Looking Ahead to 2016

Here’s the plan for all my friends from the 2004 campaign. It is admittedly a long shot. As Secretary of State, John Kerry brings about peace in the middle east, brokers a world-wide agreement on reducing carbon emissions (especially looking impressive when he gets China to go along), and convinces Great Britain to give us their secret as to why they have so many cool TV shows which we have to pirate here.

People question why we didn’t elect John Kerry in 2004, realizing that pictures of him wind surfing were not a good reason for him to go down to defeat. Kerry gets the 2016 Democratic nomination, nobody believes anything from the Swift Boat Liars, and John Kerry gets elected president. As an added benefit, American TV finally gets Torchwood right.

Quote of the Day

“It’s reported that if you’re playing Angry Birds, the company is tracking your location. This may seem silly to you, but it’s actually how we got bin Laden.” –Conan O’Brien

Barack Obama’s Second Inauguration

Today Barack Obama joined a small group of people who have taken the oath of office more than twice. The oath was repeated in 2008 to avoid giving right wingers another reason to deny Obama’s legitimacy after John Roberts made an error when first administering the oath. (I note Roberts did use a note card today). He was sworn in for his second inauguration in a private ceremony on January 20, with the public event postponed to Monday. Only FDR and Obama have taken the oath of office four times. Bill Clinton is the only other president to my knowledge to have been sworn in more than twice as one of his inaugurations also occurred on a Sunday.

With Obama being sworn in, dogs everywhere gave a sigh of relief. Maybe now that Obama has been sworn in two more times Karl Rove is willing to give up hope for a Romney victory and concede defeat. Tea Partiers and Mitch McConnell swear to oppose Obama’s agenda and make him a two-term president. (Surprisingly some commentators do not realize how the Republicans really did decide to oppose everything Obama did on the day of his first inauguration.) All the living former presidents were in attendance except for George H. W. Bush, for health reasons, and George W. Bush, because everyone in Washington hates his guts.

Getting serious, Obama gave a liberal speech to mark the start of his second term (full text here and video above). He sounded neither like the socialist Republicans claim he is or the conservative a handful on the far left claim he is. James Fallows found this to be a startling progressive speech. Think  Progress called this a landmark moment for LGBT equality. Obama made a strong push for taking action on climate change.

While Obama has learned he cannot compromise with the extremism and intransigence of Congressional Republicans, I do like see Obama continue to try to explain how the real world works to conservatives in the hopes that there are some who will listen. Radical conservatives and libertarians believe a mythology that the free market is something which exists in nature, and that any government action is an abomination. In reality, markets are a creation of men and require government regulation to exist. Rothbardian anarch0-capitalism provides a fun background for some science fiction stories, but cannot exist in the real world. Obama explained:

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

He did learn it is politically dangerous to point out the truth that businessmen did not build the infrastructure they depend upon after the Republicans themed their convention around misquoting Obama, claiming Obama was saying businessmen did not build their businesses.

Obama’s record is not perfect. No president’s record is. Even if he did not do everything hoped for by the left, in a two party system, and with the constraints on presidential power, Obama did have a strong first term. Even his frequent critic Paul Krugman has been acknowledging this in recent columns, such as yesterday’s column, calling Obama’s record a Big Deal:

Health reform is, as Mr. Biden suggested, the centerpiece of the Big Deal. Progressives have been trying to get some form of universal health insurance since the days of Harry Truman; they’ve finally succeeded.

True, this wasn’t the health reform many were looking for. Rather than simply providing health insurance to everyone by extending Medicare to cover the whole population, we’ve constructed a Rube Goldberg device of regulations and subsidies that will cost more than single-payer and have many more cracks for people to fall through.

But this was what was possible given the political reality — the power of the insurance industry, the general reluctance of voters with good insurance to accept change. And experience with Romneycare in Massachusetts — hey, this is a great age for irony — shows that such a system is indeed workable, and it can provide Americans with a huge improvement in medical and financial security.

What about inequality? On that front, sad to say, the Big Deal falls very far short of the New Deal. Like F.D.R., Mr. Obama took office in a nation marked by huge disparities in income and wealth. But where the New Deal had a revolutionary impact, empowering workers and creating a middle-class society that lasted for 40 years, the Big Deal has been limited to equalizing policies at the margin.

That said, health reform will provide substantial aid to the bottom half of the income distribution, paid for largely through new taxes targeted on the top 1 percent, and the “fiscal cliff” deal further raises taxes on the affluent. Over all, 1-percenters will see their after-tax income fall around 6 percent; for the top tenth of a percent, the hit rises to around 9 percent. This will reverse only a fraction of the huge upward redistribution that has taken place since 1980, but it’s not trivial.

Finally, there’s financial reform. The Dodd-Frank reform bill is often disparaged as toothless, and it’s certainly not the kind of dramatic regime change one might have hoped for after runaway bankers brought the world economy to its knees.

Still, if plutocratic rage is any indication, the reform isn’t as toothless as all that. And Wall Street put its money where its mouth is. For example, hedge funds strongly favored Mr. Obama in 2008 — but in 2012 they gave three-quarters of their money to Republicans (and lost).

All in all, then, the Big Deal has been, well, a pretty big deal

While Obama’s record was not perfect, there is no problem which would be handled better if the Republicans had taken the White House. Just think of the executive orders which were not issued today because Mitt Romney did not have the opportunity. Romney, like Republicans before him, would have probably immediately reinstated the Global Gag Rule, limiting access to abortions world wide. While it would probably take more than a quick executive order, he would probably have made an effort to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He may have immediately put an end to federal funding of stem cell research. Who know what else what he would have done to accommodate the far right on his first day alone.

Seeing Barack Obama sworn in to be president for the next four years is a Big Deal.

Dumb Inauguration Day Commentary: Obama and Republican Opposition

I am really disappointed in NPR this morning.

During the early Inauguration Day coverage there was naturally talk of how these events include speeches referring to national unity, contrasting that with the degree of division in the country. Ron Elving claimed that many Republicans wanted to work with Obama but they got home and their constituents demanded that they oppose Obama’s policies. The reality is that the Republicans had decided to do everything possible to block Obama’s policies, even meeting to plot this on the day of his first inauguration.

Update: More on Barack Obama’s Second Inauguration

SciFi Weekend: Fringe Series Finale

Olivia Alternate Universe

Throughout its five year run, Fringe was often unrealistic, but fans were willing to forgive this and enjoy the ride. The series finale was made to feel more plausible by multiple references to prior events on the show. It also helped the flow of the episode to have the major revelations and the plan to destroy the Observers revealed the previous week.

The finale began with the need to rescue Michael, the child observer, from a detention cell on Liberty Island. On Fringe the way to get around security was obvious–go to Liberty Island in the alternate universe, which is the location of the Department of Defense, come back to our universe and rescue Michael, return to the alternative universe, and then return to our universe at a safer spot. This meant that Olivia had to receive a new series of injections of Cortexiphan to allow her to cross over and back a total of four times. Sure this was risky, but “Etta died so we could finish the plan,”as Olivia pointed out to a skeptical Peter.

This plan served a couple of purposes. For the fans, it allowed one more glimpse of the alternative universe. While some disagree, I found the alternative universe arc to be the highlight of the entire series. We got to see Fauxlivia and Lincoln again, and find that Walternate is now lecturing at Harvard at age 90. I do wish we had another opportunity to see John Noble play this role. For the purpose of the story plot, it provides a reason for Michael to have allowed himself to be captured in the prior episode, which became important later on. His capture led to Olivia injecting herself with Cortexiphan, providing her with the power to kill Windmark in their final battle and enable Michael to be taken into the future.

Sure, this was somewhat convoluted. Maybe Michael could have come up with another way to defeat the Observers and go into the future. The  plan might not have worked at all if he had been taken somewhere else. Perhaps Michael could have told them that it was essential for Olivia to receive the Cortexiphan, but they might not have be willing to take this risk without high stakes such as Michael being captured.

From Michael’s perspective, being captured didn’t seem to be a problem. Windmark’s scientist found that Michael had greater intellectual powers than the Observers and a capacity for emotional responsiveness than normal humans (whatever this means). Michael clearly had more powerful mind powers than Windmark. It is also probable that he could see the future, knowing that Olivia would take the Cortexiphan and rescue him before the Observer surgeons got started on him.

Besides seeing Fauxlivia and Lincoln again, it was good to see Broyles have a major role in this episode. His attempts to mislead the Observers ultimately failed and he was captured. This provided an opportunity to see a wide variety of items saved from the Fringe Unit used in an attack which included his rescue and obtaining another gadget needed for the time machine. Having seen this tactic used earlier this season both made this attack appear more realistic within the framework of the show and eliminated the need for an explanation in this episode.

This was a good episode for Astrid. Highlights of her actions in this episode included her showing Walter another “character” from the past–Gene the cow, frozen in Amber. When they needed an ignition device (because Windmark got this from December before September/Donald could) Astrid came up with the idea to use one of the Observers shipping lanes. Again this was shown in an earlier episode of the season, making it plausible without distracting explanations or pulling something totally out of left field.

The previous episode had foreshadowed two aspects of the finale–resetting time to be with Etta again and sacrifice. I (and probably most viewers) had been expecting all season for the series to end by resetting time and returning to the scene in the park when the invasion began and Etta was taken. The idea of sacrificing Peter has come up so often that this was almost expected, but would contradict the predictions of Olivia, Peter, and Etta being safe in the park.

Fringe Park

Once things were hinted at in the previous episode it became obvious that the ending would provide some degree of a surprise and the ending would not be exactly as predicted. A tape was found of Walter explaining that the sacrifice was that, to prevent a paradox, he would have to live in the future and could not be present in the world of 2015 when the Observer invasion (which would be wiped from history) originally occurred. With time being reset in 2015 I am not certain why the reset wouldn’t include Walter being there, but how do we argue with the results of time travel? Then, after we believed that Walter would be sacrificed, Donald decided to go instead of him, feeling greater attachment to his son and having greater understanding of what it meant for Walter and Peter to remain together.  It also made more sense for Donald to go on to a life in 2167 considering that otherwise he would cease to exist along with the other Observers. We were misled about this again as Donald was killed and Walter had to take Michael into the future.

The universe was reset to 2015 with Peter and Olivia in the park with Etta. There is one potential problem with this scenario. If there were no Observers, then Peter would not have survived being brought over in the initial timeline of Fringe as he was saved from drowning by September. It is questionable as to whether this was necessary as we already saw the timeline changed so that Peter did not exist, and yet he returned (without a really plausible explanation). On the one hand, his existence in this timeline no longer depended upon him being brought over by Walter as this event did not occur in this timeline. On the other hand, Peter returned to existence in this timeline because of his existence in the initial timeline. His continuing existence in one way is even harder to justify because of the lack of Observers to have led to a timeline where he was here. On the other hand, his existence after the reset would have been more implausible if not for the way he returned in the fourth season, no longer having the history of being brought from the alternate universe with help from September. Peter’s existence, even though he should not exist, has been something we must accept from Fringe in the final two seasons.

The question of Walter’s continued existence after resetting the timeline allowed for a reference back to an episode from 2010, White Tulip, in which a picture of a white tulip had been sent to Walter after an analogous situation involving time travel. Now Peter was the recipient of the letter with a white tulip. It is sad to see this series end, but also tempting to go back and watch earlier episodes which will not have so much more meaning after seeing their role in the big picture painted over five years by this fantastic series.

Quote of the Day

“President Obama’s inaugural parade will feature eight floats, including a Hawaii float to honor his birthplace, an Illinois float to honor the first lady’s home state, and a Kenyan float just to mess with Republicans.” –Jimmy Fallon

Some Republicans Fear Losing House If Seen As The Party Of No

I’ve seen articles the last couple of weeks ranging from predictions that the Republicans are looking forward to shutting down the government over the budget and debt ceiling to predictions that they are just making noise to appease the Tea Party but would not dare antagonizing Republican businessmen by crashing the economy. I suspect that these contradictory story lines come down to who the reporter happened to talk to that day. The Hill even has a story today claiming some Republicans fear they will lose control of Congress “if they botch fiscal talks.”

Democrats need to net 17 districts to take back the House in 2014, widely considered a significant hurdle to overcome.

But the party has identified “30 districts where the [GOP] incumbent [won by] less than 10 percent and an additional 18 districts that we think can perform better” in a non-presidential election year, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said recently.

And it’s in those districts — where Republicans don’t have a deep base of voters to rely on — that a repeat disaster like the fiscal-cliff fight could matter.

Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said if Congress experiences the same sort of protracted inaction that occurred during the fiscal-cliff negotiations, the blame could fall on Republican shoulders.

“What you don’t want to see is the sort of gridlock and shutdown we had with respect to the fiscal cliff, because public opinion would turn against [House Republicans], which would likely put those swing districts at risk,” O’Connell said.

Hopefully this analysis is correct that there are enough seats where the Democrats have a chance. The conventional wisdom is that the Republicans have a considerable advantage at maintaining a majority due to both gerrymandering (with some Republicans bragging about this) and a Republican advantage due  to Democratic votes tending to be more concentrated in a smaller number of urban districts.

The conventional wisdom can be wrong, and the historical trend for the party controlling the White House to do poorly in their sixth year is far from an ironclad law. What if we have a combination of economic improvement under Obama and a growing realization of how badly the Republicans have harmed the economy? Perhaps the more reasonable fiscally conservative voters will realize that policies centered around tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy is one cause of deficits, not the cure. Maybe some will even start to realize that limited government should mean limited intrusion in the private lives of individuals, not limited activity in areas where government is needed, and not limited regulation where regulation is necessary.

Yes, this is a long shot, but there is room for hope. The alternative is to assume that the Republicans will remain firmly in control of the House and make that a self-fulfilling prediction.

Polarization in Congress Primarily Due To Republican Movement To The Far Right

Voteview blog has, not surprisingly, found that partisan polarization has increased, “almost entirely due to the movement of congressional Republicans to the right.” To a certain degree partisan polarization is due to the parties lining up based upon ideology far more than in the past. Previously there were conservative Southern Democrats but these are now Republicans. There also used to be a meaningful number of Republican moderates and even liberals. Therefore in the past it was possible to have groups crossing party lines agreeing on legislation.

An even more important factor in the current polarization is that the Republicans have moved much further to the extreme right in recent years while we have not seen an analogous movement to this degree by Democrats to the left (Some would argue that the Democrats have also moved to the right). The post concludes:

We have previously written about asymmetric polarization, arguing that the primary driver of contemporary partisan polarization has been the steady movement of congressional Republicans to the right. This trend appears to have continued through the 112th congress. House Republicans – despite a large majority earned in the 2010 midterm elections – have continued their rightward drift, adding more conservative members than moderate members. Senate Republicans also became a more conservative group in the 112th Congress, while Senate Democrats remained mostly ideologically static. Some of this phenomenon is attributable to the fact that Democrats – particularly northern Democrats – were already holding liberal policy positions in the 1960s. The “Great Society” programs enacted during the 1960s have appeared to represent the leftward edge of what is practically achievable in American public policy (for example, from an ideological standpoint, “Obamacare” is not more liberal than Medicare, enacted in 1965). Congressional Democrats have staked out this position and have mostly maintained it in recent American history. Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, continue to pioneer new ideological territory along on the rightward edge of American public policy. It remains unclear whether and how long this pattern can persist.

The statement that Republicans “continue to pioneer new ideological territory along on the rightward edge of American public policy” is a very tactful way to say that they have become bat-shit crazy.

Fringe Series Finale Trailer

It all ends this Friday.

Conservative Hysteria Over Obama and The Medical Profession Working Together To Reduce Gun Violence

Today’s announcement of plans by the Obama administration shows that 1) Barack Obama is paying attention to input from the medical profession, and 2) the right wing still has its problem with paranoid kooks seeing conspiracy theories in benign statements.

The conservative Weekly Standard posted the relevant passage under a fairly neutral headline, Obama Asks Doctors to Help Deal With Guns:

PRESERVE THE RIGHTS OF HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS TO PROTECT THEIR PATIENTS AND COMMUNITIES FROM GUN VIOLENCE: We should never ask doctors and other health care providers to turn a blind eye to the risks posed by guns in the wrong hands.

Clarify that no federal law prevents health care providers from warning law enforcement authorities about threats of violence: Doctors and other mental health professionals play an important role in protecting the safety of their patients and the broader community by reporting direct and credible threats of violence to the authorities. But there is public confusion about whether federal law prohibits such reports about threats of violence. The Department of Health and Human Services is issuing a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits these reports in any way.

Protect the rights of health care providers to talk to their patients about gun safety: Doctors and other health care providers also need to be able to ask about firearms in their patients’ homes and safe storage of those firearms, especially if their patients show signs of certain mental illnesses or if they have a young child or mentally ill family member at home. Some have incorrectly claimed that language in the Affordable Care Act prohibits doctors from asking their patients about guns and gun safety. Medical groups also continue to fight against state laws attempting to ban doctors from asking these questions. The Administration will issue guidance clarifying that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit or otherwise regulate communication between doctors and patients, including about firearms.

These measures were requested by the American Medical Association. The government has strict regulations to protect the privacy of medical information. The rules govern both when information must be kept secret and when information might be revealed to others and HIPPA rules never prevented physicians from warning law enforcement about threats of violence. It is helpful to make this clear as many people do have misconceptions about the law. The protection of the rights of health care provides to talk about gun safety is in response to conservatives who have wanted to use government to intrude in the physician/patient relationship and prohibit such discussion.

Rational people would find nothing controversial here, but many conservatives are not rational. The Examiner is running this story with a headline making an absurd claim that Obama makes your doctor a spy for the federal government. The article makes a number of false claims, including those in this paragraph:

Thus, the inherent, traditional privacy that has characterized the doctor-patient relationship is now gone, unless Congress rescinds the executive orders in question. Obama stated in one of the executive orders that his new Obamacare law contains no requirement of privacy and supersedes the healthcare portability act of 1998 in which Congress strengthened the privacy of healthcare patients. Obamacare wiped out all legal protections of privacy.

This makes absolutely no change in in the HIPPA law they cite, which always included the right of physicians to release patient information under several specific situations, including to warn law enforcement about threats of violence. This does not wipe out a single legal protection of privacy. I would suggest reading the HIPPA disclosure which all medical facilities provide to patients. Such statements (including the one used in my office) typically inform patients that information regarding threats of violence can legally be released to law enforcement agencies. If someone told their doctor about a  plan to kill you, or to start shooting in a public school, do you really think the doctor should be forced to keep this information secret?

Misinformation such as this is contributing to the conservative calls to impeach Obama over his executive orders on gun control. Where were these people when Bush and Cheney actually did want to exceed the Constitutional limits on the power of the president?