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Yesterday, coming home from Drinking Liberally, I was reading the paper version of the New York Times. And I guess it was seeing all of the headlines for the Op-Ed columnists all together. I noticed that all the headlines were shit.

They’re Not What They Used to Be doesn’t tell you what “they” refers to. People over 30 will say that about just about anything if given the opportunity. Maybe say “conventions” in the headline. The Elevator Speech refers to a common phrase that BoBo mentions in the piece. But again, it’s a common enough phrase, especially in the business world that just using that as the headline doesn’t actually tell you anything. The Hex on Paul Ryan is the least terrible of the headlines, and it’s not particularly good either. I guess you could probably guess that the hex is being picked as VP, but the piece probably spent more time on Biden than Ryan, so maybe something more VP related would be better.

I’m fortunate.

When I was laid off from my job last month, I was eligible for continuation of my health insurance. I have enough money saved up that I can pick up the large portion of the premiums that used to be contributed by my employer. I was persistent enough, and knowledgeable enough, to navigate through the shoals of bureaucracy that lay between employer-based and formerly-employed insured status.

It was frustrating for several weeks. For instance, I wasn’t allowed to apply for continuation coverage while still insured. Then I couldn’t write a check for the first month of coverage until my application for continuation coverage was received, processed, and accepted. It took over a week after my check was deposited before my status was updated from no coverage to insured. Even after that change was acknowledged, it required a call to the PBM (pharmacy benefit manager), a business separate from the insurer, to update my prescription insurance.

When it all settled out, the insurance was reinstated retroactively to the first day of the month. But I still had to make sure that the claims rejected while I was in limbo were resubmitted (I haven’t yet contacted the lab that drew and tested a blood sample). Every one of those steps wastes money—customer service operators who could have helped someone else, clerks who had to open, photocopy, and file my applications, eligibility assessors who had to process my paperwork, personnel at my providers who had to send my claims to the insurer for a second time, computers that had to rerun those claims. It was only a little bit of money each time, but of course those infinitesimal amounts add up to big bucks when multiplied by thousands or millions of incidents. At least I get my EOBs electronically, so I didn’t kill many trees by generating all those papers twice.

My office visits and lab tests hadn’t made it through the providers’ billing systems by the time I became retroactively covered, so they had no visible impact on my wallet. Because the office personnel don’t know the alleged prices of their services, they probably couldn’t require up-front payment anyway. Not so when it comes to prescriptions … I had to pay the full retail price before I could get my medications. Once covered, I went back to the drugstore to have my credit card reimbursed for the cash I’d laid out.

As it happens, I take six “maintenance medicines”, prescriptions that I refill every month. All six are generics, costing appreciably less than the brand name versions of those medications. Even so, the full retail price of a month’s-worth of my meds was rather hefty — $445.74 (brand names would have run $864.67). After my coverage was restored retroactively, I went back to Bartell so that they could resubmit the prescriptions to my insurance. After applying the (appreciably lower) price negotiated by the insurer, and after accounting for the portion of that price paid by the insurer, my out of pocket cost for those six prescriptions came to just $11.98. I have very good insurance.

Similarly, were I not insured, the price of an office visit would be $219.00. My insurer had negotiated an allowed amount of $83.01 for that sort of visit, only about 38% of the alleged retail price. And my out of pocket portion of the insurer-negotiated price comes to a mere $12.45. To reiterate, I have very good insurance.

I knew it would work out as it did. And I had the resources to ease the difficulties of the bureaucratic delays. But suppose I didn’t have a credit card. Suppose I lived from paycheck to paycheck, with only a debit card and a meager bank account. Then, I would have had a problem. Then, I might have been required to choose between maintaining my health and buying groceries, or maybe even between medicines and rent. Forced into such a dilemma, filling prescriptions would undoubtedly fall behind food and shelter.

Being unemployed and uninsured, then, is a double triple-whammy:

• You have much less money coming into your bank account
• The bill for healthcare services is much larger than what an insurer can negotiate with the provider
• You bear responsibility for paying the entire bill

I could go on. I could mention the uncertainties faced by providers; because of the myriad insurers with myriad rules and myriad methods of bill submission, they never know how much they’ll actually receive in reimbursement for their services (and they must hire additional staff to handle all those procedures). I could argue for something like Medicare for all, or for a sensible healthcare system like those in civilized nations (there are many models to choose from, all of which are better and less costly than ours).

Instead, I’ll just thank my lucky stars that my layoff isn’t the kind of financial and health disaster that it could be if I didn’t have resources. And I’ll pay my insurance premiums every month.

[Cross-posted from Peace Tree Farm]

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Material for tonight’s discussions: The hurricane that is the G.O.P. convention, Rob McKenna’s refusal to release his tax returns, and, perhaps, today’s Arizona, Vermont, Alaska and Oklahoma elections ….

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle’s DL tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. And on Monday, the Yakima, South Bellevue and Olympia chapters meet.

With 235 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state four in Oregon and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter near you.

Over at Publicola, Erica C. Barnett takes the piss out of this King 5 report.

But first, KING offers viewers a lesson in transportation taxonomy. Specifically: Cars are “traffic”; transit is not.

“Here on Alaska, two traffic lanes have been taken away and turned into bus-only lanes,” reporter Natasha Ryan intones, gesturing—with no apparent irony—at the completely empty street behind her. (Screen shot above). “Residents say there already aren’t enough parking spots. … Now residents fear that once the RapidRide stops that are already in place here on Alaska actually start service it’s going to mean even less parking.”

Got that? Bus-only lanes “take away” lanes from the streets’ rightful users—single-occupant cars.

This is fine as far as it goes, but it got me thinking: it’s yet another TV report that assumes its viewers are drivers. I assume a majority of its viewers are drivers as a majority of the people in the region are drivers. But plenty of their viewers must take the bus, as the bus is regularly quite crowed.

A while ago, I wrote that I was always surprised when newspapers aren’t the biggest advocates of public transit. Since we’re getting to an era when TV news can be watched on the bus (but still not in the car, hopefully), I wonder if maybe the knee jerk anti-transit stuff will come to an end. But I won’t think it’ll come any time soon.

– I love the fact that The Stranger are trying to bring down Frank Chopp with a Socialist candidate.

– Last year I paid 22.6 percent in federal taxes after all the special deductions afforded me. That’s a pretty darn low effective rate by historical standards, and it’s low for all I receive from this country. My business depends on a country that continues to make savvy investments in its infrastructure, in its oversight of industry and in its people. Those public investments are instrumental to private market growth.

– He just said in public what these conservative fiends say behind closed doors after refusing to allow a vote on legislation that would establish a consistent standard of care in emergency rooms that includes information about emergency contraception.

– But one thing to keep in mind is there is no real penalty for respectable lying in our world of intellectual discourse.

– Want [h/t]

– This is the best headline I’ve seen in a while.

This year I will be starting college in France and I am going to France for two reasons. One being that I love France, its language and culture; the other being that I will be paying roughly $400 for my annual tuition without scholarships, grants, loans taken out or federal aid. (And additionally, I am still able to apply for federal aid for my housing). I am not able to go to a respected university in my own country without going into debt for the next few decades. It wasn’t always this way. And it doesn’t have to be.

Since the 1980’s the percentage of the federal budget that has been spent on education has decreased significantly, while the cost of education has skyrocketed and increased more than 5x the rates of inflation.

Some argue that we can’t afford to put more money into public universities. I say that’s a lie. We waste plenty of money into defense spending on weapons we will never use. Some defense spending is of course important, but to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into things we have no need for, or will never use is fiscally irresponsible.

What we can’t afford is committing an entire generation of educated people to the debt sentence. People starting their lives with tens of thousands of dollars in debt will not only severely damage our economy but it will also alienate entire groups of people who are brilliant and have potential that will either never be able to develop it or be struggling too hard to pay back into loans to be able to invest in their dreams.

The tuition costs we have now specifically hinder growth and that is not what education is about and it is not what our country says we’re about either. We say that we are the country of possibilities that anyone who works hard can make their way in the world. So then why am I someone who has worked hard for years needing to leave my country just to have access to a decent education without starting my adulthood in debt? I have stayed in the top 5% rankings in my class in one of the best schools in the country, a National Honor Society Member, took 10 AP classes, 5 honors classes and 5 classes that were considered college in high school classes for which I received college credit. I was a JV athlete in cross-country, a captain and varsity athlete in gymnastics and a varsity athlete in track and field in my high school. Additionally, I have babysat since I was 12 and babysat with an additional job from the time I was 16. And this year, on top of those two jobs, I had an internship with Darcy Burner.

So the fact that I didn’t receive enough scholarships to make school reasonably priced is not based on the fact that I didn’t work hard or didn’t do well in school. For every dollar in scholarships available there are 2 dollars of tuition. In the past, this number was reversed.

This week at a student activism conference, I met some students who have been in the ongoing protests in Quebec. They have had hundreds of thousands of students in the streets protesting and on strike because of the plan to have tuition raised from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2017. When an American student at the conference asked, “why are you striking? You have the lowest tuition in Canada.” The Quebecois student responded, “we have the lowest tuition in Canada BECAUSE WE STRIKE.”

So, why are we not all in the streets? We’ve normalized the way in which we deal with tuition and higher education but that doesn’t make it right. We need to fight for our right to an education. As a country we seem to agree with that from elementary school until high school so what makes higher education any different?

We can do better than this. We can fight for our right to education. If not an education that is as cheap as it is in France, at least something that is more manageable for the average citizen.The students of this country need to step up and stand together to fight for access to education without going into debt before it’s too late.

The Libertarian Party of Washington State is suing to keep Mitt Romney off the ballot.

Their argument may be familiar to you…I wrote about it recently. By law, the Washington State Republican Party is a minor party and it hasn’t met the signature gathering requirements of a minor party for the fall Presidential election.

You can read the Libertarian’s complaint here. But let me briefly recap the argument.

In 2010, the WSRP didn’t nominate, or even endorse, anyone in the only statewide election. The reason, as I mentioned earlier, was that the Teabaggers were going to raise holy hell if Dino Rossi (who entered the race very late) got the nomination over uber-teabagger Clint Diddier for the U.S. Senate race.

Dino Rossi won a spot on the general election ballot by placing second in the primary. But, prior legal precedent has firmly established that our top-two primary is a “‘winnowing’ election designed to send only two candidates on to the general election without regard to political party nomination or affiliation,” rather than a nominating election.

So the Republicans failed to have a party nominee receive at least 5% of the vote in a 2010 statewide election as per RCW 29A.04.086:

“Major political party” means a political party of which at least one nominee for president, vice president, United States senator, or a statewide office received at least five percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding state general election in an even-numbered year.

They also failed to file the 1,000 signatures this year as is required for a minor party by RCW 29A.20.111 et seq.

Thus the Libertarians point out in their complaint:

Accordingly, the Washington State Republican Party is not entitled under the R.C.W. to have its nominee’s name printed on the November general election ballot, although its candidate (presumably Mr. Romney) is entitled to run as a write-in candidate.

In other words, the Libertarians (who are currently a minor party) want fair and equal treatment with the Republicans who, evidence suggests, is now a minor party.

And they have a point! It is how the law is written. And if the law is followed as written, there should be no Republican presidential ticket on our ballots this fall.

Here’s the thing. The relevant RCW actually predate the top-two primary. And, from one perspective, the major/minor party status law doesn’t quite jibe with a top-two primary system. In fact, in 2009, the SOS office pushed legislation that would have changed the major/minor party part of the law to better reflect a top-two primary. Alas, the bill (SB 5681) failed.

After my last post on this topic, I emailed the Secretary of State office to ask for their take on this issue. Dave Ammons respond with a helpful summary of the SOS position:

The Legislature has not repealed the old RCWs that were put in place for the old pick-a-party primary system, so many of the old definitions are still on the books. All three levels of federal courts (District Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court) have commented at some point in the 8 year litigation over the Top Two Primary system that Initiative 872 impliedly repealed the old party nomination procedures for the pick-a-party primary. The upshot is that we have adapted many procedures for the Top Two Primary in WAC.

WAC 434-208-130 define major and minor political parties. The relevant paragraphs of the WAC state:

(1) For purposes of RCW 29A.04.086, “major political party” means a political party whose nominees for president and vice-president received at least five percent of the total votes cast for that office at the last preceding presidential election. A political party that qualifies as a major political party retains such status until the next presidential election at which the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of that party do not receive at least five percent of the votes cast.

In other words, the SOS office is relying on a WAC that changes the RCW, under the argument that the RCW’s major/minor party definitions were implicitly “repealed” when the pick-a-party procedures were replaced for the top-two primary.

The argument might make sense, except for two things. First, the major/minor party definitions as they exist under RCW are a little awkward to deal with, but they are certainly not incompatible with a system that primarily has top two primaries (except for presidential elections). Therefore, an argument can (and will!) be made that the definitions were not implicitly repealed as suggested by the SOS office. And you cannot use the WAC to “override” the RCW.

The second point is that the legislature actually considered the issue in SB 5681. They had a chance to change the law to dovetail with the definitions in the WAC. And they declined to do so!

It is a fascinating problem! That said, I don’t relish the idea of Mitt Romney being kept off the ballot.

What I enjoy about this predicament is just how fucked up the Teabaggers have made things for the WSRP. In almost any other year, the Republicans would have had the clone-like unity to rally behind the “chosen” candidate. They would have proudly nominated him and, knowingly or not, maintained their legal eligibility as a major party under all definitions. But not in 2010.

This is why I always keep a good stock of popcorn in my pantry….

Update (11:45 pm): I modified the post to remove an extraneous quote that was accidentally left in the original. I clarified the language in a couple of spots, too.

– People pointed out a year ago that Ryan’s plan will destroy Medicare. The Washington Post, the paper that brought down Nixon, responded by awarding that fact four cartoon Pinnochio heads. Journalism.

– The Greenwood food bank is running low.

– There are a lot of questions about the Chicks for Rob button. Not the least is how it got through whatever campaign bureaucracy there should be to stop this sort of thing.

– The supposedly liberal Seattle City Council can’t even support the tiniest bit of campaign finance reform. O’Brien’s proposal isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the status quo.

– And honestly, I’m surprised and impressed that the White House seems to have strengthened its spine and is resisting the silly demands of Republicans and their media abettors for apologies and denunciations when none are needed.

– RIP Johnny Pesky

Politics is a hot topic, even during these dog days of summer. So, please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet. The new Longview chapter holds their inaugural meeting at 6:00pm Wednesday at the Monticello Hotel. The new South Seattle chapter holds their inaugural meeting on Wednesday, 8:00pm at Lottie’s Lounge, 4900 Rainier Avenue. The Spokane chapter and Drinking Liberally Tacoma meet this Thursday. Finally, next Monday, the Yakima and Olympia chapters of DL meet.

With 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter near you.

Stephen: Gingrich is a baby-eating werewolf (via Crooks and Liars).

Roy Zimmerman: Iowa Edition of Vote Republican.

Mark Fiore: Dark Matters.

Sam Seder and Glenn Greenwald: The normalization of extremism.

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, Colorado edition:

SlateTV: Missouri “Right to Pray” amendment lets kids opt out of evolution .

Attack!!!!!

• SlateTV: The gloves are off!
• Young Turks: Romney attacks Obama with welfare ad.
• Bill Press: DNC says Romney Campaign is ‘hitting below the belt’
• Maddow: Welfare ad “dog-whistle” racism from Mitt Romney.
• Young Turks: ‘Son Of Boss’ Ad
• Newsy: Rep. Allen West fights ad.
• Sam Seder: Tasteless fear-mongering anti-Obama ad asks America “Are we safer?”
• Jon on Mitt’s flailing ‘Romneycare’ defense (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Newsy: Obama ad questions whether Obama has paid income tax.
• Buzz60: New Romney ad aims at Catholic swing state voters.
• Maddow: The SuperPAC political week
• Jon: mocks conservative freakout over ‘Priorities USA Action’ ad.
• Young Turks: Alan West punches woman in face in new ad.

Sam Seder: Mississippi church refuses a Black couple’s wedding.

Pap: Welcome to the era of Super PACs.

Roy Zimmerman: Montana Edition of Vote Republican.

NPR: Special Disaster Edition of It’s All Politics

Ann Telnaes: SuperPACs and their handlers put on a silly show.

Willard:

• Newsy: Rep. Ryan will be named Romney Running mate on Saturday Morning.
• SlateTV: Obama’s new nickname for his opponent.
• Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, New York edition.
• Bill Press: Mitt’s tax problem.
• Ed and Pap: Harry Reid is right about Mitt’s taxes
• The Spin Room: Romney’s running mate.
• Jenn with UW Prof. Matt Barreto: Can Romney make a dent in the Latino vote?
• Stephanie and Markos: Was Jon Huntsman Sr. Sen. Reid’s source?
• Young Turks: How you can stop paying so much in taxes—just like Mitt Romney
• Newsy: Can Romney recover from a very bad month?
• SlateTV: Some high profile endorsements for Romeny.
• Sam Seder: Mitt Romney doesn’t know anything about dressage? YEAH, RIGHT!
• Jenn with Democratic strategist Kiki McLean: Mitt’s running mate.

ONN: Onion Week in Review.

SlateTV: Will Ted Cruz’s prime time GOP convention speaking spot appease the Tea Party?

Stephen looks back on Obama’s war on pizza.

White House: West Wing Week.

This Week in GOP Voter Suppression:

• Pap: The Pennsylvania effort to suppress the vote.
• Maddow: New ID laws.
• Jon on GOP exaggerated voter fraud claims (via Crooks and Liars).
• Sam Seder: PA is the new FL in voter suppression.
• Sharpton: Republicans ramp up voter suppression effort.
• Sen. Scott Brown is disturbed by push to register welfare recipients to vote (via Crooks and Liars).
• Rep. Allen West defends disenfranchising Ohio voters (via Crooks and Liars).

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

I’m on vacation this week, so to provide content in my absence, I’ll be reading/making fun of parts of Mitt Romney’s book the rest of the week (then if I’m up to it, the rest of the book when I’m home). For Monday, here are some general thoughts and the intro.

The book is called “No Apology Believe in America.” I feel like you can make apologies for the bad things America has done in the past — and continues to do — and still believe in it. You can say, people we enslaved, sorry about that, it won’t happen again. People we went to war with who maybe we shouldn’t have, including the native people we took the land from: our bad. Hey Mormons and others we’ve persecuted for your religion: We’ll try to do better next time.

In fact apologizing when we fail to live up to our ideals is something we do because we believe in those ideals. You know who doesn’t apologize when they fuck up? A goddamn sociopath! I may have stepped on your toe, but fuck you for having a toe in the first place: That’s how Mitt Romney’s book title reads to me. But perhaps that’s reading too much into a title.

So, we’ll start off with the intro. Or I think it’s an intro. On the front cover of the book it says, “FEATURING A NEW INTRODUCTION FOR THIS EDITION” and this is before chapter 1. But it’s called “Believe in America” and isn’t actually called an intro in either the table of contents or the chapter head where all of the other chapters are numbered. So maybe just call it chapter 0, or chapter “Believe in America.” It starts off with a story about going to Walmart.*

Sam Walton was all around me.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Bear hug. OK, sorry it’s a metaphor. It’s also possibly the shittiest opening line I’ve read. Anyway, I swear I’m not going to quote every sentence, but here’s the next paragraph.

It was a few days before the Christmas of 2008. I was standing in the checkout line at Walmart, waiting to purchase the Tonka trucks and Buzz Lightyear action figures I has selected for my grandsons. As I looked around the store, I had to chuckle to myself. Somehow, that Walmart reminded me of Sam Walton himself. I’d never met the founder of Walmart, but I had read and heard a good deal about him over the years. People who knew him mentioned his attention to detail, his near maniacal passion about low prices, his plan to carry every single item a customer might want, and that he tended to be a spur-of-the-moment–almost impetuous–manager. I saw these very traits reflected in his store: low prices blazed** from signage, everything from tires to toothpaste were available for purchase, and, well, the store was not as organized and buttoned-down as those of other retailers I know. At target, for example, the aisles are wider and shelves are stocked and segregated like the Swiss might have done it. At Walmart, things look a bit more helter-skelter, more jumbled and maybe a little more entertaining. Yes, Walmart today is a reflection of its founder.

Wait. What about the Swiss? Is that a reference to cantons? Is that just casual racism that I don’t understand — the Swiss stock their aisles like this, but Americans stock their aisles like this. Is this some reference to his time in Europe? I know he spent a good deal of time in France, but has he ever been to Switzerland? I mean I know his money has, but has he? Target is an American store.

Anyway, then there’s a long discussion about how various companies reflect their CEO’s and founders. Microsoft and Apple reflect Gates and Jobs. Disney, reflects Walt Disney. Going to the Disney parks reflects on Walt years after he’s died. Between the Buzz Lightyear and the paragraph about how amazing Disneyland is, I think this intro might be sponsored by Disney.*** Anyway, lots of CEO’s are great. Oddly, he fails to mention that any of the employees at any of those companies might shine through when he’s visiting them. And then he transitions awkwardly from companies to all sorts of institutions, “schools, universities, charities, churches, even religions.” I’m not sure he needed to say “schools” and “universities” or “churches” and “religions.” But are those the only institutions? Please fill me in.

And it’s also true of nations. Nations are shaped by their founders, often for many generations and centuries after those founders are gone. The culture and character of America reflects the nature and convictions of the men and women who founded it.

Italics his. I’m actually going to go out on a limb and say America is better than it was at the founding. We don’t have slavery and we assume that women and people of all races and social classes are fully human. While we still have horrible wars, we’re more or less done with the stealing land phase of the country. I’m looking out my window right now and people are passing on cars and bikes and on foot. Men and women, and people of all races. This city in a place where the founding generation barely knew existed with technology they couldn’t have imagined is really better than they would have dreamed for it. Hell, just the fact that Romney felt he had to tack on “and women” is something the founding generation wouldn’t have thought to do.

Don’t get me wrong, we got a great legacy from this country’s founders. I can’t imagine anyone in the 1770’s and 1780’s anywhere in the world who would have been better to start the country. The notions of fundamental freedom they left us are important. But we also have a more difficult legacy because they were flawed people from a flawed time. This intro doesn’t deal with that beyond one aside in one sentence. “That first choice of freedom by the Founders–incomplete and only perfected by Lincoln four score years later–has made all the difference.” Yes, he thinks Lincoln solved all of our problems in 1856.

So that was cool until the 2006 and 2008 elections. Without naming names, the people who won those elections hate freedom. Then a long quote by Tony Blair, who apparently loves America more than Nancy Pelosi?

And we’re now to sub chapters (sub intros?) that start “Believing in America Means…” First Believing in America Means Believing in Freedom. He tells the story of his mother’s doctor who “hid in the coal bin of a ship that made it to America.” Since he’s a professional and white (a Russian Jew) Mitt doesn’t demand that he self deport. Instead he’s an example of freedom. And also Joe The Plumber was right. Also, Democrats passing laws they promised to pass is anti-freedom. Then he talks about checks and balances, never realizing that getting legislation through those checks might mean the laws they pass are compatible with freedom.

On to sub chapter (sub intro?) Believing in America Means Believing in Free Enterprise. You’ll be shocked to learn that there’s no mention of how large economic players use their power to distort free enterprise, despite that being something the founders knew quite well (hence all that East India Company tea in Boston Harbor). Nor is there any discussion of corporate responsibility generally to the community or to the state or to America. Freedom is letting corporations do whatever they want. Letting corporations devastate communities only increases freedom is what I get from his lack of addressing those things.

So what does he talk about? Why how Obama hates free enterprise. This feels a bit like the gentleman with a silk hat. Obama, you see, is a secret socialist. Then he says because in North Korea unlike South Korea, “citizens are nearly**** starved so that government and the military can be amply fed” any government jobs are inherently bad.

So, what are the awful things that are making us like North Korea? Using TARP money “for bailouts” instead of for saving the financial system, the fact that some unnamed trade talks haven’t been completed, health care, investing in green energy, “the rule of law was ignored in order to reward the auto workers union at General Motors” meaning that it’s different than the bailouts thing, the fact that there are boards and commissions in government, and that business people are being demonized in speeches. You know, socialism. He quotes a friend thinking about moving to France because at least those socialists have “really good food” because America love it or leave it, amirite? Also, if you’re privileged enough that you can seriously consider moving to France, you can get great food in America.

Then he quotes Thatcher, and I suddenly wonder if he meant to call it “Believe in the United Kingdom.” Then he half complains that rich people give “a lot more money” to Democrats than Republicans. I can’t write the infinity question marks to respond to that, so I’ll just write this instead (?*∞). Finally, he gets our history vis-a-vis Europe with the size government exactly backwards, claiming that our system was no government in the market place and not that we rebelled against that in England. So instead of the American System that brought us prosperity versus the rest of the world, he wants to go back to how economics was in England when we rebelled.

And so we’re on to Believing in America Means Believing in Opportunity. Sure, but guess if he points out that some people in America have less opportunity because of the circumstances of their birth? If you guessed “no” give yourself 0 points because that question is too easy. Maybe he would have mentioned it if he wrote the book before Lincoln solved our only problem in 1856.

Now in fairness to Romney, he does mention that at some point in the past there wasn’t equal opportunity, what with slavery and Jim Crow. Also, policies that harmed the Native Americans are mentioned vaguely. But he doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a legacy of those things in the here and now. He mentions rising above the situation of your birth, and that’s great for individuals. But he doesn’t seem to see that that situation of birth can be a problem if anyone can rise above it. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to how the Democrats are ruining everything, so:

Government can promote opportunity or it can crush it. Laws and regulations that govern business practices are essential for markets to function efficiently, fostering economic opportunity.

And you’ll be surprised to learn that elites (people wanting a level playing field are the definition of elites, no doy) who were elected in 2008***** are destroying free enterprise. He lies about tax increases on business and complains that financial regulations, without mentioning those regulations, are “not only depressing opportunity in that sector but also making it more difficult for businesses and entrepreneurs in other sectors to obtain necessary financing.” You’ll be shocked to your core to learn that he doesn’t mention that people weren’t lending before those regulations were enacted.

And now we’re to the penultimate subintro: Believing in America Means Providing for a Better Future. It starts off with a bold declaration that he completely fails to live up to. “I know how John Adams felt.” It goes on to talk about the hardships he suffered being away from his wife and children during the American Revolution to make this country what it would become. And yes, that was tough. But Romney fails to show how he has sacrificed anything at all to provide a better future.

Piggybacking onto Adams’ hardships wasn’t enough though. He then praises the sacrifice of the military. And God bless them, but they aren’t Romney. He doesn’t get to reflect their glory just because he writes a few paragraphs about them. Then he tries to tie them together, “In ways as different as our many occupations, we all make sacrifices for our children, and for the generations of descendents to come.” This would probably be better if he mentioned any of the sacrifices he has made. But he can’t because he has lived a life so privileged that he hasn’t really ever had to make sacrifices.

The rest of the subintro is about how Democrats are ruining everything. Borrowing is bad, blah blah teachers unions. You know who hates children? Teachers! Clearly.

And the final subintro is called The Choice for America. It’s more or less the same arguments he’s already made. The founders all agreed that we should have equal opportunity but that same “liberal elite” want equal outcomes. Again, he doesn’t mention how financial regulation or moderate tax increase on the wealthy or regulations would lead to equal outcomes: it’s just a given.
And finally (finally!) the last couple paragraphs.

They are also highly suspicious of free enterprise because it offers unparalleled opportunity for individual success and reward, and thus enables inequality. They endeavor to grow the scale of government, to empower it to guide the economy and make better choices for the people. While few of the liberal elite would ever openly advocate for the diminution of freedom and opportunity, that is the inevitable product of their policies.

OK player. A tax rate well below what it was for decades in the postwar period and regulation that you don’t like are going to destroy freedom and opportunity. This is logical.

These fellow Americans fail to appreciate the power of the choice that was made by the Founders—theirs was the creed of the pioneer, the innovator, the striver who expects no guarantee of success but asks only to live and work in freedom. This liberating inventing, creating, independent, current now runs from coast to coast. It has produced not only the renown, like Bill Gates. It also accounts for the men and women of every occupation who strive, who explore, who go beyond what is expected of them to reach for breakthrough and accomplishment. It is the engineer who tries to get one more mile from a gallon of gasoline, the chef who creates new recipes, the salesperson who goes off-script to make the sale, the educator who works with a child after school, the programmer who can’t rest until she has eliminated every excess line of code, the entrepreneur who starts his own business, the kid who launches a commercial site on the Internet, the person who edits an entry on Wikipedia, the farmer who plants a new variety—the list is endless. The pursuit of achievement, of discovery, of greatness, is what has made America the powerhouse of the world. And it has made us happy as well. Smother this spirit with the weight of government and America ceases to be America. That is what Washington is doing, and we must not allow it. Washington believes in itself. The American people believe in America.

Holy balls was that a long paragraph. And yet, I’m guessing the list isn’t as endless as Mitt thinks if editing Wikipedia part of what he mentions. That feels like he’s padding it. But does he not understand that that list can apply to pretty much every country? My God, if the marginal tax rate goes up, nobody will teach children or edit Wikipedia! Also, that engineer is probably striving to meet government standards to increase efficiency, so government regulation didn’t diminish that. Look, the entrepreneurial spirit is great. But whatever Mitt Romney’s straw man attacks mean for America, it isn’t what Democrats are doing to the country.

OK, this chapter took a lot longer to write than I’d thought when I started it (the only other thing I’ve tried was Lou Guzzo’s gigantic font, tiny chapter nonsense, and I just breezed through those). And this post is too long. So I think I’m going to break up the chapters for the rest of the book. The beginning of chapter 1 tomorrow.

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Folks interested in examining Electoral College scenarios may find Michael Tomasky’s Daily Beast article of interest:

So if Pennsylvania is off the boards, let’s look around. Imagine it’s election night, say 10:45 east coast time. Four eastern states haven’t been called yet: Ohio (18), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), and Florida (29). Also, in some Western states, the polls haven’t closed, or the races are too tight to project just yet—Colorado and Nevada, say. Arizona has just been called for Romney. At this point, Romney actually leads, 188 to 182. In this scenario I’m assuming Obama has won Iowa (6), which is admittedly close but where his lead has been stable at three or four points, and New Hampshire (4), where Obama has a similar fairly small but stable lead, and Michigan (16), where the gap appears to be opening up a little.

So it’s a six-vote Romney edge. They’re feeling great up in Boston. Especially with the big Eastern four still up in the air. Right?

Not really. Let’s look at these West Coast states….

Read the rest here.

While I was never as much of a supporter of Mike McGinn as, say, the folks at The Stranger, I volunteered with his campaign and was happy with the result. While voting for him didn’t stop the tunnel, I think he’s been good on more issues the city faces than he’s been bad, but there have been plenty of times when he fucked up. So sometimes when he fucks up people will ask me if I regret supporting him. But no I don’t. I honestly can’t think of a single time where having corporate anti-choice conservative Joe Mallahan as mayor would have been better for the city. And I can only count a few times where Nickles might have been better.

And McGinn has handled most of the things a mayor is supposed to handle in the way people want. The roads were clear pretty soon after the snow storm.* Crime has generally been down during his term, although is going up recently, and it’s tough to know how much you can attribute that to any specific policy or set of policies. He helped get more money for the Families and Education levy (you can argue how much is him and how much is, say the council and education activists, but replace him with Mallahan and I don’t see how it doubles). And now he’s helped make sure the garbage strike ended quickly in a way that the union appreciated [h/t to Howie on Facebook].

“Behind the scenes, we’re being told that was really instrumental in getting Waste Management back to the table. That’s what pushed them,” said Heather Weiner, political action director for Washington Teamsters Joint Council 28. Local 117, which represents the 153 recycle drivers who went on strike July 25, overwhelmingly approved a new six-year contract with the company Thursday morning.

Weiner said the calculus of the strike changed when the mayors of Federal Way and Seattle said they intended to hold the company accountable for missed collections.

The cities’ contracts with Waste Management allow them to impose fines for every service missed. Those fines could have amounted to $1.25 million a day in Seattle alone. When the mayors made clear their intention to collect those fines, the strike became more expensive for the company, Weiner said.

…

“We’ve had our differences with the mayor, but he stood up and did what he thought was best for the city,” [Weiner] said. “We’re very grateful that he decided to be public about enforcing the contract. ”

Within hours of the press conference, she said, the company was back at the negotiating table.

Obviously, you can’t know for sure how another person would have handled the situation. But it’s hard to see Mallahan not blaming the union. It’s hard to see this being resolved quickly and efficiently. It’s hard to see Waste Management feeling the same pressure to go back to the table if he was mayor. So I don’t know if I’ll vote for McGinn again. But I don’t regret voting for him last time.

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– No scab drivers as Waste Management and the union reach an agreement.

– Finally, women have access to preventive care. Now let’s get the word out

– Kirby Wilbur thinks that because Rick Steves has taken positions on things that will be on the ballot, he can’t do a bland, nonpartisan PSA on voting in the top two primary.

– Steve King is awful and kind of stupid [h/t].

– It will not be like this forever. Progress is being made. At times the pace seems glacial when we’d rather it poured forth like the Niagara, but attitudes are changing.

– “Domestic violence protections for all women shouldn’t be a Democratic or a Republican issue”

– This represents the kind of country I want to live in!

– Crisis Diversion Center to open Monday.

– Get your tickets to the Liberty Ball.