Germany, Refugee Nation

By Roger Cohen

Dec. 21, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/22/opinion/germany-refugee-nation.html?comments#permid=17007926

I personally support Angela Merkel in her refugee policy wholeheartedly. I was born in Germany, but have been a US citizen for almost 50 years, so it is somewhat discouraging for me to witness the US I immigrated to some 50 years ago with the frightened, xenophobic US of today. My mother, just turned 95 and still very alert, lives in Germany, and she is not so enthused about the refugees, mirroring the attitude of a significant minority of Germans. The US, with its right-wing fanaticism as expressed by most of the GOP candidates, is going the nationalistic, right-wing path of Hungary, Poland, even Denmark. Right-wing, anti-foreigner attitudes are increasing everywhere. It is interesting to note that media coverage in, for example Germany, is much more balanced than in the US, where the sensationalist fear-mongering of most 24-hour news outlets, and many other media outlets, exploits the fears of people to gain "ratings" and thus ad revenue - Obama is right in this regard, as reported this morning. It should not be underestimated how such unbalanced news reporting can easily cause the US to spiral into irrational fear and hateful actions. When audiences cheer the fear and war-mongering statements of the Trumps, Christies ("I will shoot down Russian planes in Syria") and others, then we are very close to xenophobic insanity. There is no proof that terrorists have been funneled into western countries as Syrian refugees - there are enough "locals" eager to participate now.

The Fate of Obamacare

by Ross Douthat

Dec. 19, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/opinion/sunday/the-fate-of-obamacare.html?comments#permid=16996855

"Maybe that debate will happen. But it seems just as likely that the new budget is less a prelude than the sign of a new normal, in which Obamacare is neither fixed nor fully paid for nor furiously opposed, but simply limps along with the rest of our health care system for as long as both can limp."

Substitute any other of the many serious issues facing the US for "Obamacare" in the above, and you have a perfect description of the dysfunction of the current Congress.

The failure to include the needed new taxes to help fund Obamacare into the new spending bill is not happenstance; it is the deliberate Republican effort to continue to fight a clandestine "war of attrition" against ObamaCare. 

How to make a national healthcare insurance system work is no big secret - just look at ANY other such system implemented by other "advanced" (and some not so advanced) countries, and they put the US system to shame, both in terms of cost and healthcare available to the AVERAGE person. The fact that the US refuses to learn from such experience is a result of the arrogance ("American exceptionalism") and ignorance ("those failed socialist states in Europe") of our elected officials, and by extension, of large portions of the American population.

The G.O.P. at a Crossroads

by Ross Douthat

Dec. 17, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/opinion/campaign-stops/the-gop-at-a-crossroads.html?comments&_r=0#permid=16980156

Ever since Nixon's "Southern Strategy" (where white resentment against the Civil Rights legislation by Democrats was used by Republicans), Republicans have, sometimes successfully, used fear mongering to try and gain votes, that is, to accentuate the distrust and fears between various groups inside the US and towards countries and societies outside the US, inciting and fanning these irrational fears and ruthlessly using them to try and gain votes. This strategy is especially successful with the less educated, poor and disenfranchised whites.

The current campaign is the logical conclusion of this long-standing GOP strategy, still successful at the local and state level, due to jerrymangering and demography, but increasingly a dead-end strategy at the national level.

When I listened to Tuesday's debate, it was dominated by irrational fear-mongering (immigration and ISIS in this case) - there are more Americans killed on a daily basis in the US than by ISIS in a whole year. So the frenetic fear mongering of virtually all candidates is completely fact-free, parallel universe. If these candidates truly were concerned about keeping the homeland safe, they woul worry much more about domestic gun ownership that threading to "carpet bomb ISIS" and "kill the families of terrorists".

CNN weeklong hype of its GOP debate...

I wonder if CNN has any idea how pathetic they look with their days, if not weeks, of hype and mind-numbing speculation about what the various candidates will do.

If CNN were to spend even a fraction of the time and resources on analyzing actual policy positions, such as they are, by the various candidates, rather than simply speculating about their various strategies, the American public might actually come to learn something on the basis of which they could make an informed decision.

When interviewing candidates CNN concentrates its questions on trying to elicit some outrageous statement from one candidate about another candidate, rather that holding their feet to the fire about the mindless drivel that passes for policy statements today, like "I will build a beautiful wall...".

It is painfully obvious that for the most part CNN's "Personalities" would not recognize true Journalism if it bit them in the behind.

Liberalism’s Gun Problem

by Ross Douthat

Dec. 5, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/opinion/sunday/liberalisms-gun-problem.html?comments#permid=16868873

This piece is typical of what the two conservative columnists at the NYT (Douthat and Brooks) have been producing lately - they are both intelligent enough to realize that the Conservative/GOP today is nutty, but they can't quite bring themselves to full-heartedly acknowledge that.

Thus, this piece by Douthat starts by acknowledging the realization that the US's gun-craziness is just that - crazy. But then he goes into his typical convoluted arguments that the proposals for gun control somehow are not doable and/or that the evidence (pretty darn persuasive in my view) from virtually every other advanced society are somehow not applicable to the US, or worse, would somehow weaken our Constitutional liberties - BTW, I feel the latest Supreme Court ruling on gun ownership is completely nutty 

(https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2968903144787006962#editor/targ...

The craziness of the GOP is highlighted by the recent vote in Congress to DEFEAT a bill that would do nothing more than prevent people on the FBI Terrorist Watch List from purchasing guns - can there be anything more ridiculous?!

Douthat's last line of defense is to argue that, because there are already 300+ million guns in circulation, it would take fascist/dictatorial-like measures the "disarm" the country. The problem will not be solved all at once, but we need to start somewhere!!!

San Bernardino Gunmen Kill at Least 14, ....

By ADAM NAGOURNEY, IAN LOVETT and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑADEC. 2, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/us/san-bernardino-shooting.html?comments#permid=16827825

It strikes me as sadly ironic, that we have the highest levels of government in a panic about the possibility of ISIS attacks on "the homeland", with no hesitation to institute draconian infringements on Constitutional rights and spend Billions of dollars on military action, while we seem paralyzed to do anything about the homegrown terror brought about by the misguided interpretation of the Constitution that everyone has a "right" to acquire and use not only hand guns, but military grade long guns.
When a European country like France reacts massively, with outrage and military action, to events such as recently in Paris, it is quite understandable, because in those societies mass killings are truly exceptional and usually truly the result of externally inspired terrorism. But when the US goes into a panic about the possibility of refugees possibly coming with terror in mind - a completely unproven hypothesis - while not being able to mount any cohesive policy to combat home-grown violence, it only makes us look silly and inept.

Jeb Bush’s Strange New Ad

by Andrew Rosenthal

DECEMBER 1, 2015 2:15 PM

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/jeb-bushs-strange-new-ad/?comments#permid=16827713

Jeb Bush is desperate and should try and save what dignity he (and the Bush clan in general) have left and withdraw from the race.

However, to be clear, many, many of our elected representative, from the President on down, cynically use members of the armed forces, our "heroes", as backdrops for political messaging, and then turn right around and prevent the necessary VA spending bills to properly take care of the huge number of physically, mentally and emotionally damaged heroes.

This kind of self-serving, politically motivated "hero-worship" is, unfortunately, standard practice in American politics. Given that, Mr. Rosenthal's wonderment at Jeb's blatant misuse of heroes is somewhat odd.

Donald Trump’s Appeal

by Thomas B. Edsall

Dec 2, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/campaign-stops/donald-trumps-appeal.html?comments#

I think the answer to the question of Trump's appeal is much simpler: we, the US, have become a country that believes what is shown in "Reality Shows" is actually "reality".
The media, and especially the "milk toast" group that passes itself off as "journalists", are part and parcel of this phenomenon. Every day CNN, MSNBC and the others ask in wonderment about the sustained popularity of Trump, when it is they themselves that ensure that sustained popularity. Every time Trump says something outlandish, the media spend hours and hours for days on end, with all sorts of talking-head "experts" filling the screen, speculating about this non-issue, which is exactly what keeps Trump at the forefront in our media-centric society.
For example, after an initial report of the "thousands of Muslims in New Jersey" cheering on 9/11, is the endless speculation about this really justified, given the boat-load of real issues which need and should be raised by "journalists" (if we still had them)?
But this type of stuff is easy for the taking heads to speculate about - it takes no actual knowledge and no work to inform oneself about real issues, and it fills the endless hours of 24hr news shows during which they can sell ads.
So there is no mystery here about the sustained popularity of Trump - "it's the media, stupid" - paraphrasing "it's the economy, stupid" - not calling anyone names.

Putin’s Syrian Misadventure

by Thomas Friedman

Dec 2, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/opinion/02friedman.html?comments#permid=16822471

As usual, Friedman's analysis of the Middle East is half-baked.

It is easy to make fun of Putin's bumbling into the Middle East morass, but everything, and more, one can critique in Putin's steps can be held against the US's efforts in the region in the past 20 years - again, which Friedman supported. He points to the two Russian soldiers and the 224 airline casualties as "proof" of Putin's folly - what about the 5000 US soldiers killed and 100's of thousands maimed for life?

Whatever may be wrong with Putin's approach, he is spot on in maintaining that just "defeating" ISIS and pushing Assad out of power will leave a power vacuum, leading to more radical groups creating their own little fiefdoms - Libya is a case in point.

The US especially has this crazy view that just by getting rid of un-democratic leaders (BTW, the US has installed its fair share of despotic leaders when it suited its economic and political objectives) will miraculously lead to liberal, democratic governments. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are objects lessons in the fallacy, yes idiocy of that approach.

The fallback position of the nutty neocons is the crazy notion that "the world is better off without Saddam" - ask most of the Iraqis now living in the smoldering remains of what was once a stable, even liberal country - women were treated much better by Saddam than by today's leaders - or ask the 100's of thousands of Iraqis now dead as a result of the US's "nation building" effort.