Barry Goldwater would appear liberal on today’s political spectrum

Image courtesy of freedomsphoenix.com

The latest tentative debt deal, substantively shaped by Tea Party demands, confirms the premise of a national rightward shift offered by the Christian Science Monitor’s Liz Marlantes – her opinion piece is a must-read for those who care about the direction our nation is taking:

Washington

 

For a generation, he has been considered a model of conservatism in Washington – at moments, perhaps, the model. Over the course of his 34-year career, US Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) of Utah has clashed with Big Labor. He has championed right-wing judicial nominees. He has consistently opposed federal gun control measures and backed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He has sponsored or cosponsored a balanced budget amendment – which would require Congress to spend no more than it collects in revenues – no fewer than 17 times. In 2010, the American Conservative Union gave him a perfect 100 ranking.

Yet today Mr. Hatch faces formidable opposition – for not being conservative enough. Activists on the right are attacking him for his vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the financial-market bailout initiative, and his willingness to work with Democrats like the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. They complain that he has voted to raise the debt ceiling 16 times. It's looking increasingly as if Hatch will face a Republican primary challenger next year – and could very well lose.

MONITOR QUIZ: Weekly news quiz for July 25-29, 2011

In some respects, this is simply a case of a senator who's spent more than three decades in Washington butting up against a public mood that is intensely antiestablishment and – particularly on the right – opposed to compromise. Like most longtime public servants, Hatch has cast a number of difficult votes over the years, and he has at times reached across the aisle in order to get things done.

But Hatch's troubles also say something about the way in which the nation's political needle has been moving. Over the past four decades – and more sharply over just the past few years – the geopolitical center of America has shifted rightward. It hasn't happened on all fronts – certainly, there are some areas where the country has clearly moved to the left, such as views on gay rights. But on a host of other issues, from guns to the role of government, the center of debate has edged closer to the conservative position, while activists on the right have moved even further out on the political spectrum.

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The worst bet in all of politics

Gale  Russell Chaddock at the Christian Science Monitor offers a lucid analysis of where Congress is now with debt ceiling negotiations, and it’s not pretty.

Washington

 

After a night of high drama on Capitol Hill, a legislative solution to the debt crisis now shifts to the Senate, where leaders of both parties must now try to guess what will pass in the House – perhaps the worst bet in all of politics.

The situation is the result of strategic mistakes in the buildup to Friday's debt-ceiling votes, which produced an outcome exactly the opposite of what GOP leaders had hoped. Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio had hoped to win support from House Democrats this week by scaling back the House's earlier “cut, cap, and balance” bill. With Democratic support in the House, the bill would have had a credible shot in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Instead, his proposal alienated not only House Democrats but also the president and GOP conservatives. After an aborted attempt to hold a vote Thursday, an amended bill did at last pass the House Friday, 218 to 210, but without a single Democratic vote and without 22 Republican defectors. Later Friday, it failed in the Senate, which voted to table Mr. Boehner's bill, 59 to 41, effectively derailing it.

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“The poor are shunned but the rich have many friends”

Jim Wallis, Christian leader for social change

You have to credit Jim Wallis for his efforts to remind our political leaders - especially those on the right who boast that ours is a Christian nation - that according to biblical teachings, God is on the side of the poor. 

Wallis goes so far as to suggest that God is watching the debt limit debate that of late has boiled down to whether to close tax loopholes for the rich or axe programs to aid the poor.

Are you listening America?

The markets are watching, the Republicans are watching, the Democrats are watching, the media are watching, the pollsters and pundits are watching. The public is watching and is disgusted with Washington, D.C.

When it comes to the bitter and ultra-partisan battles over the budget, the deficit, and the fast-approaching deadline for America to avoid defaulting on its financial commitments, the whole nation and even the world is watching.

But God is watching too.

Others are watching to see how their self-interests will benefit in the final deal. Or they are watching to see who's up and who's down, who will get the political win, and whose election chances will be better afterward.

Forty-eight hours after President Obama mentioned corporate jet tax deductions, and suggested they might not be as important as scholarships for low-income kids going to college for the first time, a headline appeared in the New York Times reading, "Industry Set for Fight to Keep Corporate Jet Tax Breaks." Wow. That was pretty fast. The ones who will win the current battle over the budget and deficit are the ones who are watching. As the book of Proverbs teaches, the poor are shunned, but the rich have many friends.

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A 93-year-old blogger speaks out at the Huffington Post

Yesterday afternoon, I visited Cups & Scoops, the coffee shop adjacent to the branch library in Woodbury. My memoir writers group meets monthly in a conference room there and I often stop by to check out a book and enjoy a cup of coffee. 

Over time, I’ve become acquainted with the two women behind the counter. The younger one, the mother of several children, is also a writer. In her spare time, she’s working on a historical novel, and she’s a member of a writers group that recently spun off from a class in writing at the Loft.

I’ve been using a cane lately and after paying my bill, I  was trying to figure out how to manage everything with only my left hand free when my writer friend came around to the other side of the counter and carried my coffee and chocolate chip muffin to my favorite table.

Despite severe arthritis in both knees, I’d long resisted using a cane as it seemed, well, so suggestive of old age. But almost immediately I noticed a considerable gain in mobility, and I’ve been gratified by the kindness and thoughtfulness of people I encounter when I’m out in public. After enjoying my coffee and reading for awhile yesterday, I exited the library through the front entrance; a gentleman I’d never met before hastened to hold the heavy doors open for me.

With many pleasant experiences like the above in mind, I read with intense interest this morning “Why our society is ageist,” by 93-year-old Rhoda P. Curtis. (Rhoda is the author of "Rhoda: Her First Ninety Years" and "After Ninety: What". )

Regardless of your age, you owe it to yourself to read Rhoda’s insightful and uplifting article published at the Huffington Post:

My young friend, Lila, who just celebrated her 57th birthday, told me that her mother, Elizabeth, was reluctant to see her friends anymore because, as Lila said, "She wanted them to remember her as she used to be."

How sad. Elizabeth is only 83, and is quite healthy by my standards. I will be 94 in February, 2012; I can't walk more than one block without running out of air, and I take lots of pain killers to ease arthritical pain. When I look in the mirror in the morning, I see an old face, but one with a vibrant look of curiosity in the eyes. With the help of a caregiver, I take a hot shower every morning and gratefully accept my caregiver's help in putting on my clothes, especially my stretch stockings. I do some exercises recommended by my physical therapist.

Whenever the pain lets up, we go to the local Y and I walk in the water, use an underwater bicycle and soak in the spa. That's the physical routine. Since I'm a writer, and a retired teacher, I've signed up for two play writing groups and I go to plays and concerts. I discuss politics vigorously with other activist friends. Once in a while I cook for friends, for my son and his wife. My grandchildren are off doing their thing; I like my life!

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Washington’s loss is Harvard’s gain as Elizabeth Warren resumes her teaching position

Photo credits: avery.com

It’s Washington’s loss that Elizabeth Warren is resuming her teaching position at Harvard. Her high ethical standards, personal integrity, courageous leadership, and in-depth grasp of economic issues, well demonstrated in her creation of the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, evidently made her a target of the GOP and Wall Street. 

Warren’s unpopular status with the alliance that brought about the great recession naturally compelled the Obama Administration to throw her under the bus instead of nominating her as director of the agency she founded. 

However, Warren’s admirers in the political arena are urging her to run for the Mass. senate seat in opposition to Republican Scott Brown in 2012.

Joseph Williams at Politico reports:

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor credited with creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — and who drew constant flak from congressional Republicans and Wall Street for doing it — is heading back to Cambridge.

Warren, who served both as a White House adviser and adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the CPFB, will return to her teaching job at Harvard, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.It said that Raj Date will replace her as an adviser to Geithner, effective August 1.

The move comes a year after President Barack Obama tapped Warren to oversee the creation of a government agency established by Congress to guard consumers against financial products like subprime loans and high-interest credit cards.

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Obama’s strategy for negotiating with the Repubs: start near the 50-yard line and then move closer to their position

President Barack Obama at a meeting with his advisers in the Oval Office, June 8, 2011, Souza/White House 

 

 

Thanks to Paul Krugman in his item titled President Pushover for linking to Elizabeth Drew’s just published article in the NY Review of Books. Drew offers a blunt assessment of Barack Obama’s strategy for negotiating with Republicans:

Someday people will look back and wonder, What were they thinking? Why, in the midst of a stalled recovery, with the economy fragile and job creation slowing to a trickle, did the nation’s leaders decide that the thing to do—in order to raise the debt limit, normally a routine matter—was to spend less money, making job creation all the more difficult? Many experts on the economy believe that the President has it backward: that focusing on growth and jobs is more urgent in the near term than cutting the deficit, even if such expenditures require borrowing. But that would go against Obama’s new self-portrait as a fiscally responsible centrist.

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Debating the term “entitlement” with NewsHour Economics correspondent Paul Solmon

PBS NewsHour Economics correspondent Paul Solmon.

Finally, someone else in the media is protesting the use of the word "entitlements" for Social Security and Medicare. Art Pronin at TaylorMarsh writes:

The term “entitlement” is one of late I have begun using and should not. And you should not. Obama calls SS, Medicare and Medicaid “entitlements,” but this a term no Democrat should use. Why?:

“Entitlement” is a misleading word because it masks the ugly reality of reducing medical aid for the poor, the disabled and anyone over 65 as well as cutting Social Security. Calling such programs entitlements is much more comfortable than describing them as what they are–Medicare, Social Security and money for good schools, unemployment insurance, medical research and public works construction that would put many thousands to work.

It’s also a Republican word. It implies that those receiving government aid have a sense of entitlement, that they’re getting something for nothing. 

Well, Art, entitlement may be a Republican word, but it’s been a popular one in recent months among our faux liberal pundits at major online news sources and the self-righteous PBS NewsHour crew. Last February, I complained to the PBS ombudsman regarding the repeated use of the term by NewsHour correspondents to describe the self-funded Social Security and Medicare programs. As a result, NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solmon and I exchanged emails on the issue, and despite our disagreement, I do appreciate the courtesy, time, and patience demonstrated by Solmon throughout our debate.

Solmon replied to my initial complaint as follows:

Dear Ms. Bergman,

As a NewsHour "regular" for a quarter century now who has covered "government entitlements" the whole time, I've been asked to respond to your complaint to the PBS Ombudsman. The plain fact is, "entitlement" implied a legal RIGHT to a benefit for more than a century, long before it acquired any "derogatory" tinge whatsoever. Indeed, "entitlement" was a term meant to cement that right, not stigmatize it, as MIT political scientist Michael Wallerstein noted in an article in 1978.

 Even today, the term "entitlement" is generally defined as "a right granted by law or contract" (wordnetweb.Princeton.edu) or "right to benefits" (Merriam Webster). Princeton's wordnetweb lists 14 definitions from different web sources, of which 12 carry this meaning. Two suggest "privilege," although even they do not mention a pejorative connotation. In Merriam Webster, this is the third of three definitions: "a belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges."

Paul Solmon

To which I replied:

Dear Mr. Solman,

I appreciate very much the great lengths you went to in order to prove that NewsHour regulars mean no disrespect to America's seniors in their use of the word 'entitlement.'

And I suppose you would also defend the punditry back in 08 who accused Hillary Clinton of feeling 'entitled' to be the next president - always said, of course, with contempt.

I would argue that words acquire different meanings over the years and 'entitlement' has definitely acquired negative connotations. I was startled the other night when the NewsHour's Gwen Ifill repeatedly badgered Jacob Lew, director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, in an attempt to provoke him into explaining why the Obama Administration’s budget didn’t address those 'entitlement' programs. Ifill repeated the word 'entitlement,' at least four consecutive times until Lew finally explained to her the Administration’s rationale for dealing with the issue. I'm sure there's a video of the interview somewhere - check it out.

I came away suspecting that NewsHour regulars are determined to cut Social Security and Medicare to defend their own 'entitlement' to government funding.

Sincerely,

Virginia Bergman

Finally Solmon rather grudgingly acknowledges that “entitlements” may have acquired negative overtones in recent years:

Dear Ms. Bergman,

You are, I can't resist acknowledging, entitled to your opinion. I simply submit that you're wrong when you impute derogation of social security to me and my colleagues on the basis of a word all of us have long used to describe it, in my case for three decades or more.

I understand that what you think you hear and what we consciously mean don't jibe. In responding, I hoped to reassure you that your fears were unwarranted. My failure notwithstanding, your persistence is instructive: 'entitlements' seems to have acquired an overtone of which I was unaware. To my considerable surprise, I was told the same about 'homosexual' just last week. It's now a pejorative, I was told. If confirmed, the word will leave my casual vocabulary, as has the 'Negro' and 'colored people' of my youth, 'Indians,' 'patsy' and 'hooligan' (anti-Irish) and who knows how many more. As may 'entitlement' with regard to retirement benefits, if the meaning has widely morphed. But if I do so it will be because I can't know what's in the heads of others until they tell me, any more than anyone can know what's in my head -- until I tell them.

As for economic motivations, both I and my wife are seniors, counting on social security and Medicare.

Sincerely,

Paul Solman