Staying Pure, the Perils of Not Going All the Way, and a Little Fun With Role-Playing

Now that I have your attention...

As a rule, politicians are a skittish and mercurial bunch, though I'm pretty sure many of them aren't necessarily born that way. Seriously, how many of these guys woke up one morning as a bright-eyed Poli-Sci undergrad at The University of Tennessee or Northwestern - or wherever - and declared, "Ah, I can barely wait for the day when I can sell myself out to tobacco and pharmaceutical interests like a crab-infested Van Nuys crank whore!"

But the environment in which politicians continually find themselves requires constant compromise of one's values and priorities. Even the most accomplished and tenured members of the House and Senate understand that doing so is the only way to remain politically viable.

We forget - or choose to ignore - that each and every member of Congress is responsible for:

1. Catering to the needs and desires of his constituency
2. Adhering to his party's overall platform
3. Helping to craft policy within bipartisan committees
4. Not getting caught in a gay bath house with his legs wrapped around a slender Whole Foods stock clerk named Derek

And let's not forget the other seductive elements out there known for compromising politicians' personal ethics: campaign donors, pestering lobbyists, and ubiquitous interest groups. From The Washington Post:

The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and records.

Overall, health-care companies and their representatives spent more than $126 million on lobbying in the first quarter, leading all other industries, according to CRP and Senate data. PhRMA led the pack in spending and employs 49 former government staff members among its 136 lobbyists, according to The Post's analysis. Dozens of other former insiders are employed as lobbyists by Pfizer, Eli Lilly, the AMA and the American Hospital Association, each of which spent at least $3.5 million on lobbying from January through March.

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So let's play make-believe. Imagine you're a fiscally-conservative, socially moderate Republican congresswoman (which, in most southern states, makes you a left-wing liberal), who believes that every American citizen should have access to affordable health care. Most likely, here's what you'd be coming up against:

• Much of your party wants to altogether eliminate the public health option.
• Your stone-age constituency needs complete assurance that not one cent of the package will be used for performing abortions - emergency or otherwise - stem cell research, and end-of-life consultations.
• A lobbyist from a prominent pharmaceutical company - let's call them Lurk - which has promised to support your re-election bid, has just called your office to remind you of their disapproval of a public health option
• The president is leaning on you and your congressional committee to keep an open mind about a substantial public component, which includes Hospice care and an additional tax on so-called platinum health plans.

At this point, whichever position you take will inevitably be ridiculed, attacked, or flat-out rejected by somebody. Ultimately, as long as you take a stand on something, there's no real way to avoid being labeled a sellout, capable of abandoning your personal ethics, your president, your crazy-assed constituency, or your party at the drop of a hat.

And that's all before the town hall meetings. Good luck with those, by the way.

But it's politically unsophisticated to think that a politician can remain ideologically pure while holding onto her job for more than one term. Politicians must compromise their ethics, on some level, every single day - and I think it's important for us to remain cognizant of that.

It's the nature of the politician's job, for better or worse. But don't feel too sorry for them. They all make six-figures, with pretty damn good bennies (which might also explain the glacial pace of health care reform); most will have cushy jobs waiting in private sector law or lobbying firms when they're finally booted from office. Some of the more high profile ones will even get book deals or will carve out a niche amongst the screaming heads on cable news.

Which brings us to our president, Mr. Hope and Change himself.

While I'm as guilty as anyone for chiding Obama's policy initiatives thus far, it's only because I naively wished for so much more. Based on his past assertions, I sincerely expected a more dogged push for universal health coverage. With, perpetually dyspeptic Rahm Emmanuel as his consigliere, a tidal wave of political capital, and strong majorities in the House and Senate, I truly expected all of us to have commie care by the 2012 at the latest.

Enter reality. The bible from his inauguration was still warm when Obama was faced with rescuing the U.S. economy from the complete and utter abyss due to 8 years of meltdowns, negligence, corruption, fiascos, and all-around suck.

Did Obama borrow Peter to pay Paul by funneling insane amounts of money into banks and automakers? Yes. Did it need to happen to prevent a nationwide economic collapse? Probably. Was it done by the most efficient, effective means possible? Well, if offering blank checks to Wall Street slime peddlers while not holding them to a much higher degree of scrutiny and transparency is effective and efficient then...yes. Is it all working, as our embattled Fed Chairman would have us believe? Maybe, but who really knows for sure at this point. Some days the economists are optimistic, some days not so much. Regardless, Wall Street's still raking us over the coals.

Still, most sane citizens are strongly averse to having their tax money earmarked for failing banks, immoral CEO's, and intransigent automakers who refused to lower their CAFE standards and to take a hint when nobody wanted a fucking mastodon on wheels anymore.

So we were forced to watch as our Obama had his wings clipped by Detroit and Wall Street.

And now, because much of his political capital has been drained by unpopular - and some say ill-advised - decisions made to save a foundering economy, the president must play ball with the opposition party, the Blue Dogs, and congressional reps from Steve and Stacy Swingstate.

He must compromise. At the very least, he must give something.

Problem is, in a civil and just society, health care is a service that shouldn't be compromised one iota - to the extent of offering ample, affordable coverage to every citizen. (This statement has been brought to you by every other developed nation on planet.) Yet it's baffling that our citizenry is still divided on this - that offering a greater breadth of coverage will somehow lead to rationing of care, a slippery slope on the way to killing Grandmas and harboring terrorists.

First of all, the private insurance companies already ration by virtue of avoiding or eliminating riskier individuals from their pools of prospective patients. They also practice the more traditional forms of rationing - you know, commie-socialist forms. From The New York Times:

And people who worry about the government's playing such a role may not remember that even now private insurers make decisions "about what is medically necessary and what is not," said Mike Thompson, a principal in the health care practice of the consulting firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. The private insurers, Mr. Thompson said, might decide that a certain cancer treatment was experimental, for example, and refuse to pay for it.

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One can only hope that some form of rationing occurs, as rampant over-treatment has proven to be one of the biggest monetary drains on an already wildly inefficient and wasteful health care system. From The New York Times:

Paul Ginsburg, the president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, said he was more concerned about the opposite of rationing: that lawmakers do not seem to be focused enough on controlling costs, by making sure people do not receive unnecessary care or unproven treatments.

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But if Obama continues to shy away from his previous declaration that a robust public health care option is best way to ensure true reform, then to what degree will impending legislation change the status quo - if at all?

The fallout from such a compromise could prove disastrous. If a compromise of sorts is brokered and some needed changes are made - such as cajoling health insurance companies into ending the widely used practice of rescission - without systemically revamping the entire system, who really wins? Health insurance and pharmaceutical companies will win big, as they'll garner an additional 40-50 million paying customers. And most conservative politicians will win, as they'll no doubt be hailed by the ravenous cable news punditry as the patriotic underdogs who thwarted the venomous serpent of socialized medicine. Maybe even Obama will be lauded as "post-partisan" for trading the public option (which would ultimately bury both Big Health and Pharma) for the still ambiguous co-ops, which, at best, will offer up just enough competition to the Blue Crosses of the world to make it appear as though a clean, fair game is still being played.

But what will we get out of it, other than having the privilege of overpaying for a half-assed, patchwork system that wastes resources and exploits American citizens? Maybe we won't get dropped from insurance roles when we endure a serious illness. But then we'll still have to file for medical bankruptcy upon discovery that our ailments exceed our coverage. (As I've repeated throughout many of my posts, two-thirds of all medical bankruptcies in the U.S. are filed by individuals who already had health insurance.)

And let's say a cap is established, beyond which individuals would no longer have to pay for additional care and procedures. What would that cap be? $15 thousand? $20 thousand? It's hard to imagine the insurance companies settling for less. Either way, that the we continue to haggle over the price of a person's health and well-being in this country is, to me, barbaric and morally repugnant. And as in matters of preemptive war, the environment, and torture, our nation insists on ceding the moral high ground to every other country in the world whose name doesn't end with either "bad" or "stan."

But the worst part about half-assed health care reform would be the illusion of closure and a job well done. It is both a blessing and a curse that, embedded in our nation's DNA is a need to, at some point, turn the page. In this instance, it would be a curse.

Ted Kennedy's death this week was simultaneously tragic, poignant, devastating, and ironic. Those who knew him best claim that his death comes at a time when the nation - and the health care reform movement - needs him most. Then again, pessimists might argue that his impact on such fractious negotiations would've been minimal, as his failing health would've limited him to figurehead status. For still others, Kennedy's death symbolizes the end of meaningful reform and the moral imperative of which he was such an impassioned advocate. From his August 19, 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention:

For me, this is a season of hope. New hope for justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few. New hope - and this is the cause of my life - new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American - north , south, east, west, young, old - will have decent, quality healthcare as a fundamental right and not a privilege. we can meet these challenges with Barack Obama. Yes we can, and finally, yes we will.

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The CIA is More Dubious Than That Faded M&M at the Bottom of Grandma's Candy Bowl

For today's post: Fun with trivia.

So here goes: Which domestic, publicly-subsidized institution kills terrorist suspects during interrogations, outsources torture to countries with disgraceful human rights records, and operates within the shadowy legal crevices of both the Geneva Convention and our nation's constitution? Give up?

Click here to find the answer!

From The New Yorker's "Outsourcing Torture," Jane Mayer's 2005 piece which focuses on the CIA's not-so-clandestine practice of extraordinary rendition.

What began as a program aimed at a small, discrete set of suspects - people against whom there were outstanding foreign arrest warrants - came to include a wide and ill-defined population that the Administration terms "illegal enemy combatants." Many of them have never been publicly charged with any crime.

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It's disturbing to know that a large government organization, primarily responsible for information gathering, is given the tether to behave like a band of thugs whenever it sees fit - at least until now. If Eric Holder has any say, the CIA will be getting the scrutiny it's deserved for some time:

The inspector general's report, by contrast offers details of abusive methods. During one session, a C.I.A. interrogator told Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, charged with plotting the 2000 bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole, that if he did not cooperate with his captors, "we could get your mother in here" and "we can bring your family in here."

According to the report, the interrogator wanted Mr. Nashiri to infer for "phsychological" reasons that his female relatives might be sexually abused.

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Wait - Quick quiz: Who is Eric Holder (and no Wikipedia, damn you!)?

A.) The new Secretary of Health and Human Services

B.) Former NBA underachiever Ralph Sampson's separated-at-birth twin brother

C.) The new Attorney General for the Obama administration

D.) The New President of Kurdranistanjihadlabad

E.) The 78-year-old guy at my gym who insists on galavanting around the men's locker room with nothing on from the waist down. He holds conversations, talks about real estate, and flosses his teeth - all without the benefit of pants, shorts, or undergarments of any kind. And, once again, for the sake of an image: He's 78.

Answer: You damn well better have chosen C.

Whether or not Connecticut prosecutor John Durham's investigation can lead to any convictions is peripheral to the message this hopefully sends to the CIA and other tax-funded super-organizations. (That's right, town-hallers: The CIA is socialist organization!)

That I'm a staunch advocate of strong, publicly-funded organizations that provide essential services doesn't mean I think they should be shielded from constant scrutiny and stringent standards. To the contrary, if I'm paying for something, I need to know the exact context in which my money is being utilized. For instance, currently my tax dollars - and yours - are being earmarked for each of the following projects:

• Nation-building in Iraq
• Nation-building in Afghanistan*
• A rescue package for automakers from whom I wouldn't even accept a free vehicle
• Golden parachutes for these pricks.

*Four American solders were killed Tuesday when their patrol vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan, NATO said, making the 2009 death toll for foreign forces in Afghanistan the highest since the war began nearly eight years ago.

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So if you ask me right now if I think it's okay for the CIA - an organization in which most of us have "invested" a great deal of money - to have legal immunity from torturing, maiming, humiliating and murdering individuals who have yet to receive due process in any sanctioned court of law, then my answer is a resounding "no." CIA employees should be held just as accountable for their actions as any other public servant, be they cops, public school principals, or postal workers.

And despite the fact that we've been admonished time and again to accept that we're in an interminable struggle with "evil-doers" for the safety and soul of our country - and therefore utilizing a panoply of harsh interrogation tactics are in the interest of national security - the fact remains that the CIA is not a crime fighting agency, nor are they a paramilitary organization. It's as much within their purview and expertise to strip down and waterboard a Guantanamo inmate as it is for a local firefighter to deliver your amazon.com order.

Add that to the fact that the CIA has also been contracting out critical military operations to no-bid contract winner Blackwater - a private "firm" that somehow exists with even less oversight than the CIA (and, oh, by the way: they're tax-funded too) - and we find ourselves in some serious ethical gray areas. From The New York Times:

American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners. But government officials said that bringing outsiders into a program with lethal authority raised deep concerns about accountability in covert operations.

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It would be negligent on my part if I didn't note here that the name "Blackwater" has become synonymous with the no-bid outsourcing of the morass in Iraq, from branches of the U.S. military to private firms with notorious reputations:

Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating license.

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Also, when I think of a firm, I think Sterling Cooper from "Mad Men" or maybe even McKenzie Brackman from "L.A. Law." But a group of trained mercenaries who air drop into hostile territory, guns blazing, with little concern for civilian life? That's not a firm; not even close. Could you imagine one of these guys in your office having to deal with a jamming copy machine? I'm sure you'd see a lot of this.

Before I shut it down for the evening, let me just add that I have no delusions about the nefarious character of many of the detainees formerly or currently being held in U.S. custody. I presume many of them have profoundly hostile feelings toward the U.S. and mean America nothing but harm and ill-fortune. But if the U.S. is intent on regaining the role of moral beacon for the solar system, we must end these practices instantly. In addition to being unethical, torture is an ineffective and inefficient intelligence gathering technique. In other words, it doesn't work. John McCain, a former POW and torture victim, agrees.

And so maybe the CIA should stick with what it does best: Initiating coups against democratically elected governments.

The Republican Party: From Diabolical Masterminds to That Urine-Soaked Guy on the Bus Mumbling Incoherently About Gummy Bears

I know: Duh.

But I just wanted to reiterate the utter lack of logic and rational thought that's infesting the GOP and its constituents these days. In the past, most of the party's disjointed, ill-conceived, or just plain machiavellian ideas came from up top - Milton Friedman, the father of fiscal conservatism; economist Grover Norquist, the 80s trickle-down Reaganites; the gentle souls over at The Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, the architect of the 90s Republican Revolution; and the warmongering Neo-Cons of the Bush administration. The first step was seizing power. From Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew:

"First, we want to remove liberal personnel from the political process. Then we want to capture those positions of power and influence for conservatives. Stalin taught the importance of this principle. He was running the personnel department, while Trotsky was fighting the White Army. When push came to shove for control of the Soviet Union, Stalin won...With this principle in mind, conservatives must do all they can to make sure that they get jobs in Washington."

So, for all you flag-waving, pendant-wearing patriots out there, the post-Goldwater conservatives owe much of their success to a communist dictator who committed genocide against his own people. I'm assuming back then that Norquist and other GOP operatives didn't roll this strategy out at a series of town hall meetings.

Overall, much of the Republican policy devised over the past, say, 30 years, has been hard-sold to the American public based on the promise of fiscal solvency.

These policies - unfettered free market capitalism, supply-side economics, and systemic deregulation - we were told, would be implemented based on sound economic principles. Let individuals, rather than the government, take responsibility for their own wealth or poverty, Republicans said, for only the individual truly knows what's best for her or himself. The truly industrious and innovative will inevitably rise to the challenge, regardless of their race, class, or ethnicity. And let companies work outside of the government's clenched grip of regulation, for true competition and innovation accelerates when freed from the oppressive scrutiny of the government's watchful eye. In other words, let the markets decide which businesses succeed or fail.

But those paying attention since the advent of voodoo economics have observed these conceptions to be patently absurd. For one thing, socioeconomic status continues to be the biggest determinant in whether or not an individual is materially successful. The indigent are rarely given the tools during childhood necessary for them to later flourish into the industrious leaders our society demands. It's next to impossible to compete in the professional job market when you're 18 and still reading at a fourth-grade level.

We've also witnessed the litany of calamities that deregulation - or insufficient regulation - can yield, as evidenced by the abysmal fallout from no-bid war contracts, sub-prime mortgage loans, credit default swaps, and massive seven-and-eight-figure payouts to Wall Street bank executives. Competition is all well and good (for the most part), but when financial juggernauts like Goldman Sachs engaged in market manipulation and securities fraud, no one was there to say this. From Matt Taibbi's "The Great Bubble Machine," an exceptional investigative piece from Rolling Stone:

The bank (Goldman) might be taking all these hideous, completely irresponsible mortgages from beneath-gangster-status firms like Countrywide and selling them off to municipalities and pensioners - old people, for God's sake - pretending the whole time that it wasn't gradeD horseshit. But even as it was doing so, it was taking short positions in the same market, in essence betting against the same crap it was selling.

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In other words, Goldman was hedging its bets against a market they essentially created. And, because they're Goldman Sachs (ooh, ahh!), everyone blindly bought into it. Everyone.

In the same piece, Taibbi emphasizes that Goldman has been sued and penalized numerous times over the years, which has had zero impact on its highly unethical banking practices, since the penalty fees - usually in the neighborhood of $100 million or so - are loose pocket change compared to the ridiculous amounts of cash the firm has been raking in from exploiting so many loopholes in the financial markets, many of which the SEC itself wasn't even aware of. Problem is, the Securities and Exchange Commission is the regulatory agency primarily responsible for taking market raiders like Goldman to task. Oh, but they didn't completely comprehend what Goldman was doing - so they claim - so I guess it's okay.

To further explain the lack of effective oversight, the SEC, along with the last three presidential administrations, have been lousy with former Goldman execs. Reagan once said, "The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away." False.

The thing about Republicans is that, when they're in the minority, government is bureaucratic, ineffectual, even Orwellian. But when they're running the entire show, rather than continuing their harsh critique of big government, we hear a lot of this.

Next, when thousands of ailing Americans were being summarily dropped from health insurance roles due to "prior undisclosed conditions," for years the only person who would even give them the time of day was a portly firebrand filmmaker from Michigan.

From the L.A. Times comes a piece about insurance giant Wellpoint's modus operandi toward patients crippled by severe illnesses:

But documents obtained by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and released today show that the company's employee performance evaluation program did include a review of rescission activity.

The documents show, for instance, that one blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

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How charming. At this point, I'd like to take a moment to come up with a list of the most loathsome categories of human beings on the planet. This is an extremely intricate process, so I won't bog you down in all the minutia of how I determine my findings. Here it is: Top 5, worst comes first.

1. Puppy rapists
2. Nazis (the German ones from WWII, as opposed to the ones currently infiltrating the Obama administration)
3. These guys
4. Private health insurance company claims adjusters
5. The Taliban

That's right, people: A guy who will slice off your right ear for playing techno music is likely responsible for fewer deaths than Chip over at Blue Shield with the troll pencils and the "I Love Dachsunds" screensaver.

And finally, there was the "I'm With Stupid" Administration's stubborn refusal to put the regulatory clamps down on the biggest environmental polluters on the planet.

Now, I'm not suggesting that these expedient, ignominious, or just plain idiotic policies are things of the past. Without question, they'll return in some incarnation once the Republicans are firmly entrenched in our government again. What I am saying, though, is that now progressives have a whole new element to deal with: The batshit insane.

It's true. Instead of cloaking horrendous policy in brilliant propaganda campaigns and then applying pressure downward, onto the Great Unwashed, the Republicans are now a party that seemingly receives its cues from the most gullible, ignorant, reactionary, and paranoid of society's cognitive bottom-dwellers.

It's almost as though the intellectual line between right-wing demagogue and unemployed World War II grenade enthusiast has been completely eradicated. Unconvinced? Fine. Then how about a nice multiple choice quiz to prove my point.

For the following questions, choose the individual that uttered each quote over the past 2 weeks.

1. "This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law."

a. The fella who lives out of a tent in the abandoned lot across the street from Kragen because he "refuses to pay taxes that are just going to be used for welfare and health care for illegals."

b. Your brother-in-law, Dave, a recent convert to Jews for Jesus and the current president of the Whispering Meadows homeowners association

c. House Republican Leader John Boehner

2. "We should not have a government plan that will pull the plug on Grandma!"

a. The guy pacing in front of Ralph's, clad in a fatigue-colored leotard, who constantly warns shoppers of the impending apocalypse

b. Your former college roommate Doug, who, at 35, just quit his job and moved back in with his parents because he "wants to spend more time doing his art."

c. Republican senator Chuck Grassley

3. "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgement of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system in downright evil."

a. Sarah Palin

b. An unemployed, clinically insane gun enthusiast

c. All the above

Here are your answers: 1. c 2. c 3. c

For me, this is something to watch closely in the months leading up to the November mid-term elections. Right now, the loudest voices in the GOP are coming from the most irrational and intellectually lazy segment of the party. Maybe the rest of the conservatives are ceding the pulpit to these crazies for the purpose of instigating more action among the right wing electorate for the purpose of thwarting Obama's agenda. Or maybe the party has actually morphed into a safe haven for right-wing extremists, racists, religious zealots, and unbalanced xenophobes - both among its leaders and throughout its constituency. Either scenario is equally disturbing and prompts me to wonder if Canadian winters are really all that bad.