Month: April 2015

Mitt Romney Shakes His Etch-A-Sketch, But Women Don’t Forget (April 16, 2012)

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Frankly, I was surprised that Rick Santorum threw in the towel last week. The numbers made clear that a path to winning the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination was all but impossible for our favorite radical Christian, but the current slate of candidates have never gone in much for reality. I think it’s the practicality of the move that stunned me.

With Santorum disposed, Mitt Romney’s remaining competition includes King of Hubris Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, who indicated throughout the entire primary that he understood his campaign’s futility. Quite an inspiring duo aren’t they?

So the candidate nobody in the GOP really wanted, and for whom they still can’t get an erection, is on his way to accepting the nomination in scenic Tampa, Florida this August. Tampa, land of strip clubs and men in trucker hats, seems a fitting locale for a bunch of wealthy, mostly white, patriarchal ideology producers to anoint their sacrificial lamb.

Because now Romney has to shake that Etch-A-Sketch. Game on. (I bet Eric Ferhnstrom, Romney’s adviser and utterer of the ubiquitous sound bite that keeps on giving, wished for a time machine in his Easter basket.) President Obama long enjoyed the luxury of not having to address the freak show exhibits that comprised the Republican primary slate. But now that we’ve got something approximating a general election campaign, he occasionally has to tear his attention away from running a nation facing so many challenges to swat away jabs from Mittens.

To a point I sympathize with the Romney camp. Not only is their man dull as a butter knife (no insult to butter intended), which will only become more glaringly obvious when he enters the debate arena with the President, but he’s also saddled with a comical load of flip flops and rhetorical left turns. I don’t know how his staff will find time to prepare an offense when there’s so much to combat defensively: family dogs on the car roof, Romneycare and the good old Etch-A-Sketch comment just to pick a few easy cherries.

Romney has spent months and years pandering to the GOP power base, social conservatives who treat a belief in global warming or women’s reproductive rights as a “liberal” litmus test. There have been moments when I’ve pitied the open degradation of Romney’s integrity, his unwillingness to stand by his moderate record, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.

That type of radical right kowtowing may have seemed necessary until last week. But Romney has to face the rest of us now, the mainstream whose votes he needs just as badly. And given his limp track record for uniting his own party, Mitt has a tough slog ahead. How do you hit the reset button and arrive at anything approaching credibility?

President Obama excels at campaigning, to put it mildly. He is a wunderkind, an interview subject and debater able to convey intelligence and gravity as well as charm and humor. To watch him make mincemeat of John McCain on the regular during the 2008 campaign tempted invocation of the slaughter rule.

Mitt Romney is in for it. If nothing else, McCain has a personality and the deserved respect of his country as a decorated war veteran. Romney is a corporate viper, a smarmy, colorless ladder climber who approaches the Presidency like an item to check off his career bucket list. He will say anything to win the election, hitching his wagon to the notion that his fellow Americans are a bunch of ADD-afflicted sheep who will forget everything he has said and done in the past to accept his position of the moment.

I don’t think it’s possible to shake the Etch-A-Sketch hard enough to make the nation’s women forget the attacks on their rights this year. That’s slightly over half the electorate right there. Like I said, game on.

Opposition to the Individual Mandate Not a Question of Liberty (April 9, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

In my home state of Illinois, the possession of a liability-only car insurance policy is a condition of the right to own and operate a motor vehicle. While this state of affairs adds an additional financial burden to automobile owners, the general consensus is that the law is necessary. In an orderly society, we can’t very well have folks driving about smashing into other cars without means of restitution. Oh sure there will be automobile accident-related lawsuits as long as there are daytime commercials paid for by bottom-feeding attorneys, but at the very least, basic car insurance mandates more often than not mean that if you find yourself in a fender bender, your car will be repaired. Personal liberty ends at the presumed right to destroy without consequences.

For obvious reasons, Republicans would rather liken the health insurance mandate portion of Obamacare (a sound bite ready-slur I am more than willing to take back as a proud Presidenntial supporter) to the force feeding of broccoli to American citizens than consider the apples to apples comparison I have raised above. Because commons sense isn’t helpful if we’re to continue a dysfunctional health care system that benefits everyone but the patients.

Treatment decisions have long ceased to be made by the physicians performing the exam. Monthly health insurance premiums run more than your average mortgage payment and yet for most of us, we’ll never see a modicum of return on the investment. A trip to the emergency room for standard care results in a whopper of a invoice with an $80 line item for two Tylenol.

While much of the blame for this lose-lose situation (your money and the standards of care) resides with a lack of price-controlled state services offered by such “socialist” regimes as India, Israel, and pretty much the rest of the world, it would seem the individual mandate is a small effort at trying to control astronomical costs.

Consider the aforementioned expense of a basic emergency room visit. One of my colleagues suffers from a peanut allergy. For reasons unknown, he tried an eggroll for the first time in his life several weeks ago…and I think we know what happened next. He was dispatched to the emergency room for a stiff drug cocktail to reduce swelling and restore normal breathing. He availed himself of these services for a couple of hours and was asleep in his own bed that evening. Mercifully, my colleague is in possession of a solid health insurance plan. Because several weeks later he opened a bill in the amount of $4,026.

Part of the reason that basic services continue their disproportionate unaffordability is the large risk pool created by individuals without health insurance. And there are a lot of them. Yesterday the Ironton Tribune opined that “14 percent of Americans are without health insurance by choice or lack of access…Those decisions, to avoid health care, impact all insured persons by raising the fundamental costs of care to all who took the responsible path of paying to insure protection.”

Don’t misunderstand me. I do not entirely agree with the conclusion drawn by the Tribune. There’s a large subsect within that 14 percent that simply cannot afford a policy, or don’t have a job that offers coverage. And therein lies the small-business opportunity, the employment creation and economic stimulus potential offered by the individual mandate.

In Illinois, there are oodles of mom and pop basic car insurance providers, who offer lower-income families the opportunity to remain legal without breaking the bank. Filing a claim may be more frustrating than dealing with a higher-cost option like State Farm, but the point is that there are choices. A similar health care mandate would create a vacuum for upstart challengers to the Blue Cross and United Healthcares of the world. And in the process, those with premium plans would see their bills systematically lowered, no longer covering the cost of their uninsured neighbors.

This sort of equanimity is exactly what the GOP and its Supreme Court friends need to avoid. Big Oil, Big Banks, Big Insurance – these are the tricycle wheels upon which the party turns. The lobbyists, donors and other players within the insurance game stand to lose quite a bit if they’re no longer the only game in town, if the cost of those two Tylenol adjusts to something approaching reality.

Thus those who wish to purchase health insurance but can’t afford it, or Americans who suffer from one of the ever-expanding list of “pre-existing conditions” used to deny them treatment for which they pay premiums, may continue to go without the security afforded impoverished citizens of certain Third World countries.

This has nothing to do with civil liberties and (surprise!) everything to do with avarice and political power. Why car insurance and not health insurance?

The Latest Schadenfreude: Big Oil Republicans Blame Obama for Gas Prices (March 27, 2012)

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I live in the city of Chicago, a locale that currently claims the dubious distinction of  the highest priced gasoline in the United States. CBS reported this morning that citizens of the Windy City are paying an average of $4.56 for a gallon of regular unleaded. Over the weekend, I saw a humorous post making the rounds on Facebook. It read, “Wine now cheaper than gas. Drink. Don’t drive.”

The Republican Party, particularly its tepid field of Presidential candidates, is having a field day laying blame for rising prices at the pump at the President’s door. ABC News quoted presumed front-runner Mitt Romney, who offered the following assessment of the situation: “Now I have some suggestions for [Obama]. Maybe it’s related to the fact that you stopped drilling in the Gulf. Maybe it’s related to the fact, Mr. President, that you weren’t out drilling in ANWR. Maybe it’s related to the fact that you said we couldn’t get a pipeline in from Canada known as Keystone. Those things affect gasoline prices, long-term.”

Ah yes, a failure to drill. This response from GOP standard bearers isn’t predictable at all, is it? The gouging of Americans at the gas station has nothing to do with OPEC policy, the exponentially rising demand for fuel in China and India, or the vague threat of war constantly looming over the Middle East. The jarring jump in the cost of gasoline is owing to nothing more (surprise!) than the POTUS’s unwillingness to turn over all available lands and water to the gleeful plundering of the nation’s oil companies. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

And as usual, the right is attempting to have it both ways. While astronomical charges line the pockets of Big Oil executives, they use the situation to foster the illusion that Obama is sandbagging the American people in their quest to drive to work without filing for bankruptcy. I have never been happier to be off the car ownership grid.

As Jerry McGuire said, “We live in a cynical world,” but the present-day Republican party has no boundaries at all. There is no longer an issue left which they will not deceitfully manipulate in order to reap maximum benefits for themselves and their cronies. The number of hot button issues on which the GOP willfully smirks at being on the wrong side of is staggering. Do they really think this is funny? Battles that have already been fought over health care reform and women’s reproductive rights must be argued anew within the justice system and the court of public opinion. The tragic case of Trayvon Martin has cast a much-needed spotlight on the extreme application of the Second Amendment. These are just a couple of examples.

The part that sets a liberal’s teeth on edge is the conviction, difficult to prove, that none of these arguments, including the latest about the genesis of rising gas prices, stem from genuine ideological disagreement. The GOP knows climate change is real, rather than the hokum of conspiracy theorists. They are more than aware that playing Russian roulette with women’s health is a not a facet of the right-to-life debate but instead a concerted effort to marginalize and control the masses. And they damn well know that nothing short of an energy revolution, a movement away from dependency on oil, can affect the long-term pricing of gasoline. It’s basic supply and demand economics.

But it’s not in Republican interests to debate these structural problems in a real way. There’s too much money to be made, too much power to be co-opted. But what happens when the proverbial turnip runs out of blood?

Apathy In Illinois: Romney and Santorum Fight For Right to Lose to Obama (March 20, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Illinois’ Republican voters go to the polls today, in an effort to select a Presidential candidate from ideologically amorphous bore Mitt Romney, stubborn fungus Newt Gingrich and seriously-wasn’t-this-guy-a-political-punchline-just-six-months-ago? Rick Santorum. Fortunately for Illinois, my home state is one used to lose-lose situations at the polls. A prime example: in 2006 the now-incarcerated Rod Blagojevich handily won a second term for Governor, edging out state treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, a leading figure behind Illinois’ runner-up status on the list of states running atrocious budget deficits. Graft, like everything else, has gotten more expensive.

But you know something? The Land of Lincoln has a long, fine tradition of lawmakers equally crooked and inept on both sides of the aisle (see Rod Blagojevich). Because of the majority population of the city of Chicago, Illinois traditionally leans blue, but nearly everyone can jeer the fact that half of our Governors since the 1970s have gone to jail in a bipartisan way. Most Chicagoans will agree that the last Mayor Daley (Democrat second, Machine first) is an excellent argument for term limits. Party politics, while certainly at work, don’t get as much play until the Presidential elections roll around.

This year promises to be no different. However it seems that Illinois is being taken more seriously as a potential red player for the GOP. Cokie Roberts said on NPR’s Morning Edition yesterday that the state has “been trending a lot more conservative in recent years.” It’s no coincidence that I haven’t been able to turn on CNN for days without Rick Santorum’s mug rearranging my chi (added to the massive list of the former Senator’s offenses).

And it seems that the most personal freedom-restricting candidate we have on the election canvas has a better than decent shot at besting “front-runner” Romney. Allow me to pause for a moment to reflect upon the fact that the presumptive recipient of the party’s nomination can’t put away Santorum, a man who lost his incumbent Senate seat in 2006 by the largest margin in Pennsylvania history.

Anyway my point is that things are getting a little testy in Illinois, and not just amongst the growing Tea Party minority in the State. Did I mention that Santorum has a legitimate claim to community ties? In fact he graduated high school not far from where I work. While his parents held jobs at Naval Station Great Lakes, Santorum attended the Roman Catholic Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois for one year, his senior, in 1976. You know what Illinois voters like almost as much as sweet corn? Local folks making good. We’re a supportive people. This has got to feel like a nightmare for the Romney team on so many levels.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. Conventional wisdom has it that Romney will still walk away with the 54 delegate prize, but Romney isn’t running on conventional wisdom, and he has lost key states to Santorum already. Plus Santorum has been making the rounds all over the Chicagoland area, and everywhere else within the border. Where are we to hide from the messages of intolerance?

The only comfort for a dyed-in-the-wool Illinois Democrat at this point is that no matter who emerges the victor this evening, neither candidate stands a chance against Obama in the general election. This is quite true nationwide, especially with the POTUS’ approval ratings up and the wobbling economy showing some signs of life. But neither man has a shot in Illinois. Romney and Santorum can have their fun today, but you know what Illinois voters like even more than sweet corn and local folks making good? Politicians whom we can claim without embarrassment. It doesn’t happen here very often.

Mitt Romney: The Real Life Dickens Villain of the GOP (March 12, 2012)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

This week Republican primary co-front runner Mitt Romney demonstrated once again that neither he, nor his increasingly radical political party give a fig about the quality of life of America’s middle class. Multiple media outlets reported Romney’s compassionately conservative response to a struggling college student who queried him at a town hall meeting about the profoundly unaffordable costs of a college degree in the 21st Century.

My favorite headline came courtesy of New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait: “Mitt: Pay for Your Own Damn College!” Chait distilled Romney’s heartless rejoinder rather well. What Mittens actually said was:

It would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that. Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.

Charles Dickens first published his classic novel David Copperfield in 1850, featuring the villainous Uriah Heep, described in a Wikipedia entry as a character “notable for his cloying humility, obsequiousness, and insincerity, making frequent references to his own ‘humbleness.’ His name has become synonymous with being a yes man.”

It’s tempting to believe Dickens may have been clairvoyant in his creation of Heep, conjuring a future in which a quarter of a billionaire automaton can make like a living, breathing regular guy. I thought that the gold standard for radical right wing pandering had been provided by “Maverick” John McCain during the 2008 campaign, but McCain’s about faces on issues like immigration in order to secure his party’s trust simply don’t do Romney’s kowtowing justice. Is there anything this former moderate, somewhat socially liberal fraud won’t say to get the nomination?

In this case however, we have reason to suspect that Mittens said exactly what he means. After all, why should he care? He and every friend he has possess the cash and the Ivy League legacies to ensure that their offspring will go to the higher learning institutions of their choosing. It’s not they who will be saddled with debt after graduation. And if that “little lower price” degree from a state school that Romney so generously recommends for you should still run an average of $40,000 before factoring in room and board, well you’ve got two choices don’t you? A lifetime of debt or minimum wage. It’s your problem for not being born rich.

What’s perhaps more telling is Chait’s observation that Romney’s comments at the town hall were met with “sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory.” Now I am going to go out on a limb and hazard that attendees at a Romney gathering are going to lean mostly right, so ok, these folks were predisposed to drink in the bland Kool-Aid that is the Mitt brew. But factory workers cheering a candidate who unapologetically snubs his nose at the idea of affordable, universal education? How much longer can Republicans expect they are going to find willing accomplices within the hard working, low paid ranks of their base? Sooner or later the spell will be broken. It has to be.

Bold attacks on middle class infrastructure is nothing new to the GOP. You won’t hear them complaining about the stagnant wages of workers while CEO pay has skyrocketed. They have no qualms touting party planks that champion the withholding of rights from everyone from members of the gay community to females who wish to make decisions regarding their own bodies. But the blatant, sound-bite ready pride with which these candidates can look a student dead in the eye and tell them to toughen up, while boasting about the two Cadillacs in the driveway, is just sickening.