Death of the working class... and of Capitalism, as we knew it?

How fighting one pandemic can deepen another Review of “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” by Anne Case and Angus Deaton

By Carlos Lozada, Book critic
May 1, 2020 at 5:00 a.m. PDT
DEATHS OF DESPAIR AND THE FUTURE OF CAPITALISM
By Anne Case and Angus Deaton.
Princeton University Press. 312 pp. $27.95

Even before the coronavirus struck, America was suffering an eviscerating epidemic. Its cause was not a virus; its spread could not be blamed on foreign travelers or college kids on spring break. No masks or gloves could slow its contagion, no vaccine could prevent new cases. Its toll is clear in the rising deaths of white Americans in their mid-40s to mid-50s over the past two decades, particularly in states such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia.

Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton call these “deaths of despair” — the deaths from suicide, drug overdoses and alcoholic liver disease ravaging swaths of the country. The victims, overwhelmingly, are less-educated Americans whose loss of life was preceded by a loss of jobs, community and dignity, and whose deaths, the authors argue, are inextricable from the policies and politics transforming the U.S. economy into an engine of inequality and suffering. “The American economy has shifted away from serving ordinary people and toward serving businesses, their managers, and their owners,” Case and Deaton write in their new work, “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism.”

Although the authors completed this book before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic — it was published four days after President Trump declared a national emergency — their diagnosis is still painfully relevant. Mass unemployment and mass infection, occurring simultaneously in a nation where health insurance often depends on employment, threaten to both prove and aggravate the conditions Case and Deaton describe. The debate over how quickly to ease social distancing restrictions and get the economy moving again forces a reckoning: How do we balance the risk of increased coronavirus infections if we reopen the economy too soon against the risk of more deaths of despair if we do so too late? “Jobs are not just the source of money; they are the basis for the rituals, customs, and routines of working-class life,” Case and Deaton write. “Destroy work and, in the end, working-class life cannot survive.”

Reading this book during a pandemic, I found myself bracing for more death — from the virus or from despair, and, more likely, from both.

Many memoirs, histories and investigations have been written on America’s white working class in recent years, probably too many, but fewer purely economic studies. Case and Deaton are world-renowned practitioners of the dismal science (Case is a top expert on the links between economic and health status, while Deaton snagged a Nobel in 2015 for his work on household poverty and welfare), and their lens on the subject makes for stark reading. They estimate the magnitude of the deaths of despair in the United States by comparing the improving trend lines of recent decades — i.e., if mortality rates had continued falling as before — with what actually came to pass.

“When we add up those numbers from 1999, the critical point where the turnaround began, to 2017,” the authors report, “we get a very large total: 600,000 deaths of midlife Americans who would be alive if progress had gone on as expected.” Case and Deaton liken that number to “what we might see during the ravages of an infectious disease, like the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918.” They also compare it to the roughly 675,000 deaths of HIV/AIDS in the United States since the early 1980s.

Case and Deaton are largely dismissive of arguments that stress the supposed individual or cultural failings of the white working class, and they focus instead on systemic shortcomings that lead to deaths of despair. Manufacturing towns and cities have seen their factories boarded up, they write, and “in the wreckage, the temptations of alcohol and drugs lured many to their deaths.” Education is another consideration, the authors argue, with “almost all” of the increase in deaths due to suicide, alcoholism and drug overdoses found among people who lack bachelor’s degrees. Deteriorating health matters as well. “Many people are experiencing pain, serious mental distress, and difficulty going about their day-to-day lives,” Case and Deaton write. These conditions make it harder for them to work, which reduces income and undercuts work as a source of “satisfaction and meaning” in their lives.

Who lives, who dies, who decides: How the virus makes us weigh the value of one life

More than 30 million Americans have sought unemployment aid since mid-March, a level of dislocation not seen since the Great Depression. In this context, the impulse to return to work is understandable. Yet the loss of earnings, Case and Deaton contend, is just part of the challenge. “Much more important for despair is the decline of family, community, and religion,” they write, a decline they regard as related to falling wages and disappearing jobs, but distinct from them. Other authors have tackled this problem recently — see, for instance, Timothy P. Carney’s insightful 2019 book, “Alienated America” — and collectively, their conclusion is clear: Long before we began social distancing, Americans had already grown far too distant from one another.

Case and Deaton focus on the white working class because it is undergoing a particularly harrowing shift, not because they believe this demographic matters more than others (they don’t) or because it is worse off in absolute terms than others (it isn’t). Black mortality rates remain persistently higher than white ones, the authors point out, even considering the increased deaths of despair among white Americans. But black mortality rates are falling faster than white rates — and the deaths of despair among white citizens are the difference. “The main reason why death rates of blacks fell more rapidly than death rates of whites at the beginning of the twenty-first century is that blacks were not suffering the epidemic of overdoses, suicide, and alcoholism,” Case and Deaton explain. [...]

It's worth reading the whole thing. While I don't consider myself an anti-capitalist at all, there have been changes in the economy, locally an globally, that have been eliminating working class jobs and incomes. It's a reality.

When Obamacare tried to force small businesses to provide health care for full time employees, the employment industry responded by making all employees part time. I worked as a tax preparer, dealing with all their W-2 forms, and was astounded at how many families were raising children, with two parents working at an assortment of part-time jobs, to pay their bills and keep thier families alive.

This article touches on many causes, and asks many questions we need to face, as it's only going to continue to get worse for the majority of people, if viable solutions are not found.

Many of these people are Trump supporters. And they will vote for Trump, no matter what anyone says, because they feel that the Democrats don't care wether they live or die, so they will vote for anyone who opposes the Democrats. You can argue about wether that perception is right or wrong. But it won't change the fact that they percieve it that way. If the Democrats are serious about winning more votes, they should be addressing this, instead of only attacking Trump non-stop. They have been doing that for the past four years, and it hasn't worked. Isn't it about time they try something that does?

I have Democrat friends who believe that all Trump supporters are racists, bigots and morons. And that if they keep repeating that mantra, it's going to win them the elections. But I think they have forgotten, what every election is about: it's the economy, stupid. Duh. It affects the most people. And the majority will vote for whoever they think, whoever they perceive, will do the better job of that.

     

"Demographics tend to be political destiny"

Republicans’ 2016 math problem, explained in two charts

It's easy to overthink elections. I do it all the time. But at its most basic level, demographics tend to be political destiny. And that's why Dan Balz's column over the weekend, which details the difficult demographic realities facing the Republican Party in 2016 (and beyond), is so important. [...]

Read the whole thing for the two charts, embedded links and more. I think it explains a lot.

     

Is the Republican Party Dying, or Morphing?

America, you're watching the beginning of the end of the Republican Party

The beginning of the end of the Republican Party has started. On Friday, I told you the Republican Party is dying. Then, yesterday, Ross Douthat in the New York Times echoed my key point.

Mine was that the Republican leaders in Washington would see the decline of Donald Trump as proof that they need do nothing to change. Like the Bourbons of France, they’d forget nothing and learn nothing.

On Sunday, Douthat wrote, “In an unhealthy system, the kind I suspect we inhabit, the Republicans will find a way to crush Trump without adapting to his message. In which case the pressure the Donald has tapped will continue to build — and when it bursts, the G.O.P. as we know it may go with it.”

Yes, exactly. The Republican Party is dying because the GOP in DC has gone corporate and K Street. They attack any Republicans who dare hold them to their promises. They’ve gone to war against Heritage Action for America, Club For Growth, the Madison Project, etc. They’ve blackballed any political consultant who does work for outsiders.

[...]

In short, the GOP has become so incestuous it continues to hemorrhage and will die. It cannot adapt because the key consultants it has shaping its future are wedded to the capital that comes from not changing.

It should be eye opening to the Republican leaders in Washinton that Ross Douthat and I have come to the same conclusion — they will not recognize the need to change and will therefore die.

Die? At this point I think that may be more Democrat wishfull thinking than reality. Unless you mean the death of the party as we know it. I think it's actually trying to find itself, and morph into something else:

The End of the Republican Party?

[...] I think I should clarify that I meant that “as we know it” to be the crucial wording. I don’t think the Republicans are about to literally go the way of the Whigs; a party that’s spent the Obama years gaining power in Congress and doing very well indeed at the state and local level isn’t likely to dissolve anytime soon.

But a party can exist as an entity, indeed a powerful entity, while also undergoing a kind of nervous breakdown, from which a new “self” eventually emerges. That happened to the Democrats beginning in 1968, with the gulf between George Wallace, Democrat-turned-independent, and George McGovern, Obama forerunner and landslide loser, illustrating the underlying identity crisis pretty well.

What’s happening to the Republican Party is different in many ways, of course. But what we saw in the 2012 primary — the attempted rejection of Mitt Romney by populists desperate for an alternative — and what we’re seeing now in the polls that show Trump and Ben Carson temporarily lapping the 2016 field are suggestive of a similarly-wide gap between the party as conceived of at the elite level (the party of Mitt and Jeb, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, the party of the old fiscal/social/hawkish conservative three-legged stool) and what its actual voters think the party ought to be.

And here the Trump phenomenon is particularly instructive, because it’s revealed the true complexity of Republican divisions in a way that now-Cain, now-Bachmann, now-Santorum quest for a right-wing not-Romney in 2012 did not. Over the last few election cycles we’ve become accustomed to a narrative of Republican civil war that pits the G.O.P. establishment against its base, and liberals especially have become fond of depicting the G.O.P.’s development as a simple-enough matter of a once-mainstream party allowing itself to be pulled steadily rightward by its extreme, revanchist voters and activists.

This narrative has always been too pat, but in current polling you can see some of the strongest evidence for it insufficiency: The Republican Party’s basic problem right now is that the party’s own voters really, really don’t like it, but more than that they dislike it for a wide variety of different reasons, in ways that don’t map neatly onto what we’re accustomed to thinking of as the Republican divisions of the past.

[...]

But what we see happening now is at the very least clear evidence that the right-of-center electorate is ripe to be split by a third party spoiler, or multiple such spoilers over the next few cycles, in which case the Republican losing streak in presidential elections could be easily extended from five of six to eight of nine. And electoral considerations aside, it’s also evidence that the percentage of Republican voters who want, as Newt Gingrich might say, a fundamentally different national-level G.O.P. than the one we have, is reaching a level where fundamental transformation might become inevitable.

Domenech has his fears about what this might betoken; I’m a little less pessimistic. But the reality is that none of us know. The Republican Party isn’t going anywhere. But what the Republican Party is actually going to be, come the presidential campaign of 2024, is a very open question.

The Republicans need to unite in a coalition around core principles and issues that resonate with a majority of voters, that they can rally around. Instead it continues to fight with itself and remain fractured. If that continues, it could die eventually. But not today. Hopefully it will find itself and be reborn as something more viable and stronger.

Read the whole of both articles for embedded links and more.
     

Is the nearly extinct Northeast species of Republicans being brought back from the brink?

I once did a post about the demise of New England Republicans. It seemed like they were gone for good. But could it be they are making a comeback?

Return of the Northeastern Republican

[...] Republican political operatives say the gains the GOP is set to make are due to a convergence of causes. There is the fact that in the wave election year that 2014 seems poised to become, the party could win in even the most unexpected of places. There is the fact that in many of these states Democratic legislatures are entrenched, and voters are looking for a counterweight.

And finally, there is the fact that most of the culture wars have reached a stalemate. In Massachusetts, for example, Baker is running as a pro-choice, pro same-sex marriage Republican nominee. Other Republicans are similarly downplaying these hot-button issues of old, and pollsters say most voters see them now as settled matters. And so if two candidates are a wash on matters of civil rights, why not go for the guy who is going to cut your taxes?

“Republicans have just been putting together a more coherent message of change in New England,” said Will Ritter, a Republican political operative who worked on a number of statewide races in Massachusetts. “The Democrats’ message is what—‘Hey, it is not so bad?’ People look to candidates who have a business background, or at least have conservative underpinnings, when it looks like budgets are going off the rails.”

The major question for the Republican Party going forward is what all these Yankee newcomers will mean for its direction. The GOP has been at odds with itself as it tries to decide how to appeal to a diverse and changing electorate, and some Republicans think a handful of new voices from states not necessarily of the reddest hue could help the eventual 2016 presidential nominee.

“It takes a lot of Democrats to elect a Republican in one of these places,” said John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster. “You can’t win otherwise. You broaden your base, you broaden your message, it shows that you really want to get things done. And we need do to that, not just racially but demographically.”

But will the Republican party welcome these blue-state Republicans, or will they shoot themselves in the foot (again!) by declaring them to be RHINOs and try to drum them out of the party with social issues litmus tests, insuring that the Republican Party remains small, with only limited appeal to a small minority of the vast demographic of voters? You can be sure that the latter is what the Democrats are hoping and praying for.
     

What South African Taxpayer's Money Buys

Really nice chicken coops, among other things:

Nkandla style – don’t worry, it is for security

In March 2014, public protector Thuli Madonsela found that president Jacob Zuma and his family unduly benefited from upgrades made to his private Nkandla homestead, which cost the taxpayer around R246 million.

According to the public protector’s report titled “Secure in Comfort”, government built a visitors centre, cattle kraal and chicken run, swimming pool and an amphitheatre for the president and his family in his private home.

Madonsela said that this clearly shows that Zuma and his family unduly benefited from the upgrades. However, government had a simple explanation for it all – security.

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe said that the cattle kraal, fire pool (seen by some as a new swimming pool) and all other features are “essential security features which ensures physical security and effective operation of security equipment.”

Who can dispute Radebe’s argument? Chickens setting off alarms – security risk. Not having a fire pool in case of a large fire – security risk. Not having an amphitheatre and having to travel on South Africa’s pothole ridden roads to visit a place of entertainment – security risk.

In fact, security is such an elegant excuse when explaining questionable decisions that it should not come as any surprise that this excuse has been used by government previously. [...]

Lookit that Chicken Coop. A real work of art, that. Would love to see it close-up.




Also see:

What Nkandla’s millions could have bought South Africans

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela released the Nkandla report this week, which showed that the estimated total cost of improvements to President Zuma’s Nkandla home is R246,631,303.

Madonsela’s report found that the total cost of the Nkandla project included:

Total payment to contractors R161,418,824;
Value of contractor payments certificates, certified but not yet paid, R3,672,748;
Total payment to professional consultants R50,352,842; and
Cost estimate for phase three, excluding consultants’ fees R31,186,887.

According to the public protector’s report a critical service delivery program was shelved and money diverted to upgrade Zuma’s homestead.

“Funds were reallocated from the inner city regeneration project and the dolomite risk management programme of the department of public works,” Mandonsela said in her voluminous report.

“Due to lack of proper demand management and planning, service delivery programs of the department of public works were negatively affected.”

The homestead has been at the centre of controversy after it emerged that the public works department had approved upgrades to the President’s KwaZulu-Natal homestead.
What could the Nkandla money have been better used for?

South Africa can benefit tremendously from better IT infrastructure, a more connected society, and better education.

Here is what the money spent on the Nkandla upgrades could have bought South Africans: [...]

Ouch. A long list. I wonder what affect, if any, it will have on the next election?
     

GOP must "Get Beyond Deportation"

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul Says GOP Must Appeal To Hispanics, Get ‘Beyond Deportation’

[...] This certainly was not the first time that Paul, since being elected to the Senate in 2010, has attempted to connect with Hispanics and other minorities.

However, Republicans’ interest in his policy vision and his vision for broadening the party base continues to grow as he ascends in the very, very early 2016 polls and travels the country. Recent stops have included those in Democrat-heavy Detroit and at the University of California, Berkeley.

Paul said Tuesday that Republicans need to focus on such issues as reforming the country’s work visa system and improving educational and employment opportunities for minorities.

However, the GOP must first make clear it is not “just the party of deportation,” he argued.

“The bottom line is that the Hispanic community … is not going to hear us until we get beyond that issue,” Paul told attendees at a symposium sponsored by the conservative Media Research Center and the American Principles Project. “They’re not going to care whether we go to the same church or have the same values or believe in the same kind of future of the country until we get beyond that. … We’ve got to get beyond deportation to get to the rest of the issues.” [...]

It's been pretty obvious for quite some time. But there is a segment of the GOP that has been too slow to wake up to the reality of changing demographics. Not to mention, popular opinion. Two realities that decide elections.
   

South Africa's Next President?

She is the candidate of the country's largest opposition party:


Famed S. African Activist to Run for President

South Africa’s main opposition party – the Democratic Alliance – will run a black woman as its presidential candidate. Elections are expected in April, but President Jacob Zuma has not set a date yet.

The DA has chosen Dr. Mamphela Ramphele, former companion of the late activist Steve Biko. She is also a former World Bank managing director and University of Cape Town vice-chancellor.

Independent South African analyst Delia Robertson said, “Mamphela Ramphele is a longtime political activist. She was a member of the African National Congress. She’s a medical doctor. She was involved in politics at a very young age during the apartheid years…and that is how she met Steve Biko, who was murdered by the police during his detention without trial many years ago.”

The couple had two sons together, but never married.

Ramphele had formed her own political party, Agang, just last year. However, she’s now joined the DA.

“Opposition politics in this country is a very difficult space to be in, mostly because of funding limitations,” said Robertson, adding that “Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, realized that she had an opportunity to get somebody of Ms. Ramphele’s caliber.”

Robertson said that Ramphele is a “good addition” to the DA. The party has its roots in opposition politics during apartheid. When the former ruling National Party folded, many of its members joined the DA giving it a boost in both parliament and credibility. The DA controls the Western Province and Cape Town and hopes to make strong inroads this year in the Johannesburg/Pretoria area. But the Democratic Alliance remains a party with mainly white leadership.

“They’re getting more and moreblack members,” said Robertson, “They have expended into the black community, but not enough. It’s 20 years since the end of apartheid. And for a party to be so top heavy in white leadership at this stage of our democracy is hard to justify morally, I think, for many potential voters…So getting somebody of Dr. Ramphele’s caliber is going to be important for them.” [...]

Dr. Ramphele is an interesting candidate. I wonder what her chances are of winning? If you follow the link, the page has a link to an interview with South African analyst Delia Robertson.

     

The real, post-election Mitt Romney

The New Mitt Romney Documentary Is Fantastic, And It Exposes The Fundamental Flaw In A Lot Of Campaigns

[...]

 One of Mitt's sons, Josh, was asked by Whiteley in the midst of the 2008 primary if he ever thought it wasn't worth the trouble to run.

Josh responded with two different answers — one from his media "training," and one that he said was the truth.

Here's the answer he gave as if he were speaking to the media:

"The opportunity [is] for someone like my dad to come in and run the country. And the challenges we face right now in this country, to have someone with my dad’s experience, his knowledge, and his vision for America, someone that can come in and do this. It’s worth whatever it takes for us to get my dad into office."

Here's the "translation":

"This is so awful. It’s so hard. They always say, why can’t you get someone good to run for president? This is why. This is why you don’t get good people running for president. What better guy is there than my dad? Is he perfect? Absolutely not. He’s made mistakes. He’s done all sorts of things wrong. But for goodness sakes, here’s a brilliant guy whose had experience turning things around, which is what we need in this country. I mean, it’s like, this is the guy for the moment. And we’re in this, and you just get beat up constantly."

[...]

“Mitt,” Al Gore, and Our Identification With Presidential Losers

[...] Many reviews of “Mitt” have noted its humanizing effect on Romney: he is revealed to be thoughtful and gracious and, in scenes with his family, funny and self-aware. There are even murmurings that such a portrait, had it been released before the election, would have helped him to shed his reputation as an ambitious automaton and to forge a closer connection to voters. Maybe he would have won. But, in the heat of a campaign, the documentary would have been greeted differently, as a purely political object—mined for ready clues to his political positions, spun predictably by supporters and detractors. What did the fact that he listened to “This American Life” or quoted “O Brother Where Art Thou?” or attempted to iron his clothes while wearing them say about his ability to be the President? Surely his handlers wouldn’t have wanted anyone hearing him call himself “the flipping Mormon” or noting, rather bitterly, that he may have been a “flawed candidate.” But there is not much utility in a retrospective gaffe; seen now, the documentary is more intriguing for its general tone, which is one of pathos and quiet regret. [...]

Meanwhile, the RNC struggle to expand and find unity within itself continues:

RNC showcased update, while losing image remains

The road ahead is looking rather long.

   

Where "Liberal Democratic" means "Conservative"

San Francisco? Yes, there too, but I'm talking about Japan:

Japan's Governing Party Resoundingly Ousted in Shift to Right

TOKYO — Japan's governing party has suffered a crushing election defeat. Results of parliamentary elections Sunday show the next government will be formed by the Liberal Democratic Party. The conservatives and their allies are expected to take a more hawkish approach in confronting the country's neighbors, but what they plan to do to reverse Japan's long economic decline remains murky.

Japanese voters, as forecast, have tossed out the party they brought into power three years ago.

The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), crippled by defections of lawmakers from its ranks, lost more than two-thirds of its seats in the more powerful 480-seat lower house of parliament (officially the House of Representatives).

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda conceded at a brief news conference.

Noda says the defeat is his personal responsibility, therefore he will resign as head of the party.

Among the dozen parties fielding candidates, at the top with a landslide victory is the Liberal Democratic Party, capturing a comfortable majority of seats. It governed Japan virtually uninterrupted from 1955 until 2009.

The LDP, Japan's traditional conservative party, allied with the New Komei Party (which is closely linked to the controversial Buddhist sect Soka Gakkai), is poised to have a two-thirds majority in the lower house. That will allow it to over ride any vetoes of legislation by the upper house (also known as the House of Councilors), where the Democratic Party of Japan is the largest single party.

The next upper house election is expected in July. [...]

It's an interesting glimpse into Japanese politics.
     

EU Member Nations to Sacrifice Sovereignty?

They may find it difficult not to:

Euro crisis: It's still not over

[...] Banking union: European Union leaders are expected to discuss plans to form a banking union in Europe when they hold a summit June 28-29.

The EU proposal would include a single deposit guarantee organization covering all banks in the union, something similar to the FDIC in the U.S..

There would also be a common authority and a common fund that would deal with bailouts needed for the cross-border banks that are major players in the European banking system.

In addition, there would be a single EU supervisor with ultimate decision-making powers for the major banks, and a common set of banking rules.

The move would represent a step towards greater centralization of European authority. But it remains to be seen if all 17 eurozone governments will agree to sacrifice sovereignty for the sake of the union. [...]

I've posted previously that those who've created this crisis are now using it to consolidate their power. Sure looks like it.

The article also mentions that France as well as Greece, are having elections on June 17th, which are expected to move both further left politically, probably in the hopes of avoiding austerity measures. I suspect that further consolidation of the EU will then be offered as the only possible solution. We shall see.
     

Do "Feelings" win elections more than facts?

How Obama could win in a landslide

[...] In his book "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation," Drew Westen convincingly argues that "people vote for the candidate who elicits the right feelings, not the candidate who presents the best arguments." [...]

More about that book:

THE POLITICAL BRAIN
The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

[...] In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins. Elections are decided in the marketplace of emotions, a marketplace filled with values, images, analogies, moral sentiments, and moving oratory, in which logic plays only a supporting role. Westen shows, through a whistle-stop journey through the evolution of the passionate brain and a bravura tour through fifty years of American presidential and national elections, why campaigns succeed and fail. The evidence is overwhelming that three things determine how people vote, in this order: their feelings toward the parties and their principles, their feelings toward the candidates, and, if they haven't decided by then, their feelings toward the candidates' policy positions.

Westen turns conventional political analyses on their head, suggesting that the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left but about moving the electorate. [...]

The only thing missing is Barbara Streisand singing "Feelings...".
     

Remember in November? Sure, but don't hold your breath. The Dems have launched a Putsch

Sara Palin made a nice speech on her facebook page:

Out-of-touch Congress Sounds Our Clarion Call to Take a Stand

We’ve been reminded many times that elections have consequences. Yesterday we saw the consequence of voting for those who believe in “fundamentally transforming” America whether we want it or not. Yesterday they voted. In November, we get to vote. We won’t forget what we saw yesterday. Congress passed a bill while Americans said “no,” and thousands of everyday citizens even surrounded the Capitol Building to beg them not to do it. Has there ever been a more obvious exhibition of a detached and imperious government?

In the weeks to come, we can expect them to try to change the subject, but we won’t forget. Don't let them move on to further “transformational” steps while forgetting what Congress just did against the will of the people. Though Obamacare will inflict billions in new taxes on individuals and employers, at least it creates some jobs: the IRS might have to hire as many as 16,000 new employees to enforce all the new taxes and penalties the bill calls for! And that doesn’t include all the other government jobs from the 159 new agencies, panels, commissions and departments this bill will create. As the private sector shrinks, we can count on government to keep growing along with the deficits needed to keep it all afloat. (Is this the kind of “change” Americans asked for?)

In the end, this unsustainable bill jeopardizes the very thing it was supposed to fix – our health care system. Somewhere along the way we forgot that health care reform is about doctors and patients, not the IRS and politicians. Instead of helping doctors with tort reform, this bill has made primary care physicians think about getting out of medicine. It was supposed to make health care more affordable, but our premiums will continue to go up. It was supposed to help more people get coverage, but there will still be 23 million uninsured people by 2019. [...]

Follow the link to read the whole thing, which has embedded links as well.

She ends up by saying we can have our say in November. A lot of conservatives are saying the "Remember in November" mantra right now. Fine. But, how much of a difference will the November elections make? Consider this from Neal Boortz:


REPEAL? NOT IN YOUR LIFETIME

I'm sure we're going to hear some people suggesting that if we put the Republicans in charge they'll simply repeal ObamaCare. Sorry, I don't see that happening. Remember, even if the Republicans did somehow manage to take back the House and the Senate, it certainly wouldn't be with a veto-proof majority ... and don't forget who's sitting in the White House perfectly ready to veto any repeal attempt. The American people voted for change ... and change is what they're going to get. Higher taxes, more debt, a depressed job market and government control over every aspect of their health care. If that's change you can believe in, they you have a pretty bizarre belief system.

Donations to the Republican party are at an all time low. A large number of sitting Republicans are retiring this year, and the party does not have many viable candidates lined up to take their place, nor do they have the resources to cultivate many. A lot would have to change during the next 8 months to make a substantial difference in November.

Even then, the most optimistic projections I've seen show that the Republicans will not be able to get a veto-proof majority. They would need to form alliances with Democrats, and compromise.

It that's all we can do, then we will have to do it. But I'm STILL hearing the Uber Conservatives, raving that they won't support the Republican party until it becomes more rigid and uncompromising, and appeals more to the narrow conservative base. No room for moderates or independents.

Meanwhile, the Democrats will be working over the next three years to pass immigration reform, which will grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, who will become Democrat voters. Once that occurs, the Republican party will have to change radically just to survive.

Now is not the time to be tearing down the Republican party for not being perfect. Now is not the time to be uncompromising. This is the time to be building a coalition to keep our party afloat, not re-arranging deck chairs.

The Uber Conservatives keep on insisting on an "All or Nothing" strategy. Well take note: Yesterday's vote is what Nothing looks like. It's time to change your strategy to something that works, not to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result. If incremental change is all that is available to you right now, then take it, until you can manage something better. The Democrats have just succeeded in launching a Putsch on our Republic. The political landscape is changing rapidly, and we have to respond quickly. Adapt, or die.
     

British Conservatives: where are the real ones?

Where Have All the Conservatives Gone?

Britain will hold a general election within the next five months. And after more than a decade of the Leftwing Labour party, the Conservatives are expected to win. Party leader David Cameron is a likeable if nondescript man, in sync with the fashionable concerns of the media, and out of touch with the electorate.

Labour is loathed in Britain. So much so that there has even been talk of it being cast into the political “wilderness” for a decade, if not of its total destruction. It’s not difficult to grasp why. In the last decade Labour has encouraged uncontrolled immigration, in an attempt to change the country once and for all. It has presided over the growth of radical Islam. It has surrendered British sovereignty to the EU without so much as giving the people a vote on the matter. And, perhaps, most importantly, it has made political correctness the norm, stifling dissent, and silencing even the most reasonable objections to its project. Only “extremists” and “racists” would worry about such things, has been the message given out at every opportunity.

In the 2009 EU elections Labour came third, behind the Conservatives and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). The latter wants to withdraw from the EU, and under its new leader, Lord Pearson, it will also tackle radical Islam. [...]

The article goes on to explain why there is very little difference between Britain's Labor Party and Conservative Party. Have the real conservatives gone over to the UKIP? Many of the Thatcherites have. UKIP and it's leader, Lord Pearson, may become a force to be reckoned with. It will be interesting to see how this all develops.
     

Will Republicans make gains by default? Or...

Obama's vanishing majority
The 2008 election didn't exile Republicans to the political wilderness. Today, the party has already started its comeback

[...] But the American people did not love the Democrats. They merely loathed the Republicans, who had given them (if I may quote myself): "War, Wall Street jitters, wage stagnation and, above all, W". If the Democrats did not understand this basic fact, I predicted, they would soon have problems of their own.

Two years ago, the Republican base was dispirited, the Democratic base was vacillating between energetic and enraged and the GOP couldn't buy independent votes with a bridge to nowhere. It's early, but things are starting to trend in the opposite direction. Angry conservatives are mobilised, liberals are starting to wonder where their Hope and Change went and swing voters are inching ever so slightly to the right.

According to a recent Gallup poll, self-described conservatives once again outnumber moderates after being at parity with them from 2005-2008. The increase is entirely based on a six-point increase in the number of independents adopting the conservative label, which they disdained under Bush. On a number of issues, independents are moving closer to agreement with a majority of Republicans rather than a majority of Democrats. As I write, it looks like the Republicans will win at least one of the 2009 gubernatorial races in independent-heavy states that had recently been favouring Democrats, and they may well win both.

Independents are a pragmatic lot. Just as they disliked the Bush Republicans' incompetence, bellicosity and inability to say anything coherent about the country's most pressing problems, they now dislike the Obama Democrats' stimulus plans that don't stimulate, massive expenditures of money the federal government doesn't have and general fondness for the sound of the president's voice. [...]

But it goes on to say the Republicans still lack a unified message on healthcare and consistancy in fiscal policy.

Those things are fixable. We'd best get to work on fixing them. We have to be more than just the party that says "no" to whatever the Democrats are doing.


2010's opening acts

The first key votes of the Obama era take place this week, not on the floor of the House or Senate, where health-care legislation still languishes, but in Virginia, New Jersey and northern New York state, where President Obama's endorsements of threatened Democratic candidates will test his political clout a year after his own election. [...]

But Tuesday's voting is merely the curtain-raiser to a full year of headlined Senate and statehouse races that will go a long way toward defining the landscape of Obama's political future. The gubernatorial battles especially will be worth watching.

It is there that Republicans have their best opportunity to find the missing leadership that now allows Democrats to characterize them as "the party of no," and the GOP has recruited potentially powerful challengers in such states as Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Colorado and Tennessee. [...]

Read the whole thing for the details about tomorrows elections.
     

Iran's Opposition Leaders prefer a public death?

It's preferable to die in public as martyrs, rather than be liquidated in secret by Amadinejad's goons? That's what is being claimed in a newspaper in Iraq:

Iraqi Daily: Demonstrations in Tehran Meant to Frustrate Attempts to Liquidate Opposition Leaders

The Iraqi daily Al-Sabah al-Jadid, which has a pro-Kurdish orientation, claims that what is happening in Tehran is fundamentally not connected to the results of the presidential elections, but that the events reflect the desire of the country's opposition leaders for "a public death" rather than being the victims of secret and revolutionary trials planned by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to liquidate them once and for all.

As evidence, the paper refers to phrases used by Ahmadinejad to describe the opposition as "Hitlerites, corruption mafia, and inclination for arrogance.[istikbar]."

The paper also mentions the threats uttered by Ahmadinejad during his television debate with the other candidates, in which he threatened to bring to trial all those accused of conspiracies, with Rafsanjani being on top of the list.

The paper said that for some reason Rafsanjani had disappeared from the public scene since the results of the elections were announced. [...]

(Source: Al-Sabah Al-Jadid, Iraq, June 18, 2009)

It goes on to describe the predicament this has created for the current government; sorta damned if they do, damned if they don't.

A related article:

Tanks in Tehran; Rafsanjani's Family Arrested

The Iranian website Peyk-e Iran reports that tanks have been stationed in Azadi Square in Tehran, and that some former Majlis members who are active in the reformist movement have been arrested, including Mohsen Mir-Damadi, Ali Tager-Nia, and Daoud Soulimani. Also arrested was the editor of the daily Etemad-e Meli, who is close to Mehdi Karroubi.

The website Iran News reports that five members of Hashemi Rafsanjani's family, including his daughter Faiza, have been arrested for participating in yesterday's protests.

Sources: Peyk-e Iran, Iran News, Fararu (Iran), June 21, 2009