Bankruptcy in America – Poverty Stricken Greg Owens Has Just $400.00 in Checking and $400.00 in Savings

And We Find a Great Example of One of Mitt Romney’s ‘Takers’

The New York Times has the sad and pathetic story of Mr. Greg Owens.

. . . on New Year’s Eve, Mr. Owens filed for personal bankruptcy.

According to his petition, he had $400 in his checking account and $400 in savings. He lives in a rental apartment at 151st Street and Broadway. He owns clothing he estimated was worth $900 and his only jewelry is a Concord watch, which he described as “broken.”

Oh dear, another poor and destitute, uneducated and unemployed worker in America.  Not so fast.

The silver-haired, distinguished-looking Mr. Owens would seem the embodiment of a successful Wall Street lawyer. A graduate of Denison University and Vanderbilt Law School, Mr. Owens moved to New York City and was named a partner at the then old-line law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, and after a merger, at Dewey & LeBoeuf.

Today, Mr. Owens, 55, is a partner at an even more eminent global law firm, White & Case. A partnership there or any of the major firms collectively known as “Big Law” was long regarded as the brass ring of the profession, a virtual guarantee of lifelong prosperity and job security.

It turns out the poor man just cannot get by on an annual salary of $355,000 a year.  And of course he would rather stiff his creditors than touch his rather massive retirement account.

Mr. Owens has been well paid by most standards, but not compared with top partners at major firms, who make in the millions. (Mr. Pierce was guaranteed $8 million a year at Dewey & LeBoeuf.) When Mr. Owens first became a partner at Dewey, Ballantine, he made about $250,000, in line with other new partners. At Dewey & LeBoeuf, his income peaked at over $500,000 during the flush years before the financial crisis. In 2012, he made $351,000, and last year, while at White & Case, he made $356,500. He listed his current monthly income as $31,500, or $375,000 a year. And he has just over $1 million in retirement accounts that are protected from creditors in bankruptcy.

And his legal specialty, mergers and acquisition where presumably one must know at least a little about finance.  But apparently not.

It turns out that some of Mr. Owens’ problem is not entirely of his own making.

The bulk of his potential liabilities stem from claims related to the collapse of Dewey & LeBoeuf, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. Even stripping those away, his financial circumstances seem dire. Legal fees from a divorce depleted his savings and resulted in a settlement under which he pays his former wife a steep $10,517 a month in alimony and support for their 11-year-old son.

That’s right, some judge has decided that his wife and son are entitled to $10,500 a month in income in order to ‘live’.  And they probably think they are entitled to more, after all that’s probably a lot less than their friends have.  Yep Mitt Romney, the Owens’s family, the embodiment of a sense of entitlement in America.  Too bad you weren’t able to feature them in your speeches and commercials.

George Will is Ecstatic Over Legal Challenges to Health Care Reform – Just Giddy at the Thought of Taking Health Care Away From Millions

It’s Why He Fits Into the Conservative Mainstream

The egregious columnist for the Washington Post, George Will writes about the legal challenge to health care reform and it is not hard to read the glee in his tone at the possibility that a legal technicality may upend part of the law.

Scott Pruitt and some kindred spirits might accelerate the ACA’s collapse by blocking another of the Obama administration’s lawless uses of the Internal Revenue Service. Pruitt was elected Oklahoma’s attorney general by promising to defend states’ prerogatives against federal encroachment, and today he and some properly litigious people elsewhere are defending a state prerogative that the ACA explicitly created. If they succeed, the ACA’s disintegration will accelerate.

The problem is that one reading of the law is that insurance subsidies may only be available with state run exchanges, and Republicans in many states blocked creating those exchanges because, well because they saw their role in government as preventing people from getting low cost health insurance and access to health care.  So the law has a fallback position, namely Federally created exchanges.

It is not clear that the restrictive interpretation of the ruling will prevail, and it is largely a result of sloppy drafting by the Obama folks, proving once again how terrible these people are at the actual practice of governing.  Mr. Will seems to think health care reform will die if this part of the law is found to be unworkable.  But what is more likely  to happen is anger and resentment against Republicans. 

The reason for this is that while a majority may not like the health care reform law, after a while tens of millions of people will have health care insurance and taking that away from those people is not going to be politically popular.  It will of course take decades before Republicans give up on their opposition.  After all it was only yesterday that they accepted Social Security. The fight to kill Medicare and replace it with an unworkable plan that places the cost of health care on the elderly and impoverishes them, that is the system we had before Medicare, is still alive and will be so for decades.  Like the factions in the Balkans, they never forget, never forgive and forever live in the glorious past.

As for Mr. Will, who undoubtedly has great health care and great insurance, well, let’s just let him bask in his hope of denying that to others.  It may be that is all he lives for.

An Opinion Piece in the NYT by Simon Critchley Exposes the Concept of Certainty in Opposition to Intelligence and Intellectual Integrity

And Indirectly Why Ideologues Are Almost Always Wrong

While the following concept is not original with this Forum, it is central to the thesis of this Forum.  That concept is this, that one of the best, if not the best measure of intellect is the degree of uncertainty with which one holds one’s views.  The more certain one is that he or she is absolutely correct, the less thoughtful, the less studious and the less intellectually honest is that person.

In an opinion piece in the New York Time, Simon Critchley illustrates this concept as well as it can be done.  He is writing about a landmark public television show of 40 years ago, a show where scientist Jacob Bronowski examined man and evolution and culture.  Here is Mr. Critchley’s take after watching a section on Mr. Bronowski confronting the Holocaust in which he lost much of his family.

The play of tolerance opposes the principle of monstrous certainty that is endemic to fascism and, sadly, not just fascism but all the various faces of fundamentalism. When we think we have certainty, when we aspire to the knowledge of the gods, then Auschwitz can happen and can repeat itself. Arguably, it has repeated itself in the genocidal certainties of past decades.

The pursuit of scientific knowledge is as personal an act as lifting a paintbrush or writing a poem, and they are both profoundly human. If the human condition is defined by limitedness, then this is a glorious fact because it is a moral limitedness rooted in a faith in the power of the imagination, our sense of responsibility and our acceptance of our fallibility. We always have to acknowledge that we might be mistaken. When we forget that, then we forget ourselves and the worst can happen.

While this applies to fundamentalists and activists of all stripes, think about how applicable this is to conservatives.  Think about Rush Limbaugh as an example, a commentator who brooks no uncertainty, that he and he alone is the source of truth and that never ever can what he think be contradicted.  As a result he is constantly and consistently wrong and morally and intellectually offensive.

Now there are those who may seek to turn this against the allies of modern science.  They may ask, doesn’t the principle that all is uncertain mean that one does not have to believe in evolution, that one  could believe that God does not want couples to use contraception, that lowering taxes on the wealthy pays for itself, etc.  But the answer to that is simple, show us the data.

If someone believes that Noah’s flood created the Grand Canyon about 8,000 years ago, fine, show us the evidence and refute our evidence.  If someone believes that cutting taxes on the wealthy increases tax revenues fine, produce the models and the research.  If someone believes that creating further deprivation among the low income groups will stimulate those groups and help them leave poverty, great, just prove it or at least demonstrate how that has worked in the past.  If someone believes that increasing the monetary base always leads to inflation, explain why that didn’t happen in 2008-13.

The great failure of conservatives is their refusal to place their view under the microscope of science and logic and analysis and their refusal to change their beliefs when knowledge and information contradict those beliefs.  As holders of beliefs based on faith rather than intellect, they fail any test of truth.  And the sad part, this failure takes millions with them.

Update to the Curtis Reeves Story – The Man in Florida Who Shot and Killed a Fellow Movie Goer for Texting the Babysitter Before the Movie Started

Just an Outstanding Guy

At a bail hearing for Curtis Reeves, Jr., a Florida man about whom there is no question that he pulled his gun and killed a man in the movies who was texting before the picture started, his attorney said this.

Curtis Reeves' attorney, Richard Escobar, argued there's no need for him to put up assets for bail, saying he is a lifelong resident and married for 46 years as well as a decorated law enforcement officer.

"He has never had a shooting as a law enforcement officer is his entire career," Escobar said. "This is an individual of personal responsibility, an individual of integrity. He is a churchgoing man. There is absolutely no reason to believe Mr. Reeves is a danger to anyone in this community and any other community."

He also said the enhanced video shows Reeves was hit by a hand and a cell phone.

"This is not a throwing popcorn case only," he said. "This is throwing a deadly missile case."

And no, there is no evidence that the attorney broke down into hysterical laughter as he was saying it.  And who knew that cell phone's were a deadly missile case? Will they now fall under the gun lobby protection. (And no, there is no visual evidence or witnesses that anything other than maybe popcorn was thrown.  Of course throwing popcorn at someone verbally accosting a movie goer is a capital offense.)

So apparently in Florida a person of “personal responsibility” and “an individual of integrity” is characterized as someone who takes a gun to a movie and kills another patron.  And that is certainly no reason to believe he is a danger to anyone, after all he goes to church on Sunday (kills on Monday?)

The judge in the case has denied bail. So at least part of Florida is not insane.  This is great news, because this is Florida and Mr. Reeves may well be acquitted, with a jury blaming his victim for daring to go to the movies with his wife at the same time as Mr. Reeves went to the movies with his wife. So by denying bail this murderer will have served at least some time in jail. And of course this is really the victim's fault, he was unarmed and anyone who goes unarmed to a movie certainly deserves to be killed.

The mistake Mr. Reeves made of course was not shooting an African American teenager.  In that case he would have been a hero to conservatives and the gun lobby.  And if that person had been wearing a hoodie, well Mr. Reeves would be free to go on Fox News and be acclaimed a paragon of virtue.

Panic In GOP Land Continues – Washngton Post Columnist Kathleen Parker is Full Out to Resuscitate NJ Gov. Christie

Calling Jeb Bush, Jeb You’re Our Only Hope

In the Washington Post each Republican leaning columnist has his or her pet Republican.  For the egregious Jennifer Rubin it was Mitt Romney, and she essentially served as his official campaign spokesperson masquerading as a reporter/opinion writer.  For Chris Christie the WP’s pet writer is columnist Kathleen Parker.

As reported earlier the Republican establishment is in total despair over the problems of  NJ Governor Chris Christie whom they saw as about the only hope for GOP salvation in the 2016 election.  So people like Ms. Parker are out to save Mr. Christie.  The blame must go of course to the news media, which is always to blame whenever they report what is actually happening with respect to Republicans.

The Times story cited a letter from Alan L. Zegas, attorney for David Wildstein, the former Port Authority executive and one-time Christie ally who, after an infamous e-mail exchange with Christie aide Bridget Anne Kelly (“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”), ordered the lane closings.

In the Times story, Wildstein was said to have “had the evidence” to prove that Christie knew contemporaneously about the lane closings. Later, the Times story was tweaked to reflect what the letter actually said: “evidence exists” that Christie knew at the time of the lane closings. Thank you for the clarification. What evidence? Whose? Where? The voice knows.

Does this work?  You betcha.  Attack the New York Times for its actual reporting and one becomes the hero of the American right.

Though Matt Drudge clearly isn’t a Christie fan (this must be terribly painful for the governor), the result has been a circling of conservative wagons by those who hate the media more than they dislike a moderate Republican — as foretold by a certain columnist weeks ago. Thus, Christie has been invited to speak at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference next month, to which he was conspicuously not invited a year ago.

And of course the attacks must go towards the accusers.

Meanwhile, Christie’s office has fired back, impugning Wildstein’s character, even going back to his high school days and calling him “tumultuous.” One can only imagine his yearbook inscription: “Dude, stay as tumultuous as you are and bridges will fear you!”

. . .

In a parallel saga, CNN recently poked holes in Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer’s storyclaiming that Christie’s office threatened to withhold Hurricane Sandy recovery funds if she didn’t support a development project the governor favored.

CNN cited not only contradictions and discrepancies but also evidence that Zimmer may have practiced the same tactics of which she has accused Christie. The executive director of the Hoboken Housing Authority had sued Zimmer, claiming that the mayor had “an unwritten policy of political patronage or ‘pay to play’ to reward . . . political supporters.”

What all of this leaves out of course is the fact that Mr. Christie appointed Mr. Wildstein to a very important, very powerful, very patronage ridden post at the Port Authority.  And Mr. Christie heaped tons of praise upon the man he now disparages.  Personally we don't think there is much to the charge that Mr. Christie was lying, we think his staff gave him plausible deniability.  But everyone must be enjoying Republicans hoist on their own petard, Republicans who use news media to trumpet the idea that Mr. Obama is Kenyan born revolutionary Marxist.

They don’t realize it yet, but the so-called main stream Republicans will soon have to turn to Jeb Bush, and some may even be contemplating it in private.  The hope here is that Mr. Bush runs and that Mr. Christie runs and that we all get to watch a spectacle that rivals the Ali-Frazier fights.  The contestants get battered, the audience gets entertained.

Curtis Reeves, Who Shot and Killed a Man in a Movie For Texting During a Preview, Wants Out on Bail - Because How Could Such a Person Be a Threat to Anyone?

Let Him Out, Curtis is the Kind of Person We All Want Roaming the Streets

This Forum has previously commented on the story of Curtis Reeves, a retired law enforcement officer who like regular people packed his gun and went to the movies.  When Curtis became enraged over a man texting the babysitter before the movie started he shot and killed him.

Curtis J. Reeves Jr., a former Tampa
 police captain, is charged
with second-degree murder
after an argument over
 texting at a theater. Pool photo by Brendan Fitterer

Now Mr. Reeves wants out on bail.  And here is the compelling, logical and irrefutable reason he and his attorney give for letting him out on bail.

Mr. Reeves has been in jail since the shooting. If convicted, he could face a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison.

His lawyer, Richard Escobar, said Mr. Reeves had been defending himself.

Much of the hearing was taken up with character witnesses who described Mr. Reeves, a longtime Tampa officer, as a responsible, caring law enforcement veteran who would not be a threat if released on bail.

Uh, hasn't the question of whether or not he would be a threat already been answered?  

Well gosh, just a responsible caring law enforcement veteran who would not be a threat to anyone.  Well, unless you happened to be doing something he didn’t like, in which case he would gun you down and claim self defense or stand your ground.  And yes, the gun lobby does believe the gun laws should be written so that Curtis and his like can gun down anyone they choose, it's all in the 2nd Amendment.

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, a Physician, Is Guilty of Economics Malpractice

Proposal to Sen. Coburn:  We Won’t Practice Medicine, You Don’t Opine on Economics

The retiring Senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn is interviewed in the Wall Street Journal and talks extensively about health care economics.  As a physician, one might think Sen. Coburn knows something about the subject.  He doesn’t.

Mr. Coburn’s main point is that as a conservative Republican he supports market based decisions on health care by patients, such as a person being taken to an emergency room having to make a choice between the one that is close by and the one that is 10% less expensive and gives a coupon good for a free Big Mac with every admittance.  It would take far more space and be way to boring to fully refute Mr. Coburn’s erroneous analysis, and of course it would be nice if the Wall Street Journal actually published both sides of an issue, but everyone knows that ain’t gonna happen.

But what is interesting is this statement in the interview.

Dr. Coburn observes that "nearly all the economists agree" that a source of America's long-running health-care dysfunctions is the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance only.

Well, actually no.  And even if a bunch of economists did agree on something, does that really make it valid.  Really, what has been the experience over the last 70 years from serious professional academic economists that would give anyone confidence in their conclusions?  No the real problem with U. S. health care costs is the fee-for-service system, something no other advanced nation has fore the majority of its care.

But there is one observation that can be made.  Almost all economists agree that Sen. Coburn knows nothing about health care economics (and most economists hope that Sen. Coburn’s personal health issued are resolved in his favor.)  And no, we cannot cite any sources for this observation, some things are just so obvious that we don’t have to.

I’ll Be Back Says Former Republican Candidate Liz Cheney After Dropping Out of a Senate Race in Wyoming

Yes, Everyone Should Take That as a Credible Threat

When the daughter of former Vice President Dick Chaney, Liz Chaney dropped out of a primary race contesting the Republican nomination for Senate in Wyoming she cited personal family issue.  This may have been correct in that Ms. Chaney has also dropped out of public events, presumably to attend to those issues.  One hopes that she and her family do recover and that there is no lasting damage.

And now Politico is reporting that Ms. Chaney had told supporters she was not finished with public life and would be running somewhere for something.

One listener recalled the candidate’s message, paraphrasing her words: “At some point, I will be running for something else. This isn’t the right time for my family.” A second listener confirmed the general message she expressed on the call.

Now with most politicians it is easy to speculate on their next race, but with Ms. Chaney it could be anything.  See this long time resident of Virginia with no real ties to Wyoming chose to move to that state and challenge a highly conservative incumbent.  So given that proclivity she could do anything.  For example she might move to Texas and run for Governor, or move to Kansas and run for the state railroad commission or move to England and run for Parliament.  When you are a conservative and daughter of a prominent conservative you can move anywhere and run for anything, no qualifications necessary.You're entitled.

Bill Nye the Science Guy May Be a Very Good Scientist – But He is an Awful Advocate for Science

A Useless Debate with a Creationist

 In science a set of ideas and beliefs is called a "theory", open to challenge and subject to critical examination and when the evidence warrants it, change.  In religion a set of beliefs is called "dogma".  That pretty much sums it up. What's to debate?

The problem, not the main problem but rather a problem, with the debate over evolution as opposed to a universe and world created about six to eight thousand years ago is that by even engaging in such a debate the proponents of truth and logic and intellectual honesty give credence to a position, namely creationism, that has no business being even considered.  So when a famous person like Bill Nye debates an intellectually void creationist like Ken Ham, Mr. Nye is loses.  He loses for himself, for the scientific community and for the idea of knowledge in general.

The problem of course is that such a debate cannot take place, because the creationists start with the position that the world of the Bible is the absolute literal truth. They start with the belief that the divine basis for their positions cannot be challenged.  What exactly is there to debate?

(The Courier-Journal, Matt Stone/ Associated Press ) - Creation Museum head Ken Ham, right, speaks during a debate on evolution with TV’s “Science Guy” Bill Nye, at the Creation Museum Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014, in Petersburg, Ky. Ham believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago by God and is told strictly through the Bible. Nye says he is worried the U.S. will not move forward if creationism is taught to children.

Ham, an Australian native who has built a thriving ministry in Kentucky, said he trusts the story of creation presented by the Bible.

“The Bible is the word of God,” Ham said. “I admit that’s where I start from.”

So a debate is not possible about the literal interpretation of the Bible if one side starts from the position that no matter what evidence is presented otherwise, the literal interpretation of the Bible is the only true and correct story of creation. 

Mr. Nye provided millions of dollars of publicity for the Creationist view.  He naïveté brought far more support for those who would destroy science and knowledge in the name of religion.  With friends like this, science needs no enemies.  As for Mr. Ham, well he’s making a nice buck from running a Creationism museum.  That’s okay, separating yahoos who believe Noah's flood made the Grand Canyon from their money does sound like doing God’s work.

CBO Study on Health Care Reform is Devastating Blow For Health Care Reform

The Impact of One of the Worst Designed Laws Ever Comes Front and Center

Paying the Price for Incompetence

The health care reform act, the ACA, the piece of legislation cobbled together by the Obama administration and passed by Democrats was a terrible design.  The problems with the act, from the lie about everyone could keep their existing insurance to the fact that no one understands exactly what was done to the horrible implementation of the health insurance centers are now coming back to haunt those who refused to listen to experts in the field of health care economics.

The current blow, and it is a very serious one is the result of an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.  It concluded that employment would be reduced going forward and that far fewer individuals would have health care insurance than was previously thought.

WASHINGTON — A new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office says that the Affordable Care Act will result in more than 2 million fewer full-time workers in the next several years, providing Republican opponents of the law a powerful political weapon leading up to this year’s midterm elections.

The law is also expected to have a significant effect on hours worked, the nonpartisan budget office said in a regular update to its budget projections released Tuesday. With the expansion of insurance coverage, more workers will choose not to work and others will choose to work fewer hours than they might have otherwise, it said. The decline in hours worked will translate into a loss of the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time positions by 2024, the budget office said.

The budget office analysis found that much of the law’s effect comes from reducing the need for people to take a full-time job just to get insurance coverage, and from the premium subsidies effectively bolstering household income.

All of this is the result of the hubris and arrogance of the Obama team, and the idea that they could design a health care reform law.  They could not. 

North Carolina Republicans Distort Fall in Unemployment Rate – Claim Success for Policies Not Yet Put in Place

And Refuse Blame for Policies That Drives Thousands Out of the Work Force

In North Carolina radical Republicans took over state government beginning in 2013, and put in place policies to reduce unemployment insurance.  They now claim this policy was a resounding success.

The state’s December rate tumbled to 6.9 percent from 7.4 percent the month before, a level last seen in September 2008. Just a year earlier, in December 2012, North Carolina’s jobless rate was 9.4 percent.

The data was issued Tuesday by the Labor and Economic Analysis Division of the N.C. Department of Commerce. The U.S. jobless rate for December was 6.7 percent.

Gov. Pat McCrory cited the data as a validation of Republican economic policies.

“The trend of more people getting back to work in North Carolina is great news for our state,” McCrory said in a statement. “We continue to see that our pro-growth and pro-jobs policies enacted over the last year are having a positive impact and getting people into jobs.”

Not so fast, facts, those things which often bother conservatives tell a different story.

Economists are not so sanguine about North Carolina’s employment statistics for December and for all of 2013.

North Carolina added 11,100 jobs in December, nearly half in trade, transportation and utilities, but also made noteworthy gains in financial activities and health services. If the state added that amount of jobs every month, it would be well on its way to recovery.

In reality, however, North Carolina created fewer jobs in 2013 than it did in 2012. Last year’s jobs gain was 64,500, roughly two-thirds of the 89,900 jobs created in 2012.

So how did the unemployment rate fall?  Simple, North Carolina cut off unemployment benefits to thousands of persons, and many left the work force, unable to find jobs and so they gave up looking.

Just as disconcerting, the state’s labor force shrunk last year, eliminating nearly 111,000 people from the pool of those who are working or looking for work. Such a shrinkage artificially reduces the jobless rate because legions of jobless people don’t show up in the data.

“It’s the first labor force shrinkage since the end of the recession,” said Allan Freyer, public policy analyst for the Budget & Tax Center at the N.C. Justice Center. “It’s unprecedented, the size of it.”

So nice going Republicans, you took a bad situation and made it worse for working families.  And guess what in 2014 your massive tax cut for the wealthy and tax increase on working families will have gone into effect.  Just another day at the office for conservatives.

Bette in Spokane Turns Out to be a Victim – Not of Health Care Reform but of Politicians Seeking to Distort Health Care Reform

And Also A Person Who Really Doesn’t Care What She Pays for Health Insurance

Paul Krugman sends us to the story of Bette in Spokane, a person who was used to illustrate what Republicans say are huge increases in health insurance premiums for many people under health care reform. Krugman thought he smelled a rat in this story, it turns out that it was a giant rat from Sumatra (look it up Sherlock fans).  And it turns out the truth is hardly what Republicans would have one believe.

The woman described only as “Bette in Spokane” during a nationally televised address by U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said Wednesday she had no idea her frustrations over increasing insurance premiums would become part of the Republican attack on health care reform.

Not that Bette Grenier, a critic of the Affordable Care Act, minds that much.

But the “nearly $700 per month” increase in her premium that McMorris Rodgers cited in Tuesday night’s GOP response to the State of the Union address was based on the priciest option, a $1,200-a-month replacement plan that was pitched by Asuris Northwest to Grenier and her husband, Don.

And what were her other options?

The carrier also offered a less expensive, $1,052-per-month option in lieu of their soon-to-be-discontinued catastrophic coverage plan. And, Grenier acknowledged the couple probably could have shaved another $100 a month off the replacement policy costs by purchasing them from the state’s online portal, the Health Plan Finder website, but they chose to avoid the government health exchanges.

So why didn’t these folks go look for the less expensive solutions?  Oh they hate Mr. Obama and didn’t want to avail themselves of something he supported.

“I wouldn’t go on that Obama website at all,” said Grenier, 58, who lives in the Chattaroy area and owns a roofing company with her husband. “We liked our old plan. It worked for us, but they can’t offer it anymore.”

And did the Congresswoman who used this example check things out before?  Probably not.

McMorris Rodgers’ office provided no explanation Wednesday on what steps were taken to verify the figures.

Melanie Colette, McMorris Rodgers’ spokeswoman, would only say Bette is “one of hundreds of people in Eastern Washington that have contacted the congresswoman with their concerns about the president’s health care law.”

But what about the cheap insurance Bette had before?  Turns out it was hardly insurance at all.  It had a $10,000 deductible.

Now Mr. Obama is much to blame in as far as the rhetoric is concerned.  He made the statement that people could keep their existing policies, not out of deceit but more likely out of ignorance.  And the law should have allowed people like Bette to keep this ridiculous policy as long as they paired it with something like a tax deductible medical savings plan that would hold at least half the deductible.  The whole incident is just yet another example of the terrible design of health care reform.

But in the end we just have another politician willing to obliterate the truth in pursuit of denying people health care and health care insurance. What a noble cause Republicans have set themselves upon.

British Conservatives Are Hailing a Return to Economic Growth After Four Years of Idiotic Policy – But Not So Fast

Real Wages Have Fallen the Most in 50 Years

In Britain the Conservatives adopted economic policy aimed at budget deficits and declined to follow the American example of fiscal stimulus.  The result was entirely predictable.  The American economy recovered quickly and the British economy stayed in recession.  But now the British economy is starting to grow, so naturally Conservatives in charge are saying that their policies worked.  They really did, much the same as a weather forecaster who predicts rain in the Mojave Desert is vindicated when it rains after 276 straight days of sun.

But statistics, those nasty things that don’t lie tell the real story of Britain’s economy, and the real story is that working men and women lost ground and have not recovered.

The value of wages in real terms has been falling consistently since 2010, the longest period for 50 years.

The decline, which means that the cost of living is outstripping salaries, was attributed to low growth in productivity, or the goods and services that are produced in relation to the workforce.

Different rates of inflation between what is produced and what is consumed have also had a damaging effect on pay, said the Office for National Statistics, which provided the figures.

The research followed a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), which said that while the fall in household incomes has now probably come to a halt, living standards are still “dramatically” down on what they were before the financial crisis began in 2008.

The Government said last week that most workers have seen their take-home pay rise in real terms in the past year. But the ONS figures showed a drop in salaries when considered over a longer period.

Real wage growth averaged 2.9 per cent per year in the 1970s and 1980s; 1.5 per cent in the 1990s; and 1.2 per cent in the 2000s. But it has fallen to minus-2.2 per cent since the first quarter of 2010, the figures showed.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said: “Over the last four years British workers have suffered an unprecedented real wage squeeze. Worryingly, average pay rises have been getter weaker in every decade since the 1980s. Unless things change, the 2010s could be the first ever decade of falling wages. A return to business as usual may only bring modest pay growth.

So there it is, the face of British recovery, the fruit of Conservative economic policy. 

Obamahatred – The Cruel New Disease That Strikes the Semi-rational and Irrational and Renders Them Crazed, Incoherent Liars – Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan the Latest Victim

Give Now and Let’s Rid the World of This Horrible Contagion

Epidemiologists will look back at 2008 at the year that a non-deadly but highly destructive disease emerged in America, Obamahatred.  The first to succumb to this horrific malady were the irrational conservatives, personified by people like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.  These individuals were already over the cliff, hanging on by their fingernails and then Obamahatred struck and rendered them completely unhinged.

This would have been a tragedy in itself, but now the disease has spread and some conservatives who had temporary lucid moments and small periods of rationality have been totally devastated by this disease. The latest to succumb is Wall Street Journal opinion writer Peggy Noonan, and although she had displayed symptoms of the disease before, she has now been diagnosed as having a full blown case and the result is that her writings ravings have been rendered Limbaugh class incomprehensible and deceitful.

Case in point is this most recent column in which she takes the President to task for this.

Meanwhile, back in America, the Little Sisters of the Poor were preparing their legal briefs. The Roman Catholic order of nuns first came to America in 1868 and were welcomed in every city they entered. They now run about 30 homes for the needy across the country. They have, quite cruelly, been told they must comply with the ObamaCare mandate that all insurance coverage include contraceptives, sterilization procedures, morning-after pills. If they don't—and of course they can't, being Catholic, and nuns—they will face ruinous fines.

It is difficult to find such a blatant lie and massive hysteria even in the writings of Palin and Limbaugh.  The truth of the matter is this. 

The nuns do not have to offer contraceptive services and can simply sign a form which does nothing but indicate they are opting out.  In most cases this would mean their insurance carrier would have to provide the coverage, but in the case of the nuns their insurance carrier is a religious affiliate and so it is exempt.  In short, totally and complete accommodation has been made for the religious beliefs of these nuns and they are being allowed to deny basic health care coverage to the employees of the organizations they sponsor.

The people who are being treated cruelly here are the women who work in these organizations and have a complete right to access to family planning through their health insurance, and who rights are being denied by a government forced to accept the political consequences of not denying them their rights.

It is almost certain that a huge majority of Americans use family planning and it is almost certain that a huge majority Americans have no understanding of why contraception is somehow evil.  And yet even though Mr. Obama’s health care reform allows the unwarranted exception that the nuns have access too, a crazed conservative crowd calls this cruelty.

So far no charitable group has started a fund drive to try and rid the nation of the horrible affliction of Obamahatred.  And it is not required to be covered by health care reform.  But as more people exhibit the symptoms like Ms. Noonan does in her column surely the movement will start.  And when it does, please give.  Yes, the Limbaugh’s and the Palin’s are beyond help and cannot be saved, but surely there are those who lives can be rescued. 

In Which We Agree with Rush Limbaugh

Because We Assume He Was Talking About Rush Limbaugh – A Reasonable Assumption Since Rush is Always and Only  Talking About Rush

We think Rush Limbaugh is at the top of the list of people he is describing here, because the description fits him so well.

Limbaugh says he can't conceive why the GOP would focus on immigration over ACA. | AP Photo

Is this Rush getting sworn in as a citizen of Iran?  Because he has more in common with the extremists of that country than the does to the residents of this one.

“We ought not be granting citizenship to people who don’t love the country,” he said. “We ought not be granting citizenship to people who don’t understand the history of this country. …

and think the nation will be glad to take away his citizenship.

Washington Post Acts as Hacks and Flacks For New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in His Time of Peril

A Newspaper, Or a PR Machine for Republicans?

With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie under attack from various factions, his public relations efforts are in full battle mode.  But they need an outlet, and where better to look than the Washington Post, a newspaper trying to curry favor with the right wing by giving voice to a bunch of kooky commentators.

So here is a story about just how kind and considerate and generous the current Governor was when he was a high school baseball player and faced benching because a transfer student would be taking his starting position.

A better player was transferring in from another school. Now, it looked as if Christie might spend his senior season on the bench.

“The family was considering consulting attorneys, to see if this could be blocked,” Parsons remembered Christie telling him. “He told me that if that happened, there was a chance that the whole team would have to forfeit the spring season. And he asked me what my thoughts were.”

Parsons told him: Don’t. “I looked at him and I said, ‘Chris, hey man, I want to play my senior season,’ ” Parsons said.

In that instance, Christie passed up the chance to play legal hardball. Parsons didn’t hear about the lawyers again. The new kid played, Christie sat, and the Livingston Lancers won the state title.

Yes everyone you are reading this correctly.  The great magnanimous gesture that Chris Christie did in high school was not to bring legal action against a student who was transferring into his high school and taking his position on the baseball team

Cue the Nobel Committee!!!  Put out a special addition.  Print the stamps with his picture on it, never mind that he is still alive.  This is the most unselfish, kindest act of the century.

Need more praise for the Governor, there is this

To Parsons, the most impressive thing Christie did in high school was to surrender his starting spot without a fight.

“He stayed on the team. Just about anybody else would say, ‘I’m going to have a friggin’ good time, I’m not going to sit around and watch games,’ ” Parsons said. “We still remember how he conducted himself. . . . He did it with such class.”

So there you have it folks.  After digging into Chris Christie’s past this is the best they could come up with.  The most impressive thing Mr. Christie did in high school was not quit the baseball team when he lost his starting position or sue to keep the competitor off the team.  Yes, he also picked up a candy wrapper on the field one time, but that is just not in the same category of good deeds as this one. 

The story tells a lot about Mr. Christie, just not in the way his PR team expected when the sicced the Washington Post onto this story.

Regardless of the merits of the case, Gov. Christie is getting what he deserves.  They play hardball politics in New Jersey, and Mr. Christie has forgotten that when he is throwing beanballs at the opposing players, the inning will eventually be over, he will be up to bat and the opposing side can try to stick the pitch in his head.  And even if he did lose his starting position on the baseball team that is an analogy that even Mr. Christie can relate to.

MSNBC Apologizes Again, and Again, and Again

Uh Folks at MSNBC Aren’t You Doing Something Wrong

It is one thing to allow conservatives to dominate the airways, but it is another thing altogether when the efforts by the non-conservatives, that is, the sane and normal people to continue to embarrass themselves.  Such is the case with MSNBC, which makes the news these days for two reasons.  One is abominable ratings, the other is the frequency of their apologies.

MSNBC president apologizes to RNC, fires staffer responsible for tweet

MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Thursday for a tweet suggesting conservatives “hate” interracial marriages and “dismissed” the staffer who authored it.

“The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable. We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet,” Griffin wrote in a statement.

“I personally apologize to Mr. Priebus and to everyone offended,” he continued. “At msnbc we believe in passionate, strong debate about the issues and we invite voices from all sides to participate. That will never change.”

You know people, having no voice is better than what the idiots and clowns are MSNBC are doing.  And how soon before Woody and Mia's kid embarasses them, or gets a prime time slot, or both?

Note to the Racist and Anti-Gay Groups Watching Super Bowl Ads – When You Have Lost Cheerios and Chevrolet, You Have Lost

Of Course You Lost a Long Time Ago – You Maybe Just Didn’t Know It

In advertising  we have this news about an ad for Cheerios that appeared last spring and will appear in a new version during the Super Bowl. It's enough to make the lengendary cheap author of this Forum turn away from generic oat cereal and embrace Cheerios.

Never mind the point-spread, New Jersey weather, momentum shifts and Newtonian replays. Just keep an eye out for the Super Bowl’s first unscheduled time out, when the huge television audience can catch that famous Cheerios commercial family — the one that so enraged racist Americans several months ago, featuring a manly black actor as father, a serene white mother and their charming interracial seven-year-old, Gracie.

The three, in all their multi-hued glory, did a gentle, 30-second pitch last May about cereal, health and family love. It triggered such a torrent of hatred on line that General Mills had to disable the comment feature on YouTube, disinviting further reactions from the web’s anonymous snipers.

But the ad stayed on the air, rallied by a larger dose of popularity, and now comes an in-your-face celebration of the nation’s multi-racial evolution, however slow. Cheerios is returning to the biggest TV stage with something even harder for racists to swallow: a commercial that includes news of a baby brother on the way.

And even worse news for the Haters of America and Americans groups is this from that American Icon, Chevrolet.

Cultural critics might also want to tune in to the coming Winter Olympics, during which Chevrolet will air commercials that portray assorted families happy in their minivans. They include not one but two same-sex couples — one male, one female. The pitch to the nation is: “The new us.”

And so yes, the anti-gay movement joins the anti-black movement, the anti-women’s rights movement and all the other hate driven anti movements on the scrap heap of history.  Enjoy each other’s company you folks, that all you got.

While Politicians Focus on Taxes and Spending, Nature is Threatening Economic Growth Dependent Upon the Colorado River

Sorry Conservatives, Only Concerted Governmental Action Will Prevent Economic Disaster

The mantra of conservatives is that government is the problem, not the solution.  This attitude will lead to inaction by government to prevent major problems from turning into economic disasters.  Case in point, the Colorado River.  Draught and increased demand for Colorado River water is causing a severe drop in the river flow and the Lake Mead reservoir.  The results are not going to be pretty.

These new realities are forcing a profound reassessment of how the 1,450-mile Colorado, the Southwest’s only major river, can continue to slake the thirst of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. Agriculture, from California’s Imperial Valley to Wyoming’s cattle herds, soaks up about three-quarters of its water, and produces 15 percent of the nation’s food. But 40 million people also depend on the river and its tributaries, and their numbers are rising rapidly.

The labyrinthine rules by which the seven Colorado states share the river’s water are rife with potential points of conflict. And while some states have made huge strides in conserving water — and even reducing the amount they consume — they have yet to chart a united path through shortages that could last years or even decades.

So what happens when there is a lack of water?  Bad things.  Costly things.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times

To help the Colorado, federal authorities this year will for the first time reduce the water flow into Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, created by Hoover Dam.

Yes, that is ring around the collar of Lake Mead from lowering water levels.  And what if it goes dry?

“If Lake Mead goes below elevation 1,000” — 1,000 feet above sea level — “we lose any capacity to pump water to serve the municipal needs of seven in 10 people in the state of Nevada,” said John Entsminger, the senior deputy general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Since 2008, Mr. Entsminger’s agency has been drilling an $817 million tunnel under Lake Mead — a third attempt to capture more water as two higher tunnels have become threatened by the lake’s falling level. In September, faced with the prospect that one of the tunnels could run dry before the third one was completed, the authority took emergency measures: still another tunnel, this one to stretch the life of the most threatened intake until construction of the third one is finished.

These new realities are forcing a profound reassessment of how the 1,450-mile Colorado, the Southwest’s only major river, can continue to slake the thirst of one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. Agriculture, from California’s Imperial Valley to Wyoming’s cattle herds, soaks up about three-quarters of its water, and produces 15 percent of the nation’s food. But 40 million people also depend on the river and its tributaries, and their numbers are rising rapidly.

It’s not that government has not been successful at managing the use of water, consumption of water per person is not the problem, it’s the large number of persons.  The solution, well conservatives would say let nature take care of the problem.  Realists would say a public private partnership is needed to manage the problem.  But that takes will and money.  And much of the west is very conservative.  So nature, do your thing, it may be all the region can hope for.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie May Learn the Hard Way – You Don’t Throw People Who Can Testify Against You Under the Bus

 Even if the Bus is Not Moving Because of Lane Closings on the GW Bridge

Update to the Update:  It is now clear that one goal of Mr. Wildstein is to obtain immunity.  That certainly colors his claims, and so everyone should just wait and see.

[Update:  The Newark Star Ledger has an editorial in which it calls for Mr. Christie's resignation or impeachment if it turns out there is credible evidence that he knew about the bridge closure issues while it was happening, and not much later as he has claimed.

If this charge proves true, then the governor must resign or be impeached. Because that would leave him so drained of credibility that he could not possibly govern effectively. He would owe it to the people of New Jersey to stop the bleeding and quit. And if he should refuse, then the Legislature should open impeachment hearings.

Yes, this is the same Governor who won a huge re-election victory just months ago.]

New Jersey Gov. Christie has staked the rest of his life on the claim that he did not know anything about the plot to create a massive traffic jam on the approach to the GW Bridge in order to retaliate for the fact that a Democratic Mayor of Fort Lee did not endorse his re-election.  And in doing so he publicly disparaged a couple of aides and close advisors.  One of these was David Wildstein who was a friend (now denied by Christie), a close advisor (now denied by Wildstein) and one of the key persons involved in the scandal.

The problem Mr. Wildstein has right now is that he is the subject of massive investigations and his employer has cut him loose as far as legal bills are concerned.

The Port Authority has since refused to pay his legal costs associated with inquiries by the New Jersey Legislature and United States attorney into the lane closings. In his two-hour news conference earlier this month, Mr. Christie said his friendship with Mr. Wildstein had been overstated; that while the governor had been class president and an athlete, he did not recall Mr. Wildstein well from that period and had rarely seen him in recent months.

So Mr. Wildstein is using what little leverage he has, namely the accusation that Christie while maybe not involved in the planning of the incident, lied when he said he did not know about it when it was happening.

In a letter released by his lawyer, the former official, David Wildstein, a high school friend of Mr. Christie’s who was appointed with the governor’s blessing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which controls the bridge, described the order to close the lanes as “the Christie administration’s order” and said “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference” three weeks ago.

Now this may well be a false claim, after all Mr. Wildstein is not exactly a very nice person. And Mr. Wildstein's attorney has a history of battling Gov. Christie and may be simply taking advantage of a situation that fell into his lap.   But that may not matter.  By simply raising the possibility that Mr. Christie was involved Mr. Wildstein may well be shoveling one of the last loads of dirt on Mr. Chritie's political coffin.  As a former federal prosecutor and as a powerful, bullying Governor Mr. Christie is used to having the stage to himself, to brooking no opposition.  In both his races for Governor he was on the offensive, not the defensive.  But that is an unnatural state of affairs, as Mr. Christie may well find out.  A person with nothing to lose may well delight in taking someone down with  him.