"Take advantage of me and I will crush you"

Paraphrased: "You come straight at me and I'll come straight at you, but if you take advantage of me, I will crush you." Let's see some of this attitude against the Republicans in the health-care debate.

Paul Krugman on Obama’s Trust Problem

Paul Krugman a couple days ago wrote:

"it’s possible to have universal coverage without a public option — several European nations do it — and some who want a public option might be willing to forgo it if they had confidence in the overall health care strategy. Unfortunately, the president’s behavior in office has undermined that confidence.

On the issue of health care itself, the inspiring figure progressives thought they had elected comes across, far too often, as a dry technocrat who talks of “bending the curve” but has only recently begun to make the moral case for reform. Mr. Obama’s explanations of his plan have gotten clearer, but he still seems unable to settle on a simple, pithy formula; his speeches and op-eds still read as if they were written by a committee."

What we need most of all is for the President to cast this debate within the frame of the moral case for reform. It should have been so from the beginning.

The PolicySpeak Disaster

I have long admired George Lakoff's ability and teaching on framing and messaging. In a post at Huffpo and DailyKos, George Lakoff discusses the Obama Administration's "PolicySpeak Disaster."

PolicySpeak is the principle that: If you just tell people the policy facts, they will reason to the right conclusion and support the policy wholeheartedly.

PolicySpeak is the principle behind the President’s new Reality Check Website. To my knowledge, the Reality Check Website, has not had a reality check. ...
To many liberals, PolicySpeak sounds like the high road: a rational, public discussion in the best tradition of liberal democracy. Convince the populace rationally on the objective policy merits. Give the facts and figures. Assume self-interest as the motivator of rational choice. Convince people by the logic of the policymakers that the policy is in their interest.

But to a cognitive scientist or neuroscientist, this sounds nuts. The view of human reason and language behind PolicySpeak is just false. Certainly reason should be used. It’s just that you should use real reason, the way people really think. Certainly the truth should be told. It’s just that it should be told so it makes sense to people, resonates with them, and inspires them to act.

In this health-care debate, the President's advisors have fallen into the classic policyspeak framing disaster to which we on the left are so often prone. The White House would do well to get a cognitive scientist like George Lakoff on board, and fast.

It's About Corporate Money

According to one poll after another, a majority of Americans not only want a public option in healthcare, they also think
• that growing inequality is bad for the country,
• that corporations have too much power over policy,
• that money in politics is the root of all evil, and
• that working families and poor communities need and deserve public support when the market fails to generate shared prosperity.

But when insiders in Washington finish tearing worthy intentions apart, devouring flesh from bone, none of these reforms happen. Oh, they say it’s all about compromise, all in the nature of the give-and-take of representative democracy. That, people, is bull, the basic nutrient of Washington’s high and mighty.

It’s not about compromise. It’s not about what the public wants. It’s about money, the golden ticket to the “select few who actually get it done.” And nothing will change – nothing – until the money lenders are thrown out of the temple and we tear down the sign that they placed on government – the one that says, “For Sale.”

– Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, July 10, 2009

Barack Obama: Superhero

Health Care Reform Countdown - The Wait is Killing Us!

God, please HELP us!

150 days, 14 hours, 0 minutes, and 58 seconds
have passed since the Democrats were entrusted with
total control over the government and promised us health care reform!

Deaths of people without Healthcare access 8,246

Total Deaths Today: 32

Since 9/11/2001, 175,451 have died due to lack of health care. That's the same as 62 nine-elevens.

http://www.potholes-business.com/dc1.htm

Obama's Speech to the AMA on June 15, 2009

Pittsburgh Penguins win Stanley Cup!

President Obama's Cairo Speech on June 3, 2009

Why the next Justice should be a Woman

Ruth Marcus explains why it's important that the next Supreme Court justice be a woman:

As important, though, is the inescapable fact that a female justice -- like a justice who's a member of a racial minority, or who's served in elective office, or who's been in private practice -- brings a useful set of life experiences to the art of judging. Because it is an art; it involves the exercise of judgment, not scientific measurement.

Those from the umpire school -- funny how that's a male metaphor -- would prefer not to think so. In an interview with CNBC shortly after O'Connor's retirement, Justice Antonin Scalia said that "as far as the product of the court is concerned, it makes no difference at all. I don't think there's . . . a female legal answer to a question and a male legal answer to the same question. That's just silly."

Sure it is, phrased that way. But life experiences inform the act of judging, and the experience of being a female justice comes into play at certain moments.

Ginsburg, in an interview with USA Today, cited two from this term: one involving school officials who strip-searched a 13-year-old-girl, and another on pregnancy discrimination. In the strip-search case, some justices questioned the notion that the girl was traumatized by the event; Ginsburg suggested that they just didn't get it. "They have never been a 13-year-old girl," she told USA Today. "It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."

My Inauguration Week Experiences in DC

My 15-year-old daughter and I had a wonderful time during our stay in DC from Saturday to Wednesday. We stayed at the home of a very nice elderly couple who offered a room for rent through their church, saw a college friend who came over from Baltimore with his family, went to the National Zoo, attended a "bash" at the Air & Space Museum sponsored by the California Democratic Party, saw the Holocaust, Natural History and International Spy Museums and National Archives.

On Inauguration Day, the whole atmosphere was one of euphoria all day long, with everyone realizing they were there to witness history and being all nice to each other. There were loud cheers by the crowd at many moments during the swearing-in ceremony. It was the only day of its kind in history, but I hope that we can have more days that approach this kind of euphoria in the months and years ahead with the Obama administration.

We had "silver" tickets, which entitled us to stand in the silver section on the west side of the Capitol Reflecting Pool. There were many thousands of ticket holders who never made it past the excruciatingly SLOW security gates because of the complete LACK of crowd control, signage, bullhorns, information, authorities and staff people and not enough metal detectors. This affected the purple, blue and silver gates. I pity the poor purple ticket holders who were stuck like sardines in a tunnel for hours with NO assistance whatsoever.

By going to an alternate security gate on the parade route (no tickets required), we waited in a crowd for only a bit less than two hours and finally made it in at about 11:00 a.m. There were only four metal detectors for the thousands seeking entrance there. We never made it into the silver ticketed section, a mere 30 yards away, because of police and barricades. We were across from the Canadian Embassy at 4th and Pennsylvania, where our view of the Capitol was blocked by the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. There were speakers across the street that were providing the NPR live commentary about the proceedings.

But using binoculars and a view that was partially blocked by tree branches, we watched a Jumbotron that was next to the Capitol lawn, then waited over 3 hours to see the parade and Obama's motorcade. The "crowd" was only one person deep on our side of the street, with three police officers lining Pennsylvania Ave. for every spectator in the area we were standing.

Then as the presidential limo approached, my video camera ran out of space to record (argh!). But then Michelle and Sasha waved at us, which was memorable. I could see Barack waving on the other side of the car. A block after they passed us, Michelle and Barack got out of the car to walk.

It was so cold, before and after this, that we left and did not stay for the rest of the parade. It was obvious that it would not finish until after dark. But as it turned out, because of all the police barricades, we had to walk up Constitution Avenue toward the Washington Monument to get out of the secured area, and the entire parade was lined up on that street waiting for the start. A few marching bands were practicing.

My daughter and I bought some souvenirs from the vendors and then got on the still-packed Metro train for the ride back to the National Zoo stop, where we had stayed nearby.

It was for us an experience of a lifetime that we will always hold close.

YES, WE DID!

Great Obama Photo Gallery Covering the Last Several Years

Check out this photo gallery by Barack Obama's photographer, Pete Souza. He is now the new official White House photographer, and he was also Ronald Reagan's photographer.

President-Elect Barack Obama's Weekly Address, 11/22/08