StephCaster's Comments (100)

“If you want a plain English answer to an economics question, from a perspective that takes social justice concerns seriously, try Dollars & Sense magazine. On their website, I found an article that answers your question:

www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2009/0709miller.html

This article was written in 1995, so you can't use the actual figures, but it does describe how to do the calculating.

P.S. Kuttner's rag, American Prospect, is pretty good too (though less nuts and bolts).”

“Interesting, but you apparently have forgotten the other bit of military disinformation. Contrary to the story they initially told -- and stood by for hours -- the gunman was not killed. He's alive, and will survive (until his execution anyways).”

“The several separate acts of disinformation perpetrated by the military in this instance are hard to account for. They apparently put out stories that they knew to be false (how can you not know the suspect you have in custody is alive, not dead?) -- and knew would later be shown to be false. That is, they could not possibly either have believed the falsehoods they were broadcaster, nor could they reasonably expect the lies to hold up.

Perhaps experiments in disinformation is a goal in itself. Testing the waters to see what they can get away with, so that -- when there is a need to tell a big lie -- they have experience in perpetrating it.

The classic example from the Reagan era was the time the US Navy shot down an Iranian airliner, killing everyone on board. The U.S. military put out a completely false initial story that the plane was on an attack vector, with no transponder. This story was at odds with all evidence, but dominated the headlines for the 2-day attention span of the media. Then the Navy retracted the story.

(For a good summary of what actually happened: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655)”

“The author presents no evidence that the Conservadems or Republidem Leibermann would accept such a "compromise". This seems to be an exercise in wishful thinking.”

“Reagan's unintended "contribution" was to sharply accelerate the militarization of both the USSR and USA economy. This crippled BOTH countries. It was a mortal wound to both economies, but the fragile USSR succumbed much more quickly. The damage to the USA is still playing out.

The real heroes of this story were the European peace movements (West and East). They championed a "third way" out of the Cold War, and things eventually played out almost exactly as their great thinkers (see E.P. Thompson) posited. The Nuclear Freeze Movement in the United States also played a part, as did Gorbachev. (Reagan fought tooth and nail against all these forces. Luckily the onset of Alzheimer's mellowed Reagan enough that he got out of the way of history.)

On the other hand, the non-military dissolution of the Soviet Bloc not only was NOT planned by the Reaganites, in was completely unthinkable in their ideological system. All their policy writings at the time justified the massive military build-up (and debt that went with it) on the basis that the USSR was incapable of internal change, and could only be met with military force. History showed their worldview to be completely bankrupt, and bankrupcy was literally their chief economic legacy.”

“"The time of death was a fiction created to satisfy Mrs. Kennedy."

Only problem with this theory is that Jackie wasn't Catholic. She was raised as a Protestant, so the Catholic "last rites" should not have mattered much to her.”

“I guess it is verbotten to ask the follow up question: If the story is true, who were the "they" Johnson believed were behind the assassination?”

“Yes, exactly. Without cost control, we must oppose mandates.

This argument is like saying, here is a great new car. So what if there is no water in the radiator? Why must you be so inflexible?”

“"Articulate" -- the new "uppity"”

“Correct. That is why the public option is critical. It is the only cost control mechanism under consideration.

The only alternatives are Medicare For All or government-run price controls. Either would be a stronger solution that the Public Option, but without any of these universal coverage will fail and in fact will become a tax on the poor, who still won't have health insurance. (They will be fined because unable to afford the premiums.) The Public Option will ensure an affordable alternative to private insurance.”

“"The Democratic Party, and in fact our entire country, is far better served by a strong Democratic health care reform than by a weaker bipartisan one." AMEN.”

“As long as it involves making "pledges" the peace process will move forward. But whenever it comes time for Isreal to act on the promises it has made, forget it. Sometimes it's the same old tired excuses, but often they can't even be bothered with excuses: too busy building (or destroying) "facts on the ground".”

“Agreed. More pointless than racist.”

“"He's produced that lobby's dream bill, mandating coverage for everyone without subsidies to make it affordable­."

Yes, and if "subsidies" are added, then the result will be a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class to the owners of private insurance companies. Because the consumer will be forced to buy their products and the taxpayer will be forced to subsidize the purchase if the price is too high to afford. That should cause the already insane level of premium rate increases to go through the roof.

There are only three alternatives: a national health care (single payer) system, government-mandated insurance prices, or the public option (to contain prices through competition). Without one of these, mandating coverage will produce slavery not health care.”

“Left out of this fine analysis is the Conservative (as in tranferring wealth to the wealthiest) holy grail: the government mandating citizens to purchase health insurance without any price caps or competing public option. This would be one of the most regressive forms of taxation imaginable, and has Conservatives drooling at the prospect. This is the real goal behind opposing the public option.”

“Well which is it? Was the lineswomen's call "wrong" (mistake in perception) or was it "biased" (deliberately called as different from what she actually saw)? These are not the same thing.

The fact that human referrees in all sports sometimes make mistake is completely unremarkable. The charge that a referree deliberately made a bad call to hurt a particular athlete is very serious. You have no evidence, and it's not clear you are even making the claim. So what are you saying?”

“To be fair to Beck (who certainly doesn't deserve fair treatment) the Bush Administration's response to 9/11 did indeed include pushing it's tax cuts for the super-rich. Pushing tax cuts (aka kickbacks) to the hyper-wealthy was the Bush Administration response to almost every political issue, and 9/11 was no exception.

And Beck is right that the national security apparatus had its "head in the sand" prior to 9/11, as the Bush Administration was busy dismantling Clinton's terror monitoring apparatus, ignoring the warnings it was receiving, and instead drawing up its plans to attack Iraq (which it just pasted on to its 9/11 response, just like the tax cuts).”

“Sorry, this doesn't make any sense to me. Funding would come from current sources? A good chunk of that is local property taxes and state funds (from property, income, or sales taxes). So if Texas is raising next to nothing to pay for its pathetic education system, and Massachusetts is taking responsibility for raising the funds needed for high quality education, you would just take the extra funds raised in MA and dole them out in TX? That makes no sense, and the states and local entities will change their fundraising structure as soon as the funds raised are no longer under their control.

If you are going to have national standards in payments, then there must be national standards in how the funds are raised as well. And I would think that would have to be a form of income tax.”

“Very entertaining parody of the crazy stuff being spouted by right-wing death-eater wingnuts!

Oh, wait, you're serious? I sure hope the health care for all includes mental health as well...”

“I believe the appeals court judges and the governor, who refused to consider the new (post-trial) evidence, should be charged. (There is no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct­.)”

“Do we want Appeals Courts and Governors to take new evidence seriously? Then the remedy is to bring Criminally Negligent Homocide charges against the Governor of Texas for the murder of Mr. Willingham. The political cost of appearing "soft" on criminals must be balanced out by the real threat of criminal penalies for failing to perform their duty to examine evidence in capital cases.

P.S. My understanding is that when George Bush was governor of Texas, he spend less that 15 minutes per case before approving execution.”

“How can the statement even be considered controversial? The only problem with it is saying that we are learning "now" about the attempt to skew power toward the Executive Branch. It was obvious at the time, and publicly proclaimed as a goal of the Bush Administration.

Whether is was a good thing or not can be debated, but not the project itself.”

“The author apparently doesn't understand the dynamics of single payer health care. It's not just medicare writ large. Medicare is still emeshed in fee-for-service health care, because it must operate in a for-profit environment (even as a nonprofit entity itself). In a for-profit environment, insurance companies make money by denying care to sick people (and pocketing premiums from healthy people). In a single payer system, preventative medicine moves to the forefront because its the most effective way to contain costs and expand care (rather than make profit).

It's always comfortable to say, look at these awful two sides, I am much better because I am in the "middle." But sometimes it just isn't true. Sometimes the middle is a muddle, and one of the extremes is better. This is such a case.

Often its all hypothetical and so hard to judge. But there is over half a century of experience now with single payer systems, and they are without a doubt highly successful -- for anyone interested in evidence rather than pre-judging through ideology.”

“As many of the "pro" Israeli comments below illustrate, Israel will always offer to "slow" settlement building, while in practice annexing more and more territory. There may even be moments where unproductive land is traded away, as long a productive land not under Israeli control continues to be annexed. The promises are worthless, the acquisition relentless. When the process inevitably sparks resistance, that in itself will be cited as a justification for the process itself (see below). A completely self-enclosed worldview: we will in fact be having this same discussion 30 years from now.”

“He's not THE Lockerbie Bomber. He's A Lockerbie Bomber (and possibly a scapegoat at that). Whatever the true of his role, most of the conspirators were never caught.”