Constant Comments
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL is https://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
Share Article The Commentariat -- November 8
I've been wondering why the Affordable Care Law has taken such a beating, especially since it contains so many provisions that are popular with voters. Then it dawned on me. Every Republican who thinks s/he should be President in 2012, which is practically every Republican, is using healthcare reform as a cudgel not just against President Obama but also against the presumptive Republican frontrunner, Mitt Romney, who -- while governor of Massachusetts -- approved a healthcare package similar to the federal program. -- The Constant Weader
** Eugene Steuerle of the Brookings Institution: "... for close to 15 years now, all major congressional actions have basically been giveaways. Now, even if you believe we need more temporary stimulus, the long-run budget is so out of whack that our newly elected officials must restore some sort of balance. That's right, our elected officials must become tax collectors in the broadest sense of the word: they must ask us to give up something.... Our newly minted leaders have just won the honor of being our tax collectors." Via Michael Scherer of Time: "In other words, if you hate your government now, just wait a few more years."
** Zachary Goldfarb of the Washington Post: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is supposed to oversee national banks, has done less than nothing to scrutinize the largest banks' foreclosure procedures, relying on the banks to do their own policing & preventing state regulators from acting.
Paul Krugman: Fed Chair Ben "Bernanke is getting the Obama treatment, and making the Obama response. He’s facing intense, knee-jerk opposition to his efforts to rescue the economy. In an effort to mute that criticism, he’s scaling back his plans in such a way as to guarantee that they’ll fail."
Tom Shanker of the New York Times: " is about to receive an unusual opportunity to reshape the Pentagon’s leadership, naming a new defense secretary as well as several top generals and admirals in the next several months."
Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal: "The drive in Congress to repeal the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy appears all but lost for the foreseeable future, with action unlikely this year and even less likely once Republicans take charge of the House in January."
Alissa Rubin of the New York Times: "The choices for Afghan women are extraordinarily restricted: Their family is their fate. There is little chance for education, little choice about whom a woman marries, no choice at all about her role in her own house. Her primary job is to serve her husband’s family. Outside that world, she is an outcast." They often resort to suicide, commonly by self-immolation.
As Jim Fallows titles it, "The Mid-Term Elections, in One Chart":
Eric Ostermeier of Smart Politics: "Only 3 percent of 230 Democratic U.S. House incumbents on the ballot increased their margin of victory in 2010 compared to 2008; Nancy Pelosi had the second largest increase."
** RicK Hertzberg: the midterm electorate was "whiter, markedly older, and more habitually Republican: if the franchise had been limited to them two years ago, last week’s exit polls suggest, John McCain would be President today." And they're ignorant. ...