Remember When Hillary Clinton Was Shrieking Down This Health Care Road?

I don’t know if the legislation got this far down the road last time around or not, but I remember lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth and blathering of “for the children” mantras.

Once again, Democrats have been done in by their legislative and punitive greed. Even if this bill passes, it will be at horrible cost to the Democrat brand–one that had been somewhat rehabilitated by the policies of Bill Clinton (although undermined by his personal character).

Bill Clinton could hide behind the skirts of Hillary on health care. Barack Obama may try to hide behind Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid, but it won’t fly.

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• Boehner determined to kill Dem health care bill (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

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NO RECONCILIATION

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Something To Warm Your Heart Before The Scott Brown And What’s Her Name Special Election

A profoundly distressed Andrew Sullivan:

I can see no alternative scenario but a huge – staggeringly huge – victory for the FNC/RNC machine tomorrow. They crafted a strategy of total oppositionism to anything Obama proposed a year ago. Remember they gave him zero votes on even the stimulus in his first weeks. They saw health insurance reform as Obama’s Waterloo, and, thanks in part to the dithering Democrats, they beat him on that hill. They have successfully channeled all the rage at the massive debt and recession the president inherited on Obama after just one year. If they can do that already, against the massive evidence against them, they have the power to wield populism to destroy any attempt by government to address any actual problems.
This is a nihilist moment, built from a nihilist strategy in order to regain power … to do nothing but wage war against enemies at home and abroad.

What comes next will be a real test for Obama. I suspect serious health insurance reform is over for yet another generation.

If this is any indication of the gnashing of teeth after a Scott Brown win, it will be a sweet victory, indeed.

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Podcast: President Obama’s Afghanistan, Views From Left And Right

President Obama gave an Afghanistan speech that made few people happy. The liberal Tommy Christopher and the conservative Caleb Howe join me to discuss President Obama’s Afghanistan speech. They also discuss “things men should not say”.

Download MP3

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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.

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Parenting By Gen Xers Has Gone To The Dogs

The New York Times weighs in on child rearing. Seems Gen X is learning how to train kids from a dog trainer. Might as well. It will probably work better than how Generation X was raised.

Boomers seemed to fall into two categories: Imperial domination/subservience or peer/friend. My parents chose the former. The neighbor’s kids were raised by the latter. Which turned out better? Well, parenting can’t account for raw intelligence or natural gifts, so I don’t know what can account for differing outcomes.

The New York Times generalized that Boomers were all buddy-buddy with their kids and concerned about self-actualization. Eh. I don’t think so. Not all of them. Many still wanted their kids to just shut up and get the chores done. And oh, by the way, come home before dark.

Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers made some circular arguments about how to get the most out of your kid. He described two parenting styles that could be described as authoritarian or collaborative. I think that’s a little extreme. Many parents these days fall somewhere between the two poles, or they bounce back and forth.

Since I’ve got a kid on the autism spectrum, I’m fully versed in behavioral methods for achieving outcomes. Positive reinforcement, extinction, and rarely, punishment, all get used. Most of all, stay calm and centered. Children smell weakness. You can bet the fit will be thrown when you’re PMS’d, on the phone and in the middle of Target…not that I would know anything about that, it’s just an example.

I don’t see nearly as many indulgent, reasoning, cajoling parents as I did back in the day. Maybe it’s just that I’m too consumed with making sure none of my brood has a full-on humiliating public melt-down that I don’t have time to worry about some other poor parenting slob’s techniques.

I also don’t see the arm-yanking public spankings of yore. Is it because parents are afraid to discipline a kid in public? In one personally memorable case, I had to assert my authority at the Mall one day and took the kid to the parking lot hoping there was no camera on my car in the parking lot. Turning out a decent human being won out over my fear of a CPS visit. [FYI: It was a stern talk and mild spanking, but it worked enough that all I had to ask after that was, "Do we need to go to the car?"] Often, children challenge boundaries in public places to test a parent’s resolve. It only takes one or two times where they know that the environment will not change the outcome for them to comfortably adopt well-socialized behavior both in public and private. Often, parents are afraid to publicly discipline because of the stigma on an old-fashioned spanking.

Public discipline is frowned upon. Well, corporal punishment is frowned upon. That doesn’t mean parents aren’t doing something to try and get the desired behavior out of a child. Often, parents resort to violence. In fact, if these statistics are to be believed, child abuse has increased an alarming amount since the late 80s. [More here.] I wonder how much of this is due to single parenthood and a culture where people have kids without being around younger children growing up so the out-of-control behavior of babies and toddlers is overwhelming and a shock.

There seems to be a tendency to believe the new, modern way is the “better way”. The Cesar Milan methods seem very good, actually. Firm, balanced, loving, pragmatic. Yakking away to a toddler is about as effective as reasoning with a pet poodle.

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Relying On Republicans: It’s Always Darkest Before It Goes Pitch Black

I mean, it’s always darkest before the dawn. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

Do you have any confidence that the Republicans will fight passage of this disastrous health care bill? With 60% of America against this bill, one would think this fight would be pretty safe fight. That is, people are on your side. The Democrats are the ones controverting the will of the people. They’re the ones who should be afraid and defensive. But it might be impossible to overstate the craven nature of Republican legislators. And it might not just be cowardice. It could also be a pathological desire to intervene and “make it better” and “have a voice”.

I might just be overly pessimistic. Glumness tends to set in whenever I watch Republican Senators in action. Karl is working the odds over in the Green Room and says:

My primary quibble would be with his assessment of reconciliation as an option. Reid has currently taken reconciliation off the table. That in itself would not be a big deal, but we are also starting to hear lefties like Sen. Tom Harkin explain why reconciliation would not be a good thing for liberals. I also think that Hennessey underestimates how bad it would look politically if — after several weeks of normal debate — the Democrats tried to shift to reconciliation. Even the establishment media would be unable to avoid the narrative that Democrats were trying to ram an unpopular bill through the Senate after failing under the normal rules. Public opinion polling consistently shows very bad numbers for a “go it alone” approach. It is hard to think of anything the Democrats could do that would instantly make ObamaCare 10-20% more unpopular than to try passing it via reconciliation.

My secondary quibble would be with the notion that no bill is more likely than a minor bill. If the Democrats fail on a comprehensive bill, they will (imho) fall back to a minor bill of some sort. The reasons for this merit their own post, but we can start with the Democrats’ perception that they will be punished (at least by their base) if they fail to pass something.

My primary reason for thinking that something will pass is as follows:

1. This is about Obama’s ego. He has staked his reputation on this legislation. This is about doing what the Clintons couldn’t. This is about remaking America. He will strong-arm every fence-sitter.

2. This is about Democrat majority relevance. What is their point if they can’t change things and make history when they have a chance? That’s why so many Democrats seem to be willing to take one for the team. This is about irrevocably pushing America left and they will do it.

3. Most of all, there is momentum. At many different steps in the process, the Democrats should have lost steam. Yes they’ll have to do some gymnastics to get this thing passed, but Democrats are concerned about the bigger principle: giving Obama and the Democrat brand “a win”.

Even if the legislation is a horrible failure (and it will be), that’s not the point. The point is that Democrats care for people and they are urbane and as good as Europeans. Seriously. The Dems want to be the world’s “cool kids”. They feel ashamed for the backward, capitalistic nature of America. It’s so gauche.

And as lame as Democrats are about health care, the Republicans who don’t vociferously and vehemently fight it will be deemed worse. Because if you can’t show some spine to the whiny, appeasing kid, what are you? The Republicans need to fight and push and they also need to make clear to their own (hello Maine ladies) that there will be price paid for voting for this monstrosity. I’m not sure the Republicans have the gumption to do it.

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President Obama’s Defensive Posture: No Hand Over His Heart During National Anthem–Update

Go over to Pamela Geller’s place and check this out and then come back.

Why won’t President Obama put his hand over his heart, a sign of devotion, during the National Anthem? Even better, why does President Obama protect the family jewels (symbolically) by interlacing his fingers in front of his crotch when the National Anthem plays?

Does the President feel threatened and therefore feels the need to be self-protective during the National Anthem? Is he just bored and trying to figure out what to do with his hands–anything, but show devotion to his country?

It seems to me that President Obama is not comfortable around any patriotic displays. In fact, it seems that any shows of patriotism make him feel defensive. He seems to want to protect himself from the assault.

Update:

@Techaskew on Twitter noted that it could be just another narcissistic display–that President Obama is taking the National Anthem in as if it’s being played for him. Like he’s the perpetual birthday boy and being sung to every time there’s a big event.

Oh blech. I think that might be more wretch-inducing.

Updated again:

“L’etat, ces’t moi”

“I got your salute right here.”

Via Lucianne

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Twitter-cide: Is Twitter Killing Itself?

Is Twitter trying to kill itself?

That’s the question I’m asking, because it sure seems like it. Here are a list of things I do not like about Twitter currently and many have to do with “innovations” meant to “help” and by “help”, I mean help Twitter not use as much bandwidth.

1. See Everything: Remember when you could see conversations with people even if you weren’t following both participants? I want that feature back, please. Make it something people can turn on and off. I found the best, most interesting people this way…by watching their conversations with other people. It’s a great way to learn, too.

2. Retweet: I read Evan’s rationalization. Here’s what he said:

If five people you follow retweet the same thing, you get five copies, which can be useful but it a lot of noise. This comes up even more in search. Popular users can get retweeted enough to saturate a search query.

This is a way, Evan, to ascertain the importance of a topic to people. I’m often shocked by what gets RT’d. In fact, some things turn into a trending topic because they touch a nerve. It is unpredictable. I don’t mind seeing 30 RT’s in my stream of the same thing. I like it. Now, I can see Twitter not liking it, because again, it takes up space. And this new innovation is all about saving space…for Twitter.

Then, Evan says this:

The other thing some people will not like is that, unlike organic RTs, there’s no way to annotate or leave your own comment when you retweet something with the new system.

This is a problem. Already, I have followers who think I agree with something because I RT it. Many times, I add a comment. It CAN get confusing. Whatever. People see the content morph and can jump in and question. It provokes conversation. And my comments, my take might make the RT relevant in a way that a random RT unannotated would not.

For example, a simple word | “Snort” after some stupid comment can indicate that this tweet is either stupid and/or ridiculous and/or funny. People usually get which.

Again, I only see Twitter benefiting from this feature, not the users. It makes streams less cloggy. Okay, fine. You know what? Make these “features” opt-in/out.

Twitter can be a messy, difficult to follow mish-mash. Oh well. It’s social. It’s conversation where a person is going in and out of the stream. What’s wrong with that? Why does it have to be “clean”?

Some of the fluff is dealt with in 3rd party Apps anyway. A person can filter. And Evan says that a person will only get the info they want. But that’s just it. People can follow the people they want who give the content they want or don’t want. Some is bunk, but every once in a while, there will be something really good. How do you control for that gem?

What I see Twitter doing is trying to take the humanity out of the Twitter–to make this social media less social and more pure information sharing. Yuck. I like Twitter because it’s like the best, hand picked group of friends I could ever want all sharing stuff but sometimes being amazingly juvenile (like the Star Wars Sex meme). That’s called being social and human. It’s fun.

Streamlining Twitter might be nicer for Twitter, taking less bandwidth and server space, but what of the user experience? I already don’t like missing so many conversations. What if I could just have a way to watch all conversations by the people I chose? What if I could RT w/o comment or with comment (tagged, for example) with a pop-out like the TwitPic–a cloud around the original comments with people’s comments?

The solution isn’t to pare information, it’s to make more information accessible. At least, that’s the solution I’d be shooting for.

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Reebok Reduces Women To Tits And Ass

I’m sure this video is meant to be somehow affirming:

Used to be, that a woman was reduced to her bits and pieces by the creepy old guy in the office who didn’t know better. You know, he was from the older generation, like Bill Clinton.

This nonsense is being foisted on women by Reebok. It’s supposed to be an encouragement to what? Wear more revealing tops so guys don’t stare at a girl’s fabulous butt?

The video is so stupid, condescending and sexist that it makes me completely disinterested in ever buying anything Reebok again. The thing is, I’m not prudish. I also get the notion that “sex sells”. But the flaw in this video is the substance as much as the form. Reebok indulges in the worst of stereotypes–competitive petty women angling to get the most male attention–and turns a woman against herself. She competes with herself. That is, her boobs want to best her butt. What the hell?

It’s stupidity.

Via @Ziggy_Susan on Twitter

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Texas Democrats Really Are Republicans!

From the Texas GOP:

Austin – The Republican Party of Texas is pleased to welcome several Democratic officeholders who switched parties today and became Republicans. Today in Hardin County, seven Democrats announced that they are switching parties to become Republicans. The new Republicans include Sheriff Ed Cain, County Judge Billy Caraway and Precinct 4 Commissioner Bobby Franklin. And at noon Tuesday in Palo Pinto County, Precinct 5 Justice of the Peace Bobby Hart switched his party affiliation and became a Republican. Three other Palo Pinto County Democratic officeholders indicated a strong interest in switching parties. The Republican Party of Texas has been working to build Republican strength at the local level, by working with county parties, recruiting candidates for the GOP primary and by recruiting conservative Democrats to switch parties.

“The wave of Republican strength continues to build,” said Republican Party of Texas Chairman Cathie Adams. “Americans are simply fed up with the Washington Democrats’ failing leftwing policies and government power grabs. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey Tuesday prove that Republicans are gaining momentum as the voters tell Democrats ‘Enough is enough!.’ We welcome these newly minted Republicans and anyone else who will stand with us for more freedom, lower taxes and smaller government.”

There are more party switches to come, as more conservative Texas Democrats make the choice to become Republicans. Dozens of Democrats across Texas are known to be considering switching or are already in the process of doing so. There is no similar movement of Republican officeholders leaving the Party. “

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