see if Senator John McCain and his gang will make something out of this.

Tags: Afghanistan, Election 2008, Pakistan, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Barack Obama and Tim Russert discuss the gas tax holiday on Meet the Press.

Tags: Election 2008, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Republican candidate Ron Paul is an Internet sensation. He has raised more money in one day on the Internet than any other candidate — Republican or Democrat. He was on Meet the Press two weeks ago. The first question that Tim Russert asked was about his stance on income tax. (Please see video below)

Ron Paul would like to eliminate all income tax. On the surface, cutting taxes always seems like a good thing. We hear over and over again, how our tax dollars are being wasted. Wasted in Iraq. Wasted on a bridge to nowhere. Wasted on planes that the military never even asked for. But there are a lot of things that taxes go for that are necessary — maintaining veterans hospitals, maintaining roads and bridges, multimillion dollar radar invisible planes, energy subsidies to the poor and much, much more.

I guess that Representative Ron Paul would have looked better if he had specifics to his proposal. If you’re going to eliminate $1.1 trillion from the treasury how much would you say if by bringing all American troops home from abroad? Representative Paul did not know the answer. If you going to raise money from excise taxes and import tariffs, how much money could you raise? Would that hurt commerce and if so how much? What are you going to do with a half-million troops that you bring home from abroad? Honorable discharge? Are you planning on shrinking the military by a half-million troops? He had no answers to these very basic questions.

The fact that the United States existed for over 150 years without income tax, is not the issue. The world has changed (expectations for the government have changed. In the early 1900′s Americans mostly lived on farms, now we live in cities. Fire codes weren’t that important on a family farm. Now, we need the government to tell businesses put a fire exit here. Place sprinklers there.) The United States has existed for over 200 years without the Internet. I wouldn’t suggest you get rid of the Internet just because we didn’t have it 100 years ago. I would suggest that eliminating the income tax and transferring a lot of those taxes to the states is not practical. I lived in Texas for a number of years, a state which has no state income tax but does have property tax. Property taxes were ridiculous depending upon where you lived.

In my opinion, Republican candidate Ron Paul is truly a libertarian at heart. He believes in having a very small central government and believes that local governments should take care of local problems. This simple logic seems to make sense on the surface but if you look over the last 50 years at the problems that have divided our nation like civil rights. Local governments are unable to handle these issues. Ron Paul remains an interesting candidate with interesting ideas unfortunately, his ideas have gone the way of the dodo bird. He is fighting a battle that Thomas Jefferson lost to Alexander Hamilton and George Washington over 200 years ago.

Update: Ron Paul says that he wants to get back to a “constitutional size” government. Maybe I missed it but nowhere in the constitution have I been able to find any mention of the size of government. If you can find it please let me know. He uses this argument to cleanse his viewpoint. It is like him saying “See the founding fathers agree with me.” Thoughtful Americans understand that the founding fathers disagreed on almost ever issue. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are compromise documents. Just as Thomas Jefferson disagreed with Washington and Hamilton over the size of government and the power of the central government. Hamilton and Washington thought that a strong central government was needed to protect the colonies and pay for our collective debt (accumulated during the Revolutionary War). Jefferson saw a strong central government as the same as the English monarchy that we just fought to get rid of.

MTP - Ron Paul income tax [ 3:47 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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If you have had a chance to see Meet the Press’ – meet the candidates – then you know that Tim Russert will try to set up some candidates by using their own words. He made Ron Paul look somewhat unprepared last week. So, Tim tried to set up Barack Obama using President Bill Clinton’s words. Obama proved that he reads, that he is well prepared as he answers a series of questions by using Bill Clinton’s own words and by quoting Martin Luther King. Obama does a great job at answering the questions and hitting a few of them out of the park.

Now, for my sisters and brothers of the progressive bloggosphere, some of you have hitched a ride on the Hillary Clinton express. That’s fine. Taylor Marsh seems to be leading the charge for the Hillary camp. She has bashed Barack Obama at every turn. The man can’t put on his pants or brush his teeth without Taylor criticizing everything from his ego to his DNA. I would link to a particular post but everything that she has posted in the 10 days has been bashing Barack. Former Ambassador Joe Wilson has joined the act posting an article on the Huffington Post that stated Barack didn’t know Jack about foreign policy. Interestingly, he didn’t say that Madeline Albright or Colin Powell, former Secretaries of State, should run for president.  Basically, Wilson said Hillary was great and Obama is a moron.

In my opinion there really isn’t much different between John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The question that I have is who will change the direction of the country. Who will work with Congress to get a progressive agenda? I have given money to each of these candidates because I think each of these candidates will help turn American around. My worry is the that Hillary will bring out the worst in the Republicans, again. (Like they will not attack Edwards or Obama with the same ferocity) My other worry is that Hillary and her camp will not spend enough time working with Howard Dean on rebuilding the democratic party. So, Taylor Marsh and the others, support Democrats.

MTP - Obama is ready and it's time [ 5:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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If Bob Jones, III, agrees with me then I have rethink my original statement.  Bob Jones has endorsed Mitt Romney who is a Mormon.  Now, in this situation, when a far right Christian leader endorses Romney over Huckabee that says something.  Mike Huckabee is a conservative preacher but Bob Jones points to Romney has his choice.  Why?  As a matter of fact, Bob Jones has trashed the Mormon religion, so why endorse him?

I find it interesting that Mitt Romney is playing his faith off as a different variety of Christian.   Like a different flavor.  Romney then does something very interesting, he goes back the founders and religious tolerance.  He forgets to mention that there was disagreement amoung the founders.  He also really doesn’t answer the question.  The question was how can you accept the endorsement of someone who believes that your religion is a cult?  Romney in essence says I’ll take my endorsements where I can get them.

Romney side steps Bob Jones question [ 4:11 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Mitt Romney has ask for a candidate to apologize before. He was wrong.  The great thing is that Mitt Romney is very consistent.  He has now asked for Mike Huckabee to apology for stating the obvious.  The Bush foreign policy has been arrogant.  There is no other way to describe it.  Yet, Romney has asked for an apology.

Romney - clueless [ 1:14 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Again, this is why I like General Powell. General Powell will be one of those figures in American history that will have historians scratching their heads. He seems to be an honest straight shooter. His whole career seems to underline this fact. Then there is his UN speech. The most important speech in a generation and he dropped the ball. I personally believe that General Powell is a soldier first. If your Commander and Chief asks you to do something you do it, to the best of your ability. That’s the only way that I can explain what happened.

Powell is very practical about Gitmo. Close it. It harms our reputation. Hold those prisoners in US prisons. Let the US courts handle the prisoners. Now, it will be very hard for the Bush, Cheney crowd to say that Colin Powell hasn’t seen the intelligence because he has. It will be hard for them to say that he doesn’t understand the problem because it is clear that he does. Where’s Bartlett, Bush’s personal hit man. The Bush Administration will send Cheney out to combat what Powell has said. Maybe they will send Tony Snow but they will respond because that is their way.

MTP - Powell, Close Gitmo [ 1:30 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Iraq, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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In spite of all that has happened, Colin Powell remains one of my favorite people.  Yes, he made some mistakes.  Yes, he made it much easier for the Bush Administration to go to war.  But, he still seems to try to be honest.  None of the folks in the Bush administration has EVER admitted that they have made a mistake.  Powell clearly states if we knew then what we know now there is no way that we go to war.  Now, compare his answer to Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  There is no comparison.  None.  One is dancing around the problem (Mitt).  The other answer is obvious to everyone watching.

MTP - Powell, would he do it again [ 4:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Bush Administration, Iraq, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Well, I hate this format. Like there are 2 sides to this conflict. Newt Gingrich is a smart but awful man. He is a master of deception. New said -

“But notice, there are two things there. First of all, even if you accept that this is a civil war, people have won civil wars. I devoted three novels about winning the American Civil War. And the fact is, civil wars are hard. But we also—I just did a novel on Pearl Harbor and the Second World War. The Second World War was hard. Guadalcanal was hard. If we’d had today’s Congress during Guadalcanal, the number of people who had said beating the Japanese is too hard, let’s find a negotiated peace, would have been amazing.”

Horse manure. We were attacked by the Japanese. We weren’t attacked by Iraq. So, there is no basis for the comparison but Newt persists. He sets up his illogical comparison by clearly stating that he is has written 3 historical novels. So, the viewer will assume that he is an expert. Therefore, his comparison must be right because he is an expert. That’s classic Newt Gingrich.

The bottom-line is that it doesn’t matter whether Iraq is easy or hard. From a moral standpoint we shouldn’t be there. The other thing is that everyone talks about an all or nothing strategy. In fact we have neither. We aren’t all in now. If we were all in there would be a draft. Americans would be asked to make sacrifices. Our number 1 priority would be renewing equipment and getting the best equipment to the troops. We aren’t doing that. The other side is talking about a complete withdrawal. That’s not realistic either. We will have to keep some forces in the area that can respond to crisis situations.

I’ll have video of what can be loosely called a debate.

MTP - Dodd and Gingrich [ 8:15 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Iraq, Sunday Morning Shows, War on Terror by ecthompson md
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This is a very interesting interview.  Chuck Hagel is a very interesting man.  He dodges the “are you running for president” question. Otherwise, he is very straightforward.

Chuck Hagel on FTN [ 10:46 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Iraq, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Obama does not take the bait.  Should Congress cut off funds?  He side steps this issue as he should.  No one in Congress wants to pull funding from the troops.  What Barack does mention is where is the plan to sit the Sunnis and the Shia down and agree that they want a unified country?  Where’s that plan?  Are we just going to beat them into submission?

Here’s part one of the interview with Senator McCain.

FTN - Obama [ 10:08 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Iraq, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Although McCain is correct when he states that there would be consequences if we pull out.  I don’t think that a surge of 20,000 does squat.  New York and Baghdad have about the same population – 5 million people.  There are 48,000 police on the streets at any one time.  The NYPD has a force of over 200,000 officers for that peaceful city.  So, how many troops are we putting on the ground in Baghdad?  Finally, how is this different than Operation Together Forward?

I will post Obama on FTN later on today.

FTN - McCain surge part 1 [ 6:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

FTN - McCain surge part 2 [ 5:16 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Iraq, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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Pelosi does a great job at answering these questions. Face the Nation’s Bob Schieffer tries to get Pelosi to say that she will repeal Bush’s tax cuts. She stays away from argumentative topics.

Pelosi on taxes [ 8:15 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Sunday Morning Shows, Taxes by ecthompson md
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Senator Joe Biden just announced on NBC’s Sunday morning talkfest that he will run for president.

Joe Biden announces [ 0:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008, Elections, Sunday Morning Shows by ecthompson md
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