George W. Bush, liberal

Ezra Klein confirms as much:

Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum are chewing over the hefty bipartisan support Bush got for his various domestic initiatives. The roll call is impressive: No Child Left Behind, the 2001 tax cut, the post-9/11 war resolution, Sarbanes-Oxley, McCain-Feingold, the Iraq war resolution, the 2003 tax cut, the Medicare prescription drug bill and the bankruptcy bill.

To make a bit of a heretical point, most of those cases prove that Bush’s domestic agenda was a capitulation to liberalism, not that Democrats were spineless wimps. NCLB and the Medicare prescription drug bill were both longtime Democratic ideas.

The problem with NCLB was implementation, and while the problem with Medicare Part D was that its design was a giveaway to drug companies, it was also hundreds and hundreds of billions funneled towards the largest expansions of Medicare since the program’s creation.

Health-care reform, in particular, would likely be impossible if the prescription drug benefit hadn’t been accomplished. There’d be no way to add that money to the bottom line of the bill and pay for everything. Democrats owe Bush a debt of gratitude for tossing that onto the deficit.

 I can pretty much agree with most, if not all, of what Klein says here. 

To me, this helps to dismantle some of the fallacies of last year’s election.  The notion that Bush Administration represented true conservatism in its governance is, and always was, a lie.  It lends credence to my belief that the massive growth of government, the expansion of regulation, the endless and mindless spending of the last eight years were traits more reminiscent of modern liberalism than conservatism.   Throw in nearly eight years of constant wars and a financial crisis at exactly the worst time for the party of an eight-year president, and the American people acted accordingly.

Keep in mind, it doesn’t mean that liberalism will work just because Barack Obama is President.

The GOP Commandments

Released yesterday by the GOP, the ten commandments of Republican purity:

According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

Wonderful:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

This initially struck me as odd.  These seem to be nothing more than  a tactical, knee-jerk reaction to the politics of the moment, rather than a long-strategy for electoral relevance, and for future majorities.

I have a problem with the GOP issuing a list of directives that its candidates must follow—and that 8 of 10 is the minimum they must follow, lest they get no financial support from the party apparatus.  It all seems so clinical.  And the Steele-led RNC is an inept and brain-dead operation right now—I can’t imagine them making any headway with this.

Specifically, I have issues with a few of the 10—namely the DOMA requirement.  It’s bad enough that conservatives need the Republican party as a vehicle to elect true conservatives into office.  Do we really need more of the Bush-era “compassionate” conservatism, where the federal government somehow can dictate conservative ideals on the population?  Why can’t issues like gay-marriage be left to the states where it belongs?  I don’t think this is a road the Republican party wants to follow after the last eight six years.

Also, number six—-We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges ??

Crikey!  Talk about painting yourself into a corner.  I understand the end-game here, but this needs to be clarified a bit more.  Actually, a LOT more.  

It makes it sound like that the party’s policy decisions in Af-Pak and Iraq are solely at the behest of the military.  No room for debate?  Not sure I’d want to sign up for that without all the facts, especially with regards to Afghanistan.   And wasn’t there already a surge in Iraq? 

Again, this all appears to be strictly off the cuff rather than anything well thought out.

The House healthcare bill, as expected, will raise costs

The evil insurance companies have produced a report loaded with propaganda designed to stop healthcare reform government agency in charge of administering Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) has released a report which essentially undermines everything the Democrats and the White House have been preaching about healthcare reform:

Democrats have promised that health reform would reduce health care costs, but legislation the House passed last week would increase costs over the next decade by $289 billion. By 2019, health costs would rise to 21.1 percent of GDP compared to 20.8 under current law, according to an actuarial report prepared by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare payment updates for institutional providers, the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates. In addition, the longer-term viability of the Medicare update reductions is doubtful,” the report said.

In other words, outside of Medicare payment cuts to hospitals, the bill doesn’t curb increasing health care costs.

The analysis is more bad news for Democrats, who are facing increasing criticism that their reforms don’t do enough to control costs.

The entire report is available at this link (PDF)

Throughout last year’s campaign, and in the White House, Obama has repeatedly tied healthcare reform to fiscal responsibility—the idea being that reforming healthcare would cut fraud, waste and “keep the insurance companies honest”, allowing for a reduction in overall healthcare costs and further helping to reduce the national deficit.  Congressional Democrats have joined in this bogus chorus, giving them cover while shoving healthcare reform down our collective throats.

The CMS report pretty much debunks all of that.   I’m really not convinced that the Democrats actually believe the nonsense they say about fiscal responsibility in this regard.   Politically, it doesn’t help the centrist Democrats up for reelection in the House or Senate in 2010, Democrats that are keys to the party’s majorities.  I can’t imagine their constituents will be too happy if they vote for this monstrosity.  

Passage of a massive new bureaucratic entitlement has been predicated on the idea that it is “deficit neutral”—-the CMS report puts an end to that pipe-dream.

We’re all homophobic bigots now

Voters in Maine went to the polls yesterday and repealed the state’s law allowing same-sex marriage. 

Same-sex ballot initiatives are now 0 for 31 across the country—31 states came up to the plate and 31 went down.  All by taking the question to their citizens, who have decisively denied all of thim.  

The angry left tells us why this is:

…[T]here’s Maine where hate prevailed. The Bishop of Maine, Richard Malone, must be quite pleased with himself. He ran a campaign of lies, hate and distortions — and convinced enough Maine voters to vote with him. It’s going to take me a couple days (or more) to get my head around this one. But, for now, suffice it so say: HATE was the winner in Maine. Hate and the Catholic Bishop.

That’s right.   People who don’t support gay marriage are,  by default, filled with hate.  And then there’s the Catholic church.

For those of us with a modicum of sanity, the real reason that the initiative failed was that a majority of Maine’s citizens just didn’t approve.  It’s that simple:

This was the real battlefield where No on 1 lost. These voters – and their cousins in other counties – are not “back country hicks” – even though some areas of those counties are remote.

[...]

In other words, many of them work white collar jobs, live in mostly nice neighborhoods within striking distance of a city, and are pliable for whichever side makes the better case. We are not talking about culturally conservative “Deliverance” type areas here – this is the home of Maine’s soccer moms.

[,,,]

This fight was lost among the middle class voters of “middle Maine”, and it was lost badly.

So, the people of Maine have spoken, democracy is at work.  Ordinary, middle-class Americans took to the polls to make their voices heard.  But that doesn’t stop extremists from engaging in their own versions of reality and vilifying institutions like the Catholic church.

Say what you want about the role of the church—its doctrine is what it is.  But at what point does the left realize that not everyone is a hate-filled bigot and that maybe the resistance to same-sex marriage goes much, much further than a fringe minority.  The score is 0-31, after all.

 

 

NY-23 Update

Dede drops out of the race

Clearly the turning point in the race was Palin’s endorsement.  But conservatives should hold back on the celebration for now.  The race is likely to go down to the wire, with polls showing a virtual dead-heat.  This in itself is amazing, considering that Dede and Hoffman have effectively switched polling spots in less than one month.

This race will be determined by turnout, plain and simple.  As of right now, Dede has not endorsed Hoffman in the race, which I think is something of an omen for Hoffman, only because it appears that most Dede supporters seem to like Obama.

On the other hand, it appears that independents are taking kindly to Hoffman.  According to this week’s Research 2000 poll:

While Hoffman is in a dead heat with Owens among all voters, he carries a wide 47 percent to 28 percent edge over the Democrat among self-identified independent voters. Among those same independents, Hoffman has a 53 percent favorable rating and a 14 percent unfavorable rating, far better than the 38 percent fav/23 percent unfav number he had with the electorate as a whole in the poll.

From what I can make of it, today’s events show that conservatism angst has a pulse and can make their voice heard.  If Hoffman can actually pull this out, it will be a victory for conservatism and the establishment GOP and Newt Gingrinch will have significant egg on their faces.

NY-23

The race is getting extremely interesting down the stretch (a D-Kos poll–take with a grain of salt). 

And not just because conservative Doug Hoffman is now in a virtual dead-heat with a moderate Democrat in upstate New York. 

But because Dede Scozzafava, handpicked by the tone-deaf, establishment GOP, is fading just as fast.

Support Doug Hoffman For Congress

Harry’s Big Adventure

The incompetent Harry Reid has his work cut out for him:

[T]here are two Senate bills, with very significant substantive differences between them, which need to be combined, voted on, then merged with an even more different House bill, and voted on again. Each of these votes would require the support of just about every (if not indeed every single) Senate Democrat, and each would be a very tough vote for one or another group in their caucus. It is an exercise in serial needle-threading that will call for an extraordinary degree of discipline by the Senate Democrats—a group not known for discipline.

I’m still extremely pessimistic about health care reform.  At this point, it’s inevitable that there will be a bill passed in some grotesque form that will somehow have the blessing of Democratic centrists and the left-wing fringes.  Either way, it’s bad news for the country.

But the Democratic leadership in both chambers of Congress are inept and full of hubris.   Health care reform, that is to say, the goal of government-sponsored health care for all, mandated by the federal government, is the crown jewel of modern day liberalism.  I wouldn’t put it past this group of corrupt, power-hungry buffoons to fumble the ball at the goal line.

And if that were the case, I would enjoy watching it go down in flames.

Beatles RockBand Bust?

Did the Beatles bomb with the video game generation?  That’s the subject of this post at the Games Beat blog:

The Beatles Rock Band sold just 595,000 units across the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, according to market researcher NPD Group. That made it the top music game, beating out Guitar Hero 5, which sold 499,000 units. But it ranked fourth place in the month of September and was far behind a bonafide hit, Halo 3: ODST, which sold 1.5 million copies on just one game platform.

Given the huge amount of PR and advertising the Beatles game got from Electronic Arts, MTV Games and Harmonix, the result is a disappointment.

[...] 

It’s a reminder that video games is a hit or miss business. There are no guaranteed hits. It’s just too bad that this game set the whole industry up for the expectation that September would be a blow-out month, with sales as much as 20 percent above year ago numbers. Instead, software sales were up only 5 percent.

I’m a big Beatles fan.  I have all the albums on vinyl, CD, loaded onto my iPod, etc.   But over the summer, as the hype for the Beatles RockBand game began to build toward its September release, I got the feeling of queasiness at the crass commercialization of the whole thing. 

First, I an conviced that the Beatles/Apple/Ono/McCartney conglomerate is a dysfunctional organization.  I picture board meetings with Macca and Ono figuring out more grotesque ways to cash-in on and debase the Beatles brand.   And Paul has been doing nothing over the last 10-15 years but milk the Beatles.   I cringed when I read that he was running video of the game’s animation at his concerts.

Second, I thought the September 9th release date odd and completely off—right at the end of summer, in the middle of a recession.   I know there are real gaming freaks out there, but $250 is a lot to plunk down for a Beatles-only game. 

Some evidence to that effect:

I took this picture on September 16th at my local Best Buy, exactly a week after BRB was released.  Clearly, there wasn’t a mad rush by anyone to  buy the game.  The store was fully stocked—six to be exact, plus several of the Gretsch guitar controllers available.  

If it was me, I would have pushed the release closer to Thanksgiving to take advantage of the holiday season.  But that’s just me. 

Who knows the real reason why the game is under-performing expectations?  Underestimating the 18 year old demo’s affinity for Beatles-related merchandise?  The recession?  Too expensive?  Maybe a little of everything.

The new iMac

Apple just released new versions of its iMac, which includes the ultra-sleek Magic Mouse. 

Apparently the mouse uses the same multi-touch technology as the iPhone. 

 I’m not a tech-geek by any stretch and couldn’t even begin to tell you any details on the specs of the new model, but the overall look of the unit alone is enough to make me wish I used the Mac OS instead of the Microsoft spread.  Really sharp.

Engadget has an awesome gallery of the entire unit here.

Bailout Bonanza

With the Dow reaching 10,000 again and Wall Street executives about to reap 2007-like bonuses, it must be gratifying for middle-class Americans to know that the government bailouts are having their intended effects:

It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system — reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institutions’ debts — helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth.

Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than in the ho-hum business of lending people money. They also are profiting by taking risks that weaker rivals are unable or unwilling to shoulder — a benefit of less competition after the failure of some investment firms last year.

So even as big banks fight efforts in Congress to subject their industry to greater regulation — and to impose some restrictions on executive pay — Wall Street has Washington to thank in part for its latest bonanza.

“All of this is facilitated by the Federal Reserve and the government, who really want financial institutions to get back to lending,” said Gary Richardson, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. “But we have just shown them that they can have the most frightening things happen to them, and we will throw trillions of dollars to protect them. I have big concerns about that.”

I have no misconceptions about this being a ”Democrat-only” problem.  The bailouts began with President Bush over a year ago, and have continued through the current administration.  There’s plenty of blame and anger to go around. 

The American people should be INCENSED about this.  The bailouts of our financial system have done nothing but foster the most advantageous environment for the bankers and executives to run rampant with just as much abandon as they did during pre-crisis levels.   Supposedly, the administration’s efforts are meant to stop the “risk-taking” that supposedly caused this crisis in the first place.  More lies.

And with a $800 billion stimulus that is doing nothing but transferring resources to Obama’s political supporters and has been helpless in stopping unemployment from reaching 10%, with government forcing through a massive and ruinous new entitlement program called “healthcare reform” which will add even more of a burden on the middle class, with cap-and-trade in the works, which will knee-cap whatever is left of the manufacturing industry in this country (and their employees)—-all of what is intended to “help” the average American—-amounts to a huge middle finger and kick in the groin.

I have no issues with anybody making a profit.  But not on the backs of the American taxpayer, who is expected to just grin and bear it.  This is an outrage.