Long Live Teddy!-The real Progressive

For once I would like to take a moment away from the daily noise of politics and partisan attacks and reflect on one of our greatest Presidents (and my personal favorite when I was a political science major), Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. Now many of you may be thinking, how does old Teddy have to do with anything we see in the news today? Plenty. Teddy was the politicians who largely invented the term "Progressive" that we hear so many Democrats claim to be and Republicans rail against. Those who claim to be progressive today should look towards Teddy and they will learn a few things. While in school I wrote several very long essays and term papers on Mr. Roosevelt and found him to be a most fascinating and incredible man who was able to save our nation from corrupt government, environmental disaster, and global obscurity. Under Teddy's tenure, we cracked down on the political reward system that ravaged our government on the national level and forced individuals up for government jobs to prove they are qualified and not just because they know somebody...something we have seen a resurgence in recent years sadly....

Also under Teddy's tenure as President he saved literally millions of acres of national parks by executive order to save it from ambitious and destructive developers of the day (it took an act of Congress to finally stop him lol). He was the first "Environmentalist" President and without his actions we wouldn't have the many national parks we all know and love.

And possibly Teddy's biggest accomplishment was his actions in the area of foreign policy. When most people hear foreign policy and Teddy in the same sentence they think mainly of the Panama Canal. While that may have been his most famous achievement it isn't necessarily his best action. Two events during Teddy's presidency are key in my mind: the Treaty of Portsmouth and the so-called Great White Fleet.

The Treaty of Portsmouth was the agreement that ended the bloody Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The conference for this treaty was hosted by Teddy Roosevelt himself and while he wasn't deeply involved in the negoatiations, his role in organizing it and volunteering our nation for the talks earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. This was the first time an American President had overtly helped to end a foreign war we as a nation were not part of. And for what reason did Teddy do this? The idea that he did it out of the kindness of his heart or a love of peace sounds nice but is highly unlikely. To me, Teddy saw an opportunity to boost the United States' image and clout around the world and he did just that.

The second great foreign policy achievement of Mr. Roosevelt was the so-called Great White Fleet. This was the massive naval buildup that started before Teddy entered office for which he capitalized and helped boost American military power around the world. This buildup was capped off shortly before Teddy left office with a world-wide tour of this great fleet that was meant to show off and flex our military muscle. This tour is cited by many military histories as one of the reasons the Japanese choose to build up there navy during the first few decades of the 20th century that eventually led the clash between the Japanese empire and Pax Americana on the fateful day in December 1941.

Teddy's presidency was also noted for an economic scare the could have crippled the nation 22 years before the Great Depression. During this scare in which people scrambled to withdraw their money from banks which inturn caused banks to begin failing. Where was Teddy while all this was going on? Out hunting of course lol. Today such indifference to the economy would be and has proven to be political suicide (see John McCain September 2008). But this was a different time when the President wasn't necessarily expected to be able to fix the economy or manage it during a crisis because there just wasn't any precedent for it like there is today and I don't think that is such a bad thing. In Teddy's day the government just left the markets alone (with expection to crushing unfair monopolies) but the Scare of 1907 proved that some governmental control or supervision is vital to stable and fair economy (though this lesson wasn't learned til the 1930's). Funny enough, the man who saved Wall street and the banks from a major crisis in 1907 was none other than US Steel founder J.P. Morgan who infused million of his own dollars into the banking system to bring confidence to the market. Can anyone image Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Donald Trump giving millions of their own money to help the failing banks back in 2008? I didn't think so.

But for me, it was Teddy's attitudes towards Politics as usual that really impresses me. Even today his thoughts on the government still ring very true and could have easily been made by a political pundit yesterday and not a hundred years ago. Today I read a quote of Teddy's that really hit me and it's inspired me to put up a few quotes of his this month in hopes of inspiring others to really think bout "Politics as Usual" so cheers all to all those who call themselves Progressives should look towards Teddy's words and heed them...Long Live Teddy!

Mr. Cheney..What can I say?

For the last ten days I have been taking a break from politics and my blog to relax and bit and for the Turkey Day but something has awakened my political spirit and that great honor goes to none other than Darth Vader himself, Dick Cheney.

Mr. Cheney has always been one of my least-liked politicans, to say he is an idiot would be foolish because I have never doubted his intelligence. To be absolutely honest I believe he was the most powerful VP in American History and also the most dangerous. The day he left office was a great day in my mind (because for all his mistakes, at least George was likable). Well unlike most former VPs, Cheney has continuously inserted himself in political agrument and made a complete Ass of himself. The main issue he has been whining and growling about is President Obama decision making towards Afghanistan. He has practically called the President a coward for "dithering" in his decision. While I do agree President Obama has taken a bit too much time making this decision, such decisions about war and our Soldiers is one that should never be taken lightly or hastely...

But it isn't what Dick Cheney said that angers me the most, it the audacity he has to even think that anyone should even pay any attention to him..because if anyone dithered in Afghanistan it was Bush and Cheney because while Obama has spent many months trying to make his decision, Bush and Cheney IGNORED our mission in Afghanistan for 6 years! To think this draft-dodger (5 deferments during the Vietnam war) has the guts to say ANYTHING bout someone's combat decisions...it's just despicable. This man who has made a career of bad decisions in the area of foreign policy from his abandonment of Afghanistan during his tenure as Sec. of Defense under Bush Sr. to the invasion and botched occupation of Iraq with his equally worthless ally (and possibly the worst Sec. of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld to his lack of attention towards the war in Afghanistan when he was Vice President should just sit down and shut up because he is the LAST person I want to hear an opinion about Obama's decision-making....and while he may have a constitutional right to his opinion but he should have some respect for the President of the United States and just sit down and shut up bout issues he screwed up and helped create....Long Live Darth Vader

Fun Fact of the Week

I've decided that every week I'll post an interesting political fact...just something new for the blog lol...here goes nothing!

FUN FACT - NOVEMBER 20th, 2009

The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. It has been changed 4 times in its storied history but it's the writer that is the interesting part...He was a Baptist minister and..(Glenn Beck cover your ears) a SOCIALIST! Who'd a thunk?

Sarah Palin...Oy Vey..

Well, after seeing nothing but Sarah Palin on MSNBC, FoxNews, and POLITICO...I have finally decided to direct my attention towards Palin. She is possibly the most divisive person in American politics, even more so than President Obama in certain aspects. So attention has been given to her as of late that CBS conducted a poll on how Americans see Mrs. Palin but I'll get to that in a little bit. In the meantime, I'd like to address Palin's book and its attack on McCain aides who she claims held her back and pushed her into situations she was comfortable with. While there is likely some truth to these claims, almost every major news agency and non-partisan groups (such as POLITICO) have found that most of her claims are false and McCain's aides have even provided emails to counter Palin's comments but I think there is a bigger issue here that no one seems to be addressing...if it weren't for these aides and campaign officials no one would even know who Sarah Palin is! Sure the people of Alaska knew of her but I consider myself a pretty politically aware person especially during elections and her name wasn't on any of the short lists of VP candidates I saw...whether she agrees with the decisions of McCain's advisors is largely irelevent considering she owes her very national political fame to them..it's called being a decent and RESPECTFUL. To be honest, she was the VP candidate not the actually candidate and very rarely does anyone even pay much attention to the VP choice in the grand scheme of things but she has changed all that (which I do give her cudoos for). And there are some that see her attitude towards the McCain campaign in her book that indicates she thinks if she had been "let loose" McCain could have won the election....which I think is honestly ridiculus.



I myself was seriously considering voting for John McCain in 2008 but John choosing her for VP was the main reason I didn't vote for him. And I'm not the only one. There are many people I know in my home state that have told me time and time again that she is the reason they voted ultimately picked Obama over McCain...and the recent polls by CBS continue to reflect this belief that most Americans find her unqualified for national office (if she were to run). In this poll, 66% of Americans don't think she should run for President in 2012. The surprising thing to me is that this poll shows that only one group would like her to run, White Evangelicals and only by 4 points. Republicans are split right down the middle and Democrats (not surprisingly) overwhelmingly denounce the idea of her running.

Honestly, I don't think Sarah Palin is nearly as dumb as many people say she is, I just don't think she is as great as other people think she is. She does have one real thing going for her, she is definitely a political outsider which many Americans see as a good thing (something I don't really agree with). The problem(s) I have with Palin is that she doesn't seem to have much perspective on many political issues and she just seems to speak the conservative line and as of late seems to do nothing but complain about the 2008 campaign she has yet to take any real responsibility for her mistakes and if she can't do that she will never win over independents who want politicans who act like adults and not like a spoiled child blaming everything on someone else which is just dishonest and pathetic. The other problem I have with her is this claim her supporters say over and over that being a governor of a state means she has more experience than Mr. Obama before he was elected. While in theory this is a good argument it isn't true for ALL governors. Alaska is one of the smallest states in terms of population and population density and to me the only governors that are really qualified to govern the whole nation would be governors of Florida, Texas, California, or New York because not only have they had to deal with large populations but large and diversified economies and a diversified electorate. Claiming running the state of Alaska is the same as running the country just on a larger scale is absolutely ridiculus and obsurd. I said the same thing when former Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa tried to win the Democratic nomination last year. This claim is further crushed by the fact that she QUIT as governor because she claimed she wouldn't be able to win another term and would be a "lame duck" term which says alot. If she wasn't confident her own state would re-elect her for another term how does she think she is going to convince the American people to vote for her? Many have compared her quitting of the Alaskan governorship to Dick Nixon's actions after losing the 1960 presidential elections which eventually propelled him to the Presidency in 1968 but there is a flow in this thinking as well. Dick lost the election and spent several years prepping himself for the national stage and used the Governorship of California as a stepping stone to the Presidency (much like Ronald Reagan a decade later)...Palin seems to be plunging right back into the political arena just a year after losing an election (as VP) and just months after quitting as Governor of Alaska which just makes me wonder...what if Congress challenges her and makes her presidency stressful and bothersome will she just quit like she did as Governor? She can't even seem to take responsibility for her resignation and blamed it on the Alaskan legislature and her former brother in law and not on her own inability to handle the situation....can anyone think of the last time a political quiter still acted like they had a chance at higher national office? That would be like Dick Nixon acting like her could run again for President just a year after he resigned...it's just crazy!

In normal times I think people (including Republicans) would largely ignore such a quiter but these aren't normal times. There is a strong anti-government sentiment in American and she is just the kind of political outsider people are looking for. To top that off, when one looks at the possible Republican candidates for 2012, she is the only exciting possibility. To be honest I don't think she will run in 2012 because she knows she can't win...just yet. If she is thinking what I'm thinking (frightening thought I know) she is waiting for 2016 because she knows with Obama gone (if he runs for a second term and wins) it would be much easier to challenge any likely Democratic successor and in the mean time she can build up political alliances and stay out of the political fray of Washington and repair her image and quietly build support. But by then she will have lots of political competition from another young Republican upstart, Bobby Jindal. So she may very well be tempted to run in 2012 because she knows she has a better chance of winning the Repub. nomination but I doubt she could defeat Obama (unless he does something really really stupid) due largely to her image as a quiter and a whiner. But I will give her this, she does have a hell of a following and definitely a larger one than any other well know Republican and I think that says something about the shape the Republican party is in these days...

Logical Healthcare Reform...I know crazy sounding right?

In the last few days, the political body that monitors and studies Medicare and Medicaid announced that their study of the current House bill for healthcare reform could potentially cost our nation hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming decades. Specifically, the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) announced on Saturday that they predict the House bill will INCREASE health spending by $289 billion by 2019 and healthcare will cost 21.1% of our GDP (compared to 20.8% currently). Among their findings includes some of the following:
1. The Public Plan will likely cost 4% more than private plans
2. 3million more Americans will be covered by their Employers because while 15 million more should be covered, many employers will shift 12 million of those Americans to the Public Plan to save costs.
3. 18 million people will likely remain uninsured and choose instead to pay federal fines.
4. The Bill would base Medicare payments to hospitals based on performance/productivity which could drive many hospitals to not accept Medicare.
5. The healthcare system could be severly strained by the massive influx of newly insured patients.

Obviously, several officials at the White House are challenging parts of this analysis and to be honest all analysis' should be looked at not as certainties but as possibilities..but there is likely some truth to this report and this just proves what I've been bothered about by this whole process..too fast and too one-sided to be the most logical type of reform. I've discussed in a previous blog on how Congress should have handled healthcare reform but I didn't go into a great bit of detail because I hadn't done enough research to be more confident in my observations but now that I've further explored both Republican, Democrat and Independent ideas on reform I'm offering a new and improved analysis:

As with my first ideas, I believe the Healthcare system should be reformed by several separate but independent bills. This way if only one or two of the bills make it through they will still help drive down costs somewhat (better some reform than none).
1st bill - Outlaw practices such as disqualifying people for pre-existing conditions and dropping people when they become sick. Also, remove the Insurance Companies Anti-Trust exemption. However, I do think the idea of being able to buy insurance across statelines in a possible compromise in this bill (if independent studies show it would drive down costs).

2nd bill - Limited Tort Reform (to maintain patients rights to protect themselves from malpractice) Case Study on Wellness programs' effectiveness on reducing costs (they sound good on paper but with people living longer preventative care will become more expensive).

3rd bill - Create a Public Option for those who can't afford private health insurance (largely targeted at basic services so private insurance will remain viable) and instead of an Opt-Out (in which state has to vote to exclude itself out of the program after it's created) let it be an Opt-In inwhich each state would choose to include itself in the Federal program by each legislative action or voter initiative.

Now this is a fairly logic approach with bits of reform from each side and I think would likely be reform Americans could get behind but sadly I fear such a Logical approach is a seemingly lost art in Congress these days..what happened to the days when the President could reach out not only to his own party but to the other major party (LBJ and Reagan come to mind)...has partisan politics become so great that simple cooperation is now considered political suicide? Sad times we live in friends..

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1109/CMS_House_bill_increases_health_care_costs_.html

The Dangers of "Revolutions"...

A Hard Pill to Swallow...

Well, we now have a bill passed through the House of Representatives that hopes to reform our dysfunctional healthcare system. I actually watched part of the floor debate late saturday nite and to be honest there was only a few strong speeches from the Republicans that nite, while there were several strong and persuasive speeches by Democratic leaders, especially that of Rep. Weiner (yes that's his real name). He held up a copy of the Insurance package that each member of Congress and employee of the Federal government receives and asked the body shouldn't every American receive this kind of choice when it comes to their healthcare? He made a very good point, for several reasons but primarily because members of Congress receive excellent healthcare because they get a choice of several different plans and more importantly they will continue to have this great health insurance even after they leave Congress! To me, this is ridiculus because even if a person is elected for just once term (whether it be 2 years for House members and 6 years for Senators) they get government-aided healthcare for the rest of their lives...shouldn't they at least have to several terms before we start having to pay for their healthcare? This rationale is the reason many Americans and even several politicans have called on Congress to fully embrace the "Public Option" and be forced to take it themselves to prove it is a worthwhile venture and to be honest that does makes some sense to me...but the primary problem with this is it would cost far too much to be even remotely viable..

On the issue of costs, this bill is trully a hard pill to swallow...over $900billion over the next ten years according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and is "paid for" according to many leading Democrats, something I and most Republicans find unlikely. While directly this bill may not add to the deficit, it's the indirect effects that will likely affect the growing deficit. For example, one sticky issue that wasn't even covered in this House bill is what will happen to healthcare premiums under this bill...which sounds crazy because how can this massive bill is...which just proves what the Democrats' real goal from the start was...Coverage not Cost. Now this isn't a terrible position to have because to be honest you compare our healthcare statistic to ALL other industrialized nations and it will make you angry and disgusted...but as this time in our nation, with a still ever-present recession to deal with, Cost is what most Americans are concerned about and most believe we can worry about greater coverage later. As of right now, no one knows what such a bill would do for those of us who already have healthcare insurance either from private providers or employee-provided coverage. Does that make any sense to anyone out there??

Another sticky part of this bill is the idea of an individual mandate. This mandate would mean every American would have to get health insurance or else get fined by the government. Though there are subsidizes for those who can't afford such, this is the current aim of the Public Option. To many, including the President and myself, its makes some sense. Think about it, everyone is required by law to have car insurance in most states and which is more important your car's safety or your health? But this bill warps this good idea, because though most states do require you to have car insurance the federal government doesn't. This idea of the federal government telling its citizens that it has to buy something or else is not only ridiculus but borderline unconstitutional. An individual mandate should, like the Public Option, be left to each individual state to decide. Good thought...Terrible follow-through

Finally, the idea of not passing any kind of reform is also very difficult to comprehend. While I would be ok with it being delayed til the economy was stronger and could better handle it, I don't honestly believe the Republicans will be anymore accomodating with this issues in few years then they are now. If this is going to be our only chance to pass some reform then now is the best time to do it but I'm not sure if the final bill that emerges will be the best reform possible but that is the hazard of politics. Compromises are a necessity in politics and to hope for a perfect bill is setting yourself up for disappointment..but I often wonder why it is so hard for lawmakers to take a logical approach to the issues that affect all Americans today...perhaps I am the one being overly hopeful...but regardless this nation desperately needs some reform especially when compared to ALL other industrialized nations in the world.
So what should we, as American citizens, do about this Healthcare reform debate? The thing to do is do lots of research on all the proposals and bills and write/email/call your congressman/congresswoman or senator and tell them what you think because if you sit on the sidelines and don't put in your input you might just get something you don't like or support...so Pay Attention citizens!