TheDailyBanter.com

Progressive Republicans?

Meghan McCain telling Larry King what it means to be a Progressive Republican:

Exposing Bill O'Reilly

By Ben Cohen

I just stumbled over this classic youtube video of Bill O'Reilly and Paul Krugman getting into it in 2006. O'Reilly spent the first part of the interview bashing Krugman for criticizing George Bush's economic policy. Hilariously, O'Reilly told Krugman that Bush's policies hadn't lead to a recession, and were responsible for impressive economic growth. Oh Billy Boy, how wrong you were....

Thank God for Sen. Edward Kennedy

By Ben Cohen

Sen. Edward Kennedy should provide a strong incentive for Barack Obama to remain true to his word on health care reform. While Kennedy isn't proposing a single payer system (by far and away the best option, according to the majority of the population), he is offering a real alternative to the current disaster. He wrote in the Boston Globe:

Our proposal establishes new gateways to better health across America. You can contact the gateways online, by phone, or in person to figure out what policy works for you. Through the gateway, we will facilitate choice by allowing consumers to compare the costs and benefits of different health insurance policies. We'll negotiate with insurance companies to keep premiums and copays low and help you with your premiums if you can't afford them. We'll make it illegal for insurers to deny coverage because of a preexisting condition or to impose other restrictions that keep you from getting the care you need. We're also hearing that some Americans want the choice of enrolling in a health insurance program backed by the government for the public good, not private profit - so that option will be available too.

Not everything progressives might want, but a mighty improvement over today's system.

Kennedy gave Obama a much needed, and possibly game changing endorsement in the primary with Hillary Clinton, and has acted as a mentor to the young politician for much of his time in the public eye. Health care is Kennedy's pet project, and if Obama fails, he will be failing Kennedy.

Obama Vs Insurance Industry

By Ben Cohen

Paul Krugman sets the scene for the inevitable bust up between Obama and the health care industry after it reneged on its promise to lower costs for the public:

The medical-industrial complex has called the president’s bluff. It polished its image by showing up at the big table and promising cooperation, then promptly went back to doing all it can to block real change. The insurers and the drug companies are, in effect, betting that Mr. Obama will be afraid to call them out on their duplicity.

It’s up to Mr. Obama to prove them wrong.

Obama is showing a mixed record when it comes to fulfilling his campaign promises - he's shown some mettle on various issues (the stimulus, auto emissions and Israel) but has been far too cautious when it comes to others (closing Guantanamo and regulating the financial sector). The health care issue should provide a very good example of his willingness to stand up for what he believes in, and given the enormous goodwill he has, it shouldn't be too much to ask. The health insurance industry is a symbol of how corrupt private power has become in America, and if Obama wants an issue to define his Presidency, it provides a very good example.

Screw the Polar Bears

By Ben Cohen

George Monbiot thinks there are more important things to worry about:

Can we please stop talking about the bloody polar bears? Climate change is not - or not only - about polar bears. It is not - or not only - about the Arctic, or the Amazon, or the oceans. It is not - or not only - about the future. This is about everything and everyone. It's about every ecosystem on earth. It's about everyone who lives there. It's about people like us, who love their children and value their own lives as much as we do. We don't need totemic animals or a deep green spiritual awakening. We just need to act on what we know.

Obama Leaves Netanyahu Out in the Cold

By Ben Cohen

This is extremely positive news. Obama's decision to remain steadfast on his pledge to stop Israeli settlement expansion will reverberate around the Arab world, signaling that the U.S is serious about peace in the Middle East.

This is classic Obama - he takes a hard line on two opposing tracks, then comes out getting what he wants. While Netanyahu may think he can run circles around the young President, he will continue to find himself groping at thin air, unable to pin down the fluid American leader and unable to use his insidious charms to get what he wants. Netanyahu is an attack dog, used to bullying Israeli politicians and destroying his enemies (witness his record of death and destruction in Palestine). But when his paymasters in the U.S begin to assert their power, Netanyahu will find himself severely limited in his ability to maneuver. Given his extreme propensity for violence and confrontation, this can only be a good thing.

How To Create Web Traffic: Use the Word Porn

By Ben Cohen

We'll see how well my thesis works when I check the stats on this article....

Seriously though, while perusing the always fun Gawker website, I came across the article 'Arianna Huffington Discovers 'Weird Porn' on the Internet'. Like an idiot, I clicked on the article to see what on earth the media mogul was doing watching fetish porn, only to discover the title had absolutely nothing to do with her watching porn at all. It was in fact referring to a comment that Huffington made about not charging for content online. She said:

"Unless you're selling porn -- especially weird porn -- I would not go the subscription route,"

Nothing particularly controversial about that. This is a classic traffic generating tactic: Using the name of a well known celebrity/media personality with something shocking causes simpletons (like myself) to click through.

If I wrote the title: "Keith Olbermann Porn Star Shocker", you'd probably be interested in finding out what Olbermann was doing with a porn star, particularly if it was anything shocking. This would of course refer to an interview Keith Olbermann did with a porn star back in 2005 (that had nothing to do with him doing anything 'shocking'). You get my point...Anyhow, I'm not averse to jazzing up titles, but I think the innuendo with Arianna Huffington is a little much. Although knowing how savvy a business woman she is, she'd probably understand.

The Next Wave

By David Glenn Cox

There is an old joke about a guy who fell off the eightieth floor of a construction site. On the fortieth floor his friends called out, “Are you all right?” The man answers, “So far, so good!” The experts and pundits alike take turns trying to call bottom in this economic cataclysm, for it is a choice career plum to be the expert who correctly calls the bottom.

The problem is that this financial catastrophe has been so well-disguised that it is almost impossible to name it, let alone determine when it will cross the finish line. First it was the sub prime crisis, then it was the banking crisis, then the financial crisis. The experts stood on the corner taking turns shouting “Now! No, now! No, now! This time for sure! Now!”

Stupid White Men

By Ben Cohen

I've always struggled to understand why closet racist, homophobe and sexist Pat Buchanan has a job on cable news, particularly MSNBC. I sometimes find myself agreeing with Buchanan on a number of issues - he did not support the Iraq War, does not support free trade, and condemns the treatment of Palestinians by Israel.

However, I suspect he does not support foreign wars because he regards those in other countries (particularly with skin darker than his own) as inferior to America, and not worthy of its blood. And I suspect he condemns the treatment of Palestinians because of his own anti semitic beliefs.

With what is left of his political guile, Buchanan manages to coat his invective with subtlety, using innuendo rather than overt racism in his writing. He makes an effort to be jovial, and tries to keep up with the times. But at 71 years old, Buchanan barely makes sense anymore, rambling incoherently on topics clearly too complex for him to understand. The election of Barack Obama has spun his head out of control, and the man simply cannot deal with the new America he lives in. Check out this monstrously offensive quote from an article he penned in creators.com:

When you think about it, Sonia Sotomayor is the perfect pick for the Supreme Court — in Barack Obama's America.

Like Obama, himself a beneficiary of affirmative action, she thinks "Latina women," because of their life experience, make better judicial decisions than white men, that discrimination against white men to advance people of color is what America is all about, that appellate courts are "where policy is made" in the United States.

Not only is the quote about Sotomayor taken completely out of context, he is also flat out lying about her and Obama being a beneficiary of Affirmative Action. Really Pat? Any evidence to support this other than your own prejudice? Like him or not, no one can say Barack Obama doesn't deserve to be where he is today. A black kid born into a single parent home who graduated from Harvard, became President of the Harvard Law Review, worked the streets of Chicago as an organizer, became the junior Senator of Ilinois, then President of United States is the beneficiary of affirmative action? If he doesn't deserve to be where he is today, then no one does. Sotomayor, clearly a brilliant woman who has worked incredibly hard to get to where she is, has not succeeded because she is a Hispanic woman. She succeeded despite it, growing up in an American where people like Pat Buchanan spend a life time making hers more difficult.

Out Sourcing Pollution

By Ben Cohen

George Monbiot points out that while China may have become the world's leading polluter, it is only because the West has outsourced much of its production there:

The UK, for example, is comfortably meeting its commitments under the Kyoto protocol only because much of our manufacturing industry has moved to China. Under Kyoto rules, the pollution produced by Chinese factories making goods for the UK belongs to China. The protocol counts only the production, not the consumption, of greenhouse gases.

China says this is unfair. Around half the recent increase in its emissions arises from the manufacture of goods for western markets.
This pollution should, it says, belong to the consumer nations, not the producers. A successor to the Kyoto protocol which did not recognise this would punish China for our consumption. 

Western countries are of course denying responsibility, but Monbiot believes a breakthrough is possible, and cites Lord Stern, who is working closely with the U.K Government on the latest rounds of climate talks in Copenhagen. Said Stern:

My own view is that we probably need something like an average of the two, or a combination of the two. But the logical point China makes is that there is a definite responsibility with the consumer and not just with the producer is a sound one.

If a compromise can be reached, a significant hurdle will have been crossed in order to lay the groundwork for meaningful change. We must lead by example on issues like climate change, without finger pointing and without blame. Time is running out, and consequences are simply too dire to spend time bickering on issues like these. 

(photo by lhgszch)