Lost in the moral maze surrounding Osama bin Laden’s death? John Ford’s classic western will show you the way As a certain someone once said: there’s an old poster out west … actually, forgive me. There’s an old poster by my desk, as I type this, for a movie that would have been at the forefront of my mind this week even were I not staring at a picture of Jimmy Stewart holding a pistol and looking rather troubled . If you haven’t seen The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance , then consider yourself immensely lucky, because you have the most wonderful treat ahead of you. The gazillions who know and love the John Ford classic, though, will be familiar with the story, set in a frontier town menaced by the outlaw Liberty Valance. Our principals are the grizzled cowboy John Wayne and the idealist newcomer Jimmy Stewart. A lefty lawyer beginning his political career, Stewart takes a frightful kicking from the start, but sticks with his programme of social reforms for the town – you may be on the point of spotting the analogy – working to improve education and even racial equality. Of Liberty Valance, he insists to John Wayne: “I don’t want to kill him. I just want to put him in jail.” Who’d have thunk it, then, that the person who should face down the outlaw in a duel is not John Wayne, but Jimmy Stewart. And who’d have thunk it even more that it is the bookish idealist who kills Liberty Valance with a single shot, in a piece of good fortune he can scarcely believe. Needless to say he becomes the town hero, and gets Wayne’s gal. It is only subsequently that Wayne tells him that the shot that killed Valance in the so-called duel was in fact fired by him, from across the street. Not the fairest of fights, you might be thinking – but in the Duke’s mind, the end justified the means. He urges Stewart to run for office and live up to the status this misattributed act has bestowed upon him – which Stewart duly does, becoming the state’s first governor and then a senator. Yet weighed down by the moral compromise on which his success is based, he finally confesses all to a local newsman when he returns from Washington for John Wayne’s funeral. Now he has learned the truth about Liberty Valance’s death, does the reporter debunk the myth? Please. He burns his notes, uttering the immortal line: “This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” And so to Barack Obama, who will forever be The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden, with all the inevitable moral grey areas the title implies. Admittedly, the facts about Bin Laden’s shooting have been corrected rather sooner than those concerning the death of Liberty Valance. At this rate, it will emerge by Monday that the al-Qaida chief was naked, with his hands up, and shrieking, “Not the face! I’ll tell you everything!” when he was gunned down. But whilst it might appear that the ineptitude of the White House communications department is rivalled only by that of the Pakistani security services, those first golden hours of mythmaking have shaped the narrative that will endure in American consciousness. The legend has become fact. For my own part, despite considering myself a liberal, I must confess my tears have struggled to liquefy over the manner of the unarmed Osama’s dispatch. It’s not that my bleeding heart is all out of type A, nor am I summoning the cartographers, having finally discovered the outer limit of my liberal sensibilities. But it has been a while since I’ve had to make imperfect sense out of this type of moral muddle without the aid of West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin. This extraordinary tale really is made for Sorkin, that most brilliant poet of liberal realpolitik, in whose hands its moral complexities and compromises would stay lodged in the public consciousness far longer than the current mudslinging between the CIA, Pakistan, the military and the international lawyers could ever guarantee. Channel-hopping only a few hours before the White House announced Bin Laden’s killing, I happened to stumble upon the Sorkin-scripted movie A Few Good Men, and watch for the umpteenth time Jack Nicholson’s terrible bastard of a colonel deliver that horribly convincing post-moral speech about why Tom Cruise’s college boy lawyer can’t handle the truth. That movie ends with Colonel Jessep facing trial, quite rightly, and it is difficult to disagree in theory that the Bin Laden story should have ended in a courtroom too – though what the al-Qaida Nuremberg would look like is anyone’s guess. Rather than taking place post-conflict, it would involve trying one’s enemy in an information war, while that war is still ongoing. (Incidentally, can you remember a single thing from Saddam’s trial? I’m ashamed to say all that sticks in my mind is the thought of the trapdoor opening at his hanging.) Indeed, as far as The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden goes, one can’t overlook that its Liberty Valance precursor was a story about the end of frontier – the creation of civil democracy out of a land of vigilantism and wild west brute force. Given that we are supposed to live in that civil democracy today, I know it would have been better – or perhaps righter – to have brought Osama to trial. But I can also see how it was never going to work out that way. And I do hope that Aaron Sorkin is the man to create enduring cinematic magic out of that Gordian knot. Osama bin Laden Obama administration Barack Obama John Ford James Stewart John Wayne US politics United States Marina Hyde guardian.co.uk
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Tyler the Creator touches down to talk goblins, chillwave and the trouble with saying stupid stuff Tyler Okonma, better known as Tyler the Creator, 20-year-old frontman of Odd Future , the world’s most notorious rap group, is having a fit. He was sitting cross-legged on the table of a boardroom in the London office of his new record company, XL – home to Adele, the xx and Dizzee Rascal – but now he’s on all fours, and in raptures. “Oh, my gosh!” he explodes as a bowl of bacon and syrup is placed in front of him. As he smells the food he emits a raspy gasp that sounds vaguely satanic. “Suck my dick,” he says to no one in particular, before tucking into his hearty American breakfast. It is 4pm. “Oooh, this is so fuckin’ good,” he moans in an impossibly deep voice, the one that has earned him a grievous reputation for rapping about murder, rape and all manner of depraved, disgusting acts. He resents being teased about going vegetarian. “Fuck, no,” he says, lifting his head from the plate to fix the Guardian with an “are you mad?” stare. “That shit’s gay.” You can’t really ignore Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All. Well, you could, but you’d have to not use the internet and not read any press. They are everywhere. There’s a good reason for the ubiquity: OFWGKTA are astonishing, both on record and live, where they approximate the combined imagined force of the Sex Pistols, Slipknot and NWA. At YoYo in Notting Hill last week, London’s most glamorous – as well as Adele, the xx, Mark Ronson, and Jamie Reynolds of Klaxons – turned up just to watch OF’s in-house engineer Syd Tha Kyd do a DJ set. Tyler and OF mates Left Brain and Hodgy Beats were there, sitting in the background, holding court. Suddenly, Syd cut in an OF track and, out of nowhere, the three jolted into life and began moving manically as though they’d been cattle-prodded across the room. Even the none-more-cool crowd went wild, a scene repeated at two rammed OF appearances at Village Underground and the Camden Crawl. And you should hear their records. No, you really should. For sustained and diverse brilliance, only the Wu-Tang Clan with their numerous side projects come close, and even they weren’t this precocious (Odd Future are aged 17-23) or prolific. Over the past 18 months, the eight rapping and recording-artist members of OFWGKTA (a collective that also includes producers and illustrators), have made more than a dozen albums available for free download . Forget “mixtapes”, these are fully realised works; sample-free, each meticulously crafted and worthy of major label release. There are two albums by the Jet Age Of Tomorrow, who specialise in light’n’breezy cosmic lounge funk; two collections of by turns psychotic and psychedelic crunk by MellowHype; two albums of hi-tech latterday G-funk by Mike G; some blunted beats and experimental studio play courtesy of Domo Genesis; even a suite of exquisite R&B with soul-baring lyrics from Frank Ocean. Then there are the three Odd Future compilations (The Odd Future Tape Vol 1, Radical and Some OF Shit) that have hinted at what OFWGKTA are capable of, and the two solo works that have made it explicit: Tyler’s Bastard and Earl by Earl Sweatshirt. Bastard is ghoulish, but it’s also rather gorgeous, with its stark piano lines and pillowy keyboards. There is misogynous loathing of the most extreme kind, and there is suicidal despair, all wrapped up in murderous tunes and expressed in that viscous growl, like Rakim with all the nutritional elements removed. In this writer’s opinion it is one of the best rap albums ever made, free or otherwise. Earl is an even more sick (in both senses) attraction, with its buzzing synths like drills in an abattoir made all the more menacing by the almost facetiously pretty melodies. What impresses most is the witty intricacy of the rhymes as the appallingly articulate (and, it has to be said, furiously funny) rapper, 16 when he recorded it, moves from one repugnant scene to another. The group’s totemic outlaw figure, the Sid Vicious to Tyler’s Johnny Rotten, only blazingly talented, Earl is currently in a facility for wayward youth in Samoa; chants of “Free Earl!” are commonplace at OF gigs. “He’s so good,” says Tyler, who has finished eating and is sitting, legs outstretched, on the table. “I want to be on his level one day. That dude’s sick. He has such a natural flow; I don’t know how he does it.” ‘I don’t know where all the anger comes from. It’s just this dark place that I go to when I’m alone. We all do’ – Tyler the Creator What about Tyler: how does he do it? Inspiration for the plaintive atmospheres and mournful violins, he explains, comes from “a bunch of French jazz, old soundtracks, library music, shit with crazy chord progressions and changes in it.” He adores Roy Ayers: “Listening to him, it’s like, ‘How the fuck did he find that?’ That shit’s tight.” There are elements in his productions that rap fans will recognise – the murk of Cannibal Ox, RZA’s haunting strings – while others may hear in its billowing synths echoes of chillwave ( Toro Y Moi even produced a “chopped and screwed” version of Tyler’s track French). “I listen to Washed Out, Beach House and Broadcast ,” says Tyler. “That’s what I’m influenced by. [That's why] the music is a mixture of pretty chords, fuckin’ hardcore drums and basslines, and really nice strings.” It was Fader and Pitchfork who first picked up on OF. They were rejected by the hip-hop blogs, and Tyler is less enamoured of the form (“I respect it but I don’t really like it”). He seems happier with the notion of OF continuing a legacy of rock radicalism rather than fitting into rap history. When it’s proposed that they’re signalling one of those seismic moments comparable to Public Enemy in 1987 or Dre and Snoop in 1992, he seems disappointed. When I add names such as the Sex Pistols and Nirvana, making OF part of a bigger continuum, he perks up. “You mean like how the Sex Pistols and the Doors came along and changed everything?” he wonders. “Oh, I see what you’re saying now.” He loves Joy Division – Ian Curtis, Hitler and late US comedian Bernie Mac would be his three perfect interviewees – and the idea of Berlin. “I’ve never been there but I’m expecting it to be fuckin’ grimy and scary and dark, but like a really beautiful place once you look past it,” he says. You really couldn’t ask for a more pithy encapsulation of the OF aesthetic. But what about those lyrics, Tyler? “I usually just say what I’m feeling at the time, what I think is cool,” he replies. “It’s sporadic. It’s the first things that come in my head. Like the word ‘goblin’,” he says, referring to the title of his imminent solo album and first official release. “It randomly came to me. Goblins are little mischievous fucks.” Brought up by his mother, a former social worker, much of the rage in his music is directed at his father, who abandoned him, and at women, for whom he reserves his most chilling put-downs. “I don’t know where that anger comes from,” he reflects. “It’s just this dark place that I go to when I’m alone. We all do.” Does he not consider the effect his music might have? “I never think of that. I just make shit I want to listen to. Not everyone’s got to like it.” Tyler still lives with his mother and he claims she doesn’t listen to his lyrics, but she has been seen at OF gigs, getting off on the music. “She just supports her son doing what he always wanted to do, being on the cover of magazines, so she can show her friends,” he laughs. “I know if I was a parent and my son was on fuckin’ TV, I would look past any negative shit he said and just support my kid.” ‘They’re some of the nicest people you will ever meet. We play, we joke, we have fun. None of us wanted to grow up. This is how we keep our innocence’ – OF DJ-engineer, Syd Tha Kid And yet, for all Tyler’s debased language and casual use of the word “faggot” in conversation, he and OF are not feral skatekids rampaging across the States on a diet of pills and “purple drank” cough syrup. He might announce, “I’m bad milk – drink it” on Bastard, and he might lurch around on stage in a ski mask, but actually he’s a teetotal non-smoker who doesn’t touch coffee. “I’m a pretty nice dude,” he says. “I have fun and people take it the wrong way. Like when I start making fun of people and fucking with them, it’s just funny to me.” Is there anything he wouldn’t rap about? He pauses for a moment: “Not that I know of yet.” Has he ever been offended by anything? “Somebody called me a homophobe. I’m not homophobic. I just say ‘faggot’ and use ‘gay’ as an adjective to describe stupid shit.” Enter Syd “Tha Kyd” Bennett. She’s engineered most of the group’s recordings in the guest house at the back of her “upper-middle class” (her phrase) parents’ home. Still only 19, she used to be a business student; she also happens to be gay. Does her presence allow the boys to “get away with it”? “In a sense it does,” she says, although she adds that, “Even if I wasn’t here, they’d still be saying the same stuff.” Asked whether she condones the use of brutal language against women, she replies that she must do; after all, she says, “I mixed it all. I listened to those tracks millions of times.” She argues that “offensive words don’t deserve their value, their power”, and that they’re just words. “He [Tyler] isn’t necessarily saying, ‘I want to rape so-and-so.’ They’re just sick, twisted fantasies that he’s had, based on girls that have hurt him in the past. A lot of people have sick, twisted fantasies, so why not give them something to relate to?” She considers her male Wolf Gang members “some of the nicest people you will ever meet. We play, we joke, we have fun. None of us wanted to grow up. This is how we keep our innocence.” Just when you’re reeling from the idea of OF as joyous naifs, you read Tyler’s Twitter feed, where he’s declaring his intention to slap a child at the airport for wearing a Donald Duck hat. “Yeah, she wouldn’t shut the fuck up,” says Tyler of his message. “I didn’t want her to have it [the hat]. Stupid little bitch. I shoulda socked her ass. See? A six-foot-two black guy talking about socking a seven-year-old Asian kid in the face … that’s funny to me!” Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All Rap Hip-hop Dance music Pop and rock Paul Lester guardian.co.uk
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As the hit musical Dirty Dancing prepares to go on tour, our reporter joins young hopefuls at open auditions, and asks how a low-budget film became ‘a cultural event that lasted decades’ You could probably argue that Flashdance is the better film, but it is Dirty Dancing that captured our collective heart. They call it “Star Wars for girls”. It’s not much on paper: a family goes on holiday, and its late-teenage daughters fall in love, one with a good’un – Patrick Swayze on career-defining form – and one with a bad sort. Steamy dancing occurs, that’s the main thing. When the stage version opened in
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With Sudan dividing into two countries, and with many issues still unresolved, it is in the interest of all Sudanese that there be mutual trust and respect for each country’s security and stability Two months from now, Africa faces a momentous change, as the continent’s largest country divides into two – the republics of Sudan and South Sudan. The division is the result of the January 2011 referendum on self-determination for southern Sudan provided for under the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) that ended Sudan’s civil war, one of Africa’s longest and bloodiest conflicts. Of more than 3.8 million southern Sudanese who voted, nearly 99% chose secession. This new chapter offers an opportunity for the Sudanese to put the conflict of the past behind them for good. Norway, the UK and the US, longstanding humanitarian and development partners of Sudan and guarantors of the CPA, are supporting the creation of two economically viable and peaceful states that enjoy good governance and respect for human rights. We are also committed to assisting those affected by conflict and poverty. As representatives of the three guarantor countries, we are visiting both Khartoum and Juba this weekend to make clear our support for these goals. Several key parts of the CPA are incomplete, and many issues remain to be decided between north and south before separation on 9 July. These include determining the border; security arrangements; citizenship issues; wealth, sharing including oil revenues; a framework for future north-south co-operation; and the status of Abyei (a community that straddles the north-south border). We are greatly concerned by an impasse in talks on some of these critical issues. We call on the parties to make the final tough decisions needed to create sustainable economic, political and security arrangements between the two future states. Sudan and South Sudan will be each other’s most important neighbours thanks to economic, historic, geographic and cultural ties. It is in the interest of all Sudanese that there be mutual trust and respect for each country’s security and stability. The livelihoods and practices of pastoralists – the herders who traditionally traverse the north-south border zone – must be protected and accommodated. A “soft” border between north and south allowing for trade and the easy movement of people would benefit all Sudanese. Allegations of support to proxy forces by both sides are serious, and should be independently investigated. The CPA rules out the existence of armed groups outside the two established forces of the parties To help reduce poverty, increase transparency, and utilise revenue from natural resources, including petroleum, for the benefit of the citizens of both states, both governments should join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative , which supports sustainable economic growth and government accountability to citizens. Both north and south must also diversify their economies, reduce their reliance on oil, increase their food security through agricultural development, and expand health, education, water and sanitation services. We must also not lose sight of Darfur, where much still needs to be done to finally resolve the conflict in that region. For nine years, Darfuris have endured violence, displacement and poverty. This situation is deplorable and intolerable. For long-term stability and development, there must be an inclusive and just peace in Darfur, with all groups and voices represented in the political settlement. We will continue to work intensively with all parties towards this goal. Despite the challenges inherent in separating and launching a new nation, this is a time of opportunity for all of Sudan. Stability and co-operation across north and south will benefit all Sudanese. Increasing trade and co-operation between north and south, and with all of Sudan’s neighbours, will provide economic opportunities for youth, who make up more than half of Sudan’s population, and for women and girls, who have not had full access to opportunities for education and employment. We urge the international community to press for peace and development throughout Sudan, so that this region that has endured far too much suffering will not return to conflict. We urge the governments of north and south to urgently resolve the outstanding issues before 9 July to ensure a firm footing for their future relations. We believe that the UN has an important role to play in supporting these two new states after the end of the CPA, and look forward to ongoing discussions on its future role. And we are committed to continuing to help the governments and people of both countries develop in peace and partnership, offering hope and a brighter future for all Sudanese. • Erik Solheim is Norway’s minister of environment and international development, Andrew Mitchell is the UK secretary of state for international development, and Rajiv Shah is administrator of the US Agency for International Development Sudan Darfur Andrew Mitchell guardian.co.uk
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It’s a mysterious condition that affects tens of thousands worldwide. But what is it? It all started in August 2007, on a family holiday in New England. Paul had been watching Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix with his wife and two sons, and he had started to itch. His legs, his arms, his torso – it was everywhere. It must be fleas in the seat, he decided. But the 55-year-old IT executive from Birmingham has been itching ever since, and the mystery of what is wrong with him has only deepened. When Paul rubbed his fingertips over the pimples that dotted his skin, he felt spines. Weird, alien things, like splinters. Then, in 2008, his wife was soothing his back with surgical spirit when the cotton swab she was using gathered a curious blue-black haze from his skin. Paul went out, bought a £40 microscope and examined the cotton. What were those curling, coloured fibres? He Googled the words: “Fibres. Itch. Sting. Skin.” And there was his answer. It must be: all the symptoms fitted. He had a new disease called morgellons . The fibres were the product of mysterious creatures that burrow and breed in the body. As he read on, he had no idea that morgellons would turn out to be the worst kind of answer imaginable. Morgellons was named in 2001 by an American called Mary Leitao , whose son complained of sores around his mouth and the sensation of “bugs”. Examining him with a toy microscope, Leitao found him to be covered in unexplained red, blue, black and white fibres. Since then, workers at her Morgellons Research Foundation say they have been contacted by more than 12,000 affected families. Campaign group the Charles E Holman Foundation states there are sufferers in “every continent except Antarctica”. Thousands have written to Congress demanding action. In response, more than 40 senators, including Hillary Clinton , John McCain and a
Continue reading …Pawlenty Punts When Asked About His Views on Creationism During First GOP Debate
May 6, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media During the first GOP presidential primary debate in South Carolina, Governor Tim Pawlenty is asked about his support for the teaching of creationism in public schools and whether he personally believes in the theory. Pawlenty said that he supported local school boards making those decisions and then tried to change the subject before he answered whether he personally supported it. After Pawlenty attempted to pretend that he in any way shape or form supports union membership, Williams brought him back around the the initial question he asked and Pawlenty punted again and just said it should be left up to the parents and local governments. Here’s more on that topic from the Minnesota Independent — Out of the closet: Pawlenty endorses teaching creationism in schools .
Continue reading …This Would Be A Good Time To Stop Pouring U.S. Blood And Money Into Afghanistan, But White House Says ‘No Change’ In Policy
May 6, 2011 No Comment
White House press secretary Jay Carney says we’re not leaving Afghanistan any sooner than planned. And that’s not even mentioning the deaths we’re inflicting on the civilian population: WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterated on Thursday that the killing of Osama bin Laden would not alter the president’s policy with respect to the war in Afghanistan. Speaking to reporters en route to the president’s Ground Zero visit, Carney said that strategy regarding the Afghan war “remains unchanged.” “In many ways,” he elaborated, “while the mission against bin Laden was a singular event, it was part of a general intensification of our focus on the AfPak region, on the need to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda, which was the primary goal of the president’s policy in the AfPak region, and it was reflective of a general success that we’ve been having in taking out al Qaeda members and terrorists in the region.” “Success”? An economic black hole that’s crippling our economy in a country called “the graveyard of empires” is a success? “Taking out” al Qaeda members and terrorists? Come on, Mr. President, it’s time to get the hell out of there. Stop channeling Richard Nixon. The public line is at odds with several reports that have surfaced in the immediate aftermath of bin Laden’s death in Pakistan. The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran, one of the most respected reporters on the beat, wrote on Tuesday evening that the Obama administration was “seeking to use the killing of Osama bin Laden to accelerate a negotiated settlement with the Taliban and hasten the end of the Afghanistan war.” Several anti-war lawmakers, meanwhile, have heightened their calls for a more precipitous withdrawal of troops — the process of which is set to begin in July 2011. At least one aide to an on-the-fence congressmember said that bin Laden’s death would encourage his boss to at least re-think his position. Another, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), has acknowledged that he is readjusting his position. The death of bin Laden would, indeed, seem like an opportune break point at which the Obama administration could make major readjustments in its AfPak strategy without eliciting domestic criticism. A drawdown of forces would be a logical option. So too would be readjusting budget priorities to reflect the growth of al Qaeda’s presence in Pakistan .
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As one of NewsFeed’s colleagues pointed out, this is what happens when candidates only buy the .com, not the .org. Click “Meet Jane Corwin” on janecorwin.com, and you’ll learn that the Republican NY State Assemblywoman “is running for Congress because our nation is in crisis.” On janecorwin.org, which mirrors the official site’s design, click “Heil
Continue reading …Paul Ryan has become the gift that keeps on giving. Unfortunately his ideas are very destructive to the welfare of American lives so that the rich can get richer and that’s never a good thing. Simon Lazarus did some good work exposing the important fact that Ryan’s plan indeed consists of an individual mandate, which is exactly what Republicans have been campaigning against. The Ryan budget would reshape Americans’ access to health insurance mainly through two provisions, both of which pressure people to purchase private health insurance to an extent and through mechanisms that are materially indistinguishable from the supposedly toxic Obamacare mandate. One of these Ryan budget proposals — as yet little noticed by pundits or politicians — is almost an exact copy of its equivalent in the Affordable Care Act. Igor Volsky catches Paul Ryan admitting to that important fact at one of his town halls in Racine: Some conservatives have tried to defend Ryan’s plan from the comparison, but it turns out that the congressman agrees with it. During a town hall in Racine, Wisconsin on Friday, Ryan — who has previously opposed the measure — admitted that his plan includes a mandate: Q: If Medicare becomes a voucher program, would you require seniors to purchase private insurance and if so isn’t that an individual mandate? If you will not require them to purchase insurance how do you propose to prevent a situation where the costs of uninsured seniors is very expensive and gets passed on to me as a private policy holder? RYAN: Its mandate works no different than how the current Medicare law works today, which is you just select from a wide range of different plans . It literally would be like Medicare Advantage… Instead of keeping up a lie, Ryan was forced to concede on this matter. I’m sick and tired of Ryan telling us that everybody over fifty five won’t be affected under his new plan. All that is is a way to try and keep seniors that are currently in the program from turning against him, but we have generation after generation of Americans that eventually will have to fit neatly into Ryan’s scam of a plan and we will have our lives irrevocably destroyed by his Randian ideas for seniors. Gov. Scott Walker tried to scam the police and fire fighters in Wisconsin when he excluded their unions from losing their collective bargaining rights in his draconian bill, but they were courageous enough not to be sucked into his trap. However, Medicaid is in real danger now as Ezra Klein outlines: There are two reasons Medicaid is more vulnerable than Medicare. The first is who it serves. Medicaid goes to two groups of people: the poor and the disabled. Most of the program’s enrollees are kids from poor families, though most of the program’s money is spent on the small fraction of beneficiaries who are disabled and/or elderly. These groups have one thing in common, however: They’re politically powerless. The second is who pays. Medicare is a federal program. Medicaid is a state-federal match, and it kills states during recessions, as unlike the federal government, states can’t run deficits, and so they find themselves with increased costs because they have more people in need but decreased revenues. So there are a lot of governors — particularly GOP governors — straining under overstretched state budgets who’d like a way out of their fiscal crisis that doesn’t include raising taxes, and there are a lot of federal legislators who’d like to save money without having seniors mounting protest marches outside their office, and Medicaid begins to look like an answer to everyone’s problem. “You can shift costs to states so they can be the bad guys while the federal policymakers pretend they didn’t hurt anybody,” says Bob Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Digby: Mandates and Medicaid I don’t know how this affects the mechanism to expand Medicaid under Health Care Reform but even under the best case scenario (that the dollars are already mandated under the bill and the president refuses to sign anything that changes that), if these cuts go through, it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. Certainly, any cuts that are happening in 2012 will create a worse starting point for the level of expansion envisioned for 2014 and beyond. This was always my gut feeling about the health care reform bill and I wrote about it incessantly during the endless debate . I believed it could improve the private insurance market for some members of the middle class who are self-employed and that there was some potential for cost savings down the road. But the only truly liberal vision contained within it — bringing more poor people under Medicaid — would fall apart once the deficit hawks who were already circling swooped in. (Remember Ben Nelson’s Medicaid “opt-in” proposal?) This was the bait they used to trap progressives and I understood exactly why they couldn’t get out of it. It’s very hard to walk away from something that might benefit millions and millions of poor people. But it was always the weakest link and it’s just sad to see it all playing out so predictably. What I do know is that the poor and disabled are always at the forefront of the chopping block whenever ‘ budget cuts” are the talk of the town and for the great country that we live in, it’s a complete travesty. Where’s that American exceptionalism from the Bill O’Reilly’s when you really need it?
Continue reading …Paul Ryan has become the gift that keeps on giving. Unfortunately his ideas are very destructive to the welfare of American lives so that the rich can get richer and that’s never a good thing. Simon Lazarus did some good work exposing the important fact that Ryan’s plan indeed consists of an individual mandate, which is exactly what Republicans have been campaigning against. The Ryan budget would reshape Americans’ access to health insurance mainly through two provisions, both of which pressure people to purchase private health insurance to an extent and through mechanisms that are materially indistinguishable from the supposedly toxic Obamacare mandate. One of these Ryan budget proposals — as yet little noticed by pundits or politicians — is almost an exact copy of its equivalent in the Affordable Care Act. Igor Volsky catches Paul Ryan admitting to that important fact at one of his town halls in Racine: Some conservatives have tried to defend Ryan’s plan from the comparison, but it turns out that the congressman agrees with it. During a town hall in Racine, Wisconsin on Friday, Ryan — who has previously opposed the measure — admitted that his plan includes a mandate: Q: If Medicare becomes a voucher program, would you require seniors to purchase private insurance and if so isn’t that an individual mandate? If you will not require them to purchase insurance how do you propose to prevent a situation where the costs of uninsured seniors is very expensive and gets passed on to me as a private policy holder? RYAN: Its mandate works no different than how the current Medicare law works today, which is you just select from a wide range of different plans . It literally would be like Medicare Advantage… Instead of keeping up a lie, Ryan was forced to concede on this matter. I’m sick and tired of Ryan telling us that everybody over fifty five won’t be affected under his new plan. All that is is a way to try and keep seniors that are currently in the program from turning against him, but we have generation after generation of Americans that eventually will have to fit neatly into Ryan’s scam of a plan and we will have our lives irrevocably destroyed by his Randian ideas for seniors. Gov. Scott Walker tried to scam the police and fire fighters in Wisconsin when he excluded their unions from losing their collective bargaining rights in his draconian bill, but they were courageous enough not to be sucked into his trap. However, Medicaid is in real danger now as Ezra Klein outlines: There are two reasons Medicaid is more vulnerable than Medicare. The first is who it serves. Medicaid goes to two groups of people: the poor and the disabled. Most of the program’s enrollees are kids from poor families, though most of the program’s money is spent on the small fraction of beneficiaries who are disabled and/or elderly. These groups have one thing in common, however: They’re politically powerless. The second is who pays. Medicare is a federal program. Medicaid is a state-federal match, and it kills states during recessions, as unlike the federal government, states can’t run deficits, and so they find themselves with increased costs because they have more people in need but decreased revenues. So there are a lot of governors — particularly GOP governors — straining under overstretched state budgets who’d like a way out of their fiscal crisis that doesn’t include raising taxes, and there are a lot of federal legislators who’d like to save money without having seniors mounting protest marches outside their office, and Medicaid begins to look like an answer to everyone’s problem. “You can shift costs to states so they can be the bad guys while the federal policymakers pretend they didn’t hurt anybody,” says Bob Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Digby: Mandates and Medicaid I don’t know how this affects the mechanism to expand Medicaid under Health Care Reform but even under the best case scenario (that the dollars are already mandated under the bill and the president refuses to sign anything that changes that), if these cuts go through, it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. Certainly, any cuts that are happening in 2012 will create a worse starting point for the level of expansion envisioned for 2014 and beyond. This was always my gut feeling about the health care reform bill and I wrote about it incessantly during the endless debate . I believed it could improve the private insurance market for some members of the middle class who are self-employed and that there was some potential for cost savings down the road. But the only truly liberal vision contained within it — bringing more poor people under Medicaid — would fall apart once the deficit hawks who were already circling swooped in. (Remember Ben Nelson’s Medicaid “opt-in” proposal?) This was the bait they used to trap progressives and I understood exactly why they couldn’t get out of it. It’s very hard to walk away from something that might benefit millions and millions of poor people. But it was always the weakest link and it’s just sad to see it all playing out so predictably. What I do know is that the poor and disabled are always at the forefront of the chopping block whenever ‘ budget cuts” are the talk of the town and for the great country that we live in, it’s a complete travesty. Where’s that American exceptionalism from the Bill O’Reilly’s when you really need it?
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