If anything is worse, however, it is the way in which the Democrats have responded.\u00a0 \u201cAstroturf\u201d is fake grass, of course; and \u201castroturfing\u201d is when a grassroots action is falsely produced.\u00a0 There is no \u201castroturfing\u201d involved when people who are genuinely upset are encouraged to show up at a particular time and place; if that were so, then any action from MoveOn or SEIU, Acorn or even the administration itself would amount to astroturfing.\u00a0 Again, coordinating a protest is not the same as creating a protest out of whole cloth.\u00a0 Furthermore, these should not be labeled as extreme fringe, angry mob, etc.\u00a0 One protester has a sign with a swastika and a circle crossing it out, effectively saying \u201cno to fascism.\u201d\u00a0 Then Nancy Pelosi tells reporters about people carrying swastikas around.\u00a0 The DNC put out a talking point that said, \u201cThe right wing extremists\u2019 use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President\u2019s citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are.\u201d\u00a0 This is dishonest, and unbecoming of the most powerful people in the nation.\u00a0 These are not<\/a> just a bunch of uneducated hooligans; they are genuinely and justifably upset and fearful for the consequences of such sweeping health care reform.\u00a0 Yet saying \u201cwe will punch back twice as hard\u201d (as the White House has<\/a>) is escalation, not reconciliation, not change, not postpartisanship.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the way that benevolent power is supposed to act, and it\u2019s likely to lead to more violence.<\/p>\n I agree with Noonan that the Democrats would be wise\u2013and would reap a justified reward\u2013to step back, slow down, and address people\u2019s concerns.\u00a0 Much of the fear concerns context \u2014 that politicians are attempting to enforce vast transformations of our economy and our social system in the midst of the great recession, when our deficit is already through the roof.\u00a0 Much of it concerns pacing \u2014 that the politicians in D.C. appear to be in a sprint to accomplish these things as soon as possible.\u00a0 The Dems are at risk of losing a significant chunk of middle America: many of them older, AARP members, moderate Democrats who found Obama inspiring and refreshing.\u00a0 A not-insignificant portion of those protesting voted for Obama, and may not do so again, depending on how the White House crafts its response.\u00a0 If Obama shows himself to be another brass-knuckles Chicago politician, it will not serve his interests in 2012 (or 2010, for that matter).\u00a0 He should stop the DNC from putting out videos labeling the opposition in this way, and should advise against the decision<\/a> to bring in union toughs, which will inevitaly lead to more conflict.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t dissent patriotic?<\/p>\n The health care system needs reform.\u00a0 In some form or another, whether it is the government or not, we as a people need to do better to meet the needs of the least of these.\u00a0 But there is no national consensus here, and on a transformation of this magnitude, there should be.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 The unemployment rate eases<\/a> from 9.5% to 9.4%.\u00a0 The number of those with jobs, however, actually decreased.\u00a0 The reason?\u00a0 The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces these numbers, calculates the unemployment number in relation to the number of those seeking jobs<\/em>.\u00a0 If some stop seeking jobs, because they conclude that there\u2019s no hope, then they are dropped out of the equation and no longer show up as \u201cunemployed.\u201d\u00a0 This is a strange sort of calculation, that some on the Left often used to throw cold water on the unemployment rate during the Bush administration, when it was around 5%.\u00a0 In a recession of this depth, a great number conclude that there is no hope for a job and stop seeking.\u00a0 Nearly 800,000 (or about .5% of the workforce) dropped out of the calculation between June and July.\u00a0 If even half were counted as unemployed, the percentage would be somewhere between 9.7% and 9.8%.\u00a0 This is not an attempt to hold down what could be positive economic indicators.\u00a0 Eventually the economy should turn around, and eventually those numbers should come down.\u00a0 But it is to say that we should not get carried away here\u2013and it\u2019s ironic that the candidate of \u201chope\u201d draws a little statistical benefit from those who have lost it.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Fannie Mae needs<\/a> another $10 billion, bringing the total for Fannie and Freddie to nearly $100B.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Does anyone else get the sense that China has responded to the global financial crisis in a much wiser, more coordinated and (in some respects) more capitalistic manner than we have?\u00a0 What is so galling about the stimulus bill, apart from its size in this cnotext, is the unwise way in which the money is spent.\u00a0 One of the major selling points for the stimulus was the need to upgrade our energy infrastructure \u2014 and yet less than 1% of the $787B stimulus money goes to energy infrastructure.\u00a0 $6B was given to energy infrastructure; we need roughly 20 times more if we are going to accommodate the increased energy production that we need from wind (because wind is out there<\/em>, but we use energy here<\/em>, we need to get it from there to here more efficiently and in a larger scale).\u00a0 China\u2013which has no deficit problem, by the way; quite the opposite\u2013passed a stimulus bill of roughly $585B, and 23% went to energy infrastructure.\u00a0 Yes, China\u2019s energy infrastructure needs more work than ours.\u00a0 But ours still needs a heck of a lot of work, and we are not close to meeting the need.<\/p>\n If the point was to increase employment, get money into the private sector, and transform into a green energy economy, why are we spending so little <\/em>on the infrastructure that could keep our companies productive, and decrease our use of foreign oil?<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 One Senator submitted a bill by which the cars traded in as a part of the Cash for Clunkers program could be donated to charities, rather than destroyed for scrap (if you did not know, the dealer is required to destroy the car and give the previous owner whatever money it could fetch for scrap and spare parts).\u00a0 Although it runs against one of the reasons given (the environmental) for C4C, it seems like a nice way to help the poor and needy.\u00a0 It was shot down 41-56.\u00a0 You can see the roll call<\/a> here.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 The Associated Press first reported<\/a> that taxpayer money would not go to fund abortions under the proposed health care reform.\u00a0 They took a lot of heat for poor reporting; the story was handed over for a new look, and now the Associated Press declares<\/a> that the opposite is true: taxpayer money will be used for abortions.\u00a0 \u201cHealth care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.\u201d\u00a0 As one blogger put it<\/a>, Congress attempted to make an elaborate end-run around the Hyde amendment, but, as the AP story shows, it\u2019s not a successful ruse.<\/p>\n As one reader pointed out, this is already the case in some states.\u00a0 Yet a person can leave a state and still remain an American citizen.\u00a0 Making it a federal matter is different.\u00a0 All Americans, regardless of where they live, will have their money go to abortions.\u00a0 Those on the religious Left should push hard on this: if we are interested in finding common ground, we should all agree that those who object to abortion on a fundamental moral level should not have to pay for it.\u00a0 The very idea is deeply abhorrent to many Americans.\u00a0 Is there not enough money, among those who believe strongly in abortion rights, to cover the \u2018needs\u2019 of those who desire but cannot afford abortions?<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0 Justice Sotomayor<\/a>.\u00a0 I cannot really give credit to Democrats on this, since they filibustered Miguel Estrada for years, because they were afraid he would be nominated to the Supreme Court and be the first Hispanic.\u00a0 Contemplating a conservative Catholic Hispanic on the court was a source of great angst, much as Clarence Thomas was, for fear that Republicans would make inroads with a large and important minority group.\u00a0 However, while I cannot credit the Democrats, I do credit Hispanics.\u00a0 I hope they are proud that they have risen to the highest levels of American society, and proud to have a Hispanic American on the highest court in the land.<\/p>\n 8.\u00a0 Turns out that many of the car models benefiting from the Cash for Clunkers are actually trucks, including large trucks and SUV\u2019s.\u00a0 The original \u201ctop 10\u201d numbers were misleading; another case of funny numbers<\/a>.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0 Finally, today\u2019s Two Sides.\u00a0 Two lefties (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) examine what they perceive to be the mistakes of the young administration, while Chares Krauthammer suggests<\/a> a different approach to health care reform and another conservative tries to explain <\/a>to befuddled liberals why so many are not enthused about the proposed changes.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1.\u00a0 Health care reform town halls turn ugly.\u00a0 I find myself conflicted.\u00a0 I am very much in support of the beautiful chaos of democracy, whether or not the protesters are voicing my own views\u2013and it certainly is true that politicians seems increasingly distanced from the constituencies they represent, increasingly unaware that they are the ones […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[503,522,121,592,636,673,310,727,406,407],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-astroturfing","tag-cash-for-clunkers","tag-china","tag-health-care-reform","tag-krauthammer","tag-noonan","tag-obama","tag-sotomayor","tag-unemployment","tag-unions"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Early](\"https:\/\/www.pragmatism.org\/american\/signers.jpg\")
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