My congratulations to the Obama administration

They successfully have obtained a guilty plea from Osama bin Laden's chef. Who, presumably, pled guilty to providing Compote of Mass Destruction.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Pragmatism as public policy

So the Obamabot lefties who were hoping for left-wing ideologues to be appointed to Obama's cabinet are hopping mad, and the righties who expected Obama to be this radical left-wing President who appointed left-wing ideologues to all positions are... stunned into almost near-silence. They don't seem to know what to say. But in reality, Obama isn't doing anything I didn't expect him to do. If you followed his actual policy proposals and so forth during the primaries and the campaign, you saw deliberately centrist positions therein. The people who are surprised at his current appointees, who are largely pragmatic centrists, are people who let ideology blind them to reality. Obama is a centrist, and always has been a centrist. The only argument is whether he's a slightly-left centrist or a slightly-right centrist, and that's an argument that's going to have to wait until we see him actually doing that Presidenting stuff (which, remember, doesn't happen until January 21?).

-- Badtux the Pragmatic Penguin

Is Obama running to the right?

My answer: I call bullshit. Obama hasn't changed. His policy proposals have always been right-centrist, about making incremental changes rather than blowing up the system and starting over again. All that has happened is that the news "reporters" have started reporting on his policy proposals, policy proposals that have been the same since at least the beginning of the year, and suddenly liberals are saying "hold it, that's almost a right-wing position!"

For example, look at his health care proposal. It's been the same since the end of last year. It looks a helluva lot like the Republican bail-out of Bear-Stearns and Fannie-Freddie, which is all about privatizing the profits and socializing the risks. In Obama's proposal, insurance companies are required to write insurance even for pre-existing conditions. But, the government will come in and bail out the insurers by re-insuring the riskiest policies, the ones for people who have pre-existing conditions or who are suffering from catastrophically expensive illnesses. Privatize the profit, socialize the risk. Might as well be out of the goddamn Republican playbook. And this has been Obama's health care plan since, like, the beginning.

Obama is who he has always been -- a right-centerist pragmatist. There ain't a damned thing that's changed about him, and Obamabots and other liberals who are getting all huffy and upset about his supposed "flip-flops" need to take the blinders off their eyes and look around and see what's been there all along. That's Obama, folks. He ain't the Second Coming of Eugene Debs, and never has been. He is who he is and always has been, for better or for worse. And compared to John McCain, that's a whole lot better, for reasons I've explained elsewhere. But Eugene Debs he ain't -- and never has been.

-- Badtux the Practical Penguin

Obama on frustration

Obama responds:

“I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how’re you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What’s going on there? We hear that’s its hard for some working class people to get behind you’re campaign. I said, “Well look, they’re frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shipped overseas. They’ve seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

“And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington. So I made this statement—so, here’s what rich. Senator Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’

“Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain—it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch? No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.”

Clintonistas: As batshit crazy as Obamabots, or worse?

The Barefoot Bum has half his front page filled with screeds about how evil anybody who doesn't agree with him about Teh Patriarchy being the cause of Hillary Clinton's problems is. The Apostate de-blogrolled a progressive blogger for disagreeing with her about how Teh Patriarchy is the cause of Hillary Clinton's problems. I swear, Clintonistas have just friggin' *jumped the shark*, accusing anybody who disagrees with them about their candidate's victim-hood of hating women, wanting to rape women, being mean evil representatives of Teh Patriarchy who want women to be barefoot and pregnant servants, fuck, probably even of washing the whites with the colors when they do the laundry (eek! Improper mixing of the colors!).

Crap, Clintonistas are proving to be even more irritating than Obamabots were. At least the Obamabots whine about things that aren’t particularly damaging to their candidate, like whine that their candidate’s health plan is being misconstrued (sorry, it isn’t — it sucks). All the Clintonistas do nowdays though is whine that their candidate is discriminated against by Teh Patriarchy. And whine. And whine. And whine. And whine. Geezus effin’ kee-rist, people. Maybe that makes you feel like, morally superior, or something, but YOU DON’T WIN ELECTIONS BY PAINTING YOUR CANDIDATE AS A VICTIM. Puh-LEEZE. You don’t elect a victim as President. You help a victim, you give her reassurance, you make sure there’s someone there for her, but for a politician, being a victim is TOXIC, because people want a LEADER, not a VICTIM.

In short, it’s a losing card. If Hillary is painted by her campaign and her supporters as a victim, she isn’t going to get voted for as President. Whining about how she’s a victim of Teh Patriarchy isn’t going to change that. And ostracizing anybody who disagrees with you… that is just shameful. That’s no way to get votes for your preferred candidate. That is something that right-wing bloggers do. But I guess ideologues are ideologues, in the end… whether they be right-wing or left-wing. Sigh.

-- Badtux the Multi-colored Penguin

Obama got pale, sorta

Bob the Builder is a TV series for toddlers on Nickelodeon. Photoshopping done by your local snarky penguin :-).

Sadly, toddler level is the level that American politics works on today. Pathetic, isn't it? I have to congratulate Obama for his political skills in realizing this, though. Appropriating a phrase from a popular toddler show to drive his campaign? Pure political genius!

-- Badtux the Artistic Penguin

On Bushbots, Obamabots, and Ronbots

Y'know, there's something that Ron Paul, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama supporters all have in common. And that something is that they're fuckin' annoying as hell.

Now, there's lots of things that are annoying in life. Taxes, for example. Taxes are annoying. The long checkout lines at Safeway at 10:30pm as all of us geeks who don't have a life take our frozen pizzas and milk and fish sticks to the front all at the same time and utterly overwhelm that single clerk on duty to the point where it takes us another 30 minutes to get out of the store, now that is annoying. But Bushbots, Obamabots, and Ronbots take annoying to a different level, because they are immune to reason. They will worship their Dear Leader to their dying day because, well, because he's, like, the bestest and all that, and react to their cult leader's every nattering with Pavlovian drooling and glassy eyes. And woe to he who dare say that their cult leader has feet of clay, they will deny, deny, deny, then invent lies out of thin air to justify it. Any criticisms you have of their leader's policies become personal attacks upon their Dear Leader to be denied with all their heart and soul, regardless of how illogical the defense may be.

Now, it looks like Obama might be about to wrap things up, based on what the latest elections are saying. Now I'm no Obama "hater", compared to John McCain Obama is, like, 1,000 percent better, but that still doesn't change the fact that Obama's health care plan sucks rocks. He deliberately crippled it in a way that makes it unworkable in order to be able to attack Edwards and Hillary for having a plan for universal health care that would actually be, well, universal. He's being dishonest there, and worst yet, he *knows* he is being dishonest, because he has the exact same health care economist advising his campaign who also advised Edwards and Hillary who told him that his health plan couldn't work, would result in a health funding death spiral and lots of dead people if passed as-is. He didn't care. Any lie is okay if it'll get him votes, apparently.

I'll vote for the man because he's intelligent and competent (unlike the incumbent) and because he's actually sane (unlike John McCain), but I'll vote for him knowing he's just another sleazy politician, another slick con man out of the same mold that produced Ronald Reagan. Really, I don't see why people worship him. He's a politician. He's a successful politician, meaning he's a damned good liar, because people won't vote for someone who tells them the truth. Given the current state of politics in America that doesn't mean he'd be a bad President, but it doesn't make him anything other than a lying politician either -- and frankly, I don't worship liars, no matter how necessary the lies may be in order to get a politician elected these days. But the Obamabots with their cult of personality don't seem to have any such scruples, similar to the Bushbots and the Ronbots. Sigh. If only passing Logic 101 was a requirement for graduating American high schools... yeah right, as if our ruling oligarchs would want a population capable of actually, like, thinking. Snort. Pull the other flipper, why doncha?!

-- Badtux the non-Bot Penguin

For all you Obama fans out there

Since Obama has apparently decided that, like, Ronald Reagan is his bestest friend and buddy and all... enjoy.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin

Why Obama's plan won't work

I already mentioned economist Paul Krugman's statement that Obama's plan leaves 15 million Americans lacking affordable health care. The thing is, I think Krugman is wrong. Krugman is too optimistic. My analysis is that Obama's plan leaves most Americans uninsured in the end. And here is why:

Obama's plan relies on people voluntarily purchasing health insurance or signing up for public health programs in order to receive health care. Obama combines this with a couple of interesting twists. First is a mandate that health insurers must accept all comers, regardless of how well or how sick they are. Second is that insurers must cover pre-existing conditions. The final mandate in Obama's plan is a mandate that health insurers are not allowed to drop people from their rolls at renewal time.

Okay, so here's a question: with a mandate like these, why would anybody voluntarily sign up for health insurance *before* they got sick? I mean, health insurance is expensive, right? So then the healthcare death spiral that I mentioned back in September 2007 kicks in. As healthy people opt out of paying for health care, that means the remaining people end up paying more, which causes more people to drop out, which causes health insurance to become more expensive, and then yet more people drop out. The end result is that only sick people end up paying for health care -- which is not a viable option, because the small percentage of sick people simply cannot pay for current levels of health care. 15% of the nation's GDP is tied up in health care today, and sick people do not generate 15% of the nation's GDP. There just ain't no "there" there.

In short, without a mandate that healthy people subsidize the care of sick people, there is no universal health care, just a lot of dead sick people. The health insurance industry is already in a death spiral, just a slow one because currently they can kick the sickest people off of their rolls. Now, Obama adds a slick little move to his health care plan -- a "reinsurer pool" funded by the government that takes the sickest of the sick off of the health insurance company's rolls -- but I'm not sure that this would end the death spiral that otherwise results from mandating that insurers accept all comers, but not mandating that everybody buy insurance. When I work the numbers, Obama's plan simply doesn't work -- the health insurance death spiral gets even worse.

My point, the point I've been making all along, is that unless *everybody* is required to participate either via buying private insurance or participating in a public program (and remember, at least 5 million of the uninsured *CURRENTLY QUALIFY FOR PUBLIC INSURANCE PROGRAMS*, they've just never gotten around to signing up), we end up with a system where only sick people pay -- and, in the end, with a lot of dead people. Without mandates, we end up with dead people. Krugman is an optimist. I'm not. Krugman sees 15 million uninsured. I see a whole lot more, if Obama's plan were passed as-is -- which, of course, it will not be, since as a plan this would have such horrific effects that when the CBO works the numbers the entire Congress would flinch in horror and send it to the shredder.

- Badtux the Economics Penguin

Obama is destroying chances for universal healthcare

Please read this very important article by economist Paul Krugman. He reiterates what I've repeatedly said -- unless a) everybody is covered, and b) everybody pays, you simply do not have universal health care. And Obama's plan only covers half of those who are currently uninsured, at the same cost as Hillary's plan. Without the universal mandate that everybody pays for health care costs, that's the best you can do -- and that's not just Krugman saying so. That's every reputable (yes, reputable) economist who has actually worked the numbers.

In other words, as Krugman states:

You see, the Obama campaign has demonized the idea of mandates — most recently in a scare-tactics mailer sent to voters that bears a striking resemblance to the “Harry and Louise” ads run by the insurance lobby in 1993, ads that helped undermine our last chance at getting universal health care.

If Mr. Obama gets to the White House and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.

If you combine the economic analysis with these political realities, here’s what I think it says: If Mrs. Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, there is some chance — nobody knows how big — that we’ll get universal health care in the next administration. If Mr. Obama gets the nomination, it just won’t happen.

I am sure I will now get an infestation of Obamabots telling me that Krugman is wrong because, well, because their Beatific Leader tells them that Krugman is wrong (sigh, what's the difference between an Obamabot and a Bushbot? The color of the skin of the person they worship, basically -- neither appears amenable to reason nor facts) via dishonest flyers to supporters. But facts are facts. Wishful thinking is not a plan, and lofty rhetoric doesn't provide health care for people. While Clinton's plan is not the plan I would devise (as Krugman explains, a universal single-payer system is the most cost-effective system), it still does cover everybody. That, unfortunately, is not the case with Obama's plan.

-- Badtux the Health Care Penguin