A thank you to the TPM website that found this article buried in the New York Times. Here is a reprint of the relevant paragraph.

The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan — something like Medicare for those under 65 — that would compete for customers with private insurers. Twenty percent said they were opposed.

In addition, as Obama points out, the the Republican’s criticism of the public option makes no sense. A reprint of his quote is here:

“If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us that they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government — which they say can’t run anything — suddenly is going to drive them out of business?” Mr. Obama said. “That’s not logical.”

I think the conservatives are really worried that a public plan might in fact be a good idea.

The Obama administration’s recent push into the Helmand district of Afghanistan is a commendable improvement over the Bush administration’s emphasis on fighting only and ignoring the development of the country. Obama’s shift away from eradication as the principal way to control the drug trade is also moving in the right direction.

However, I think Obama, who has a reputation for approaching things rationally and pragmatically, in this instance is not confronting the paradox of the situation. It is our current domestic drug policy that is allowing the cultivators of heroin, and therefore also the Taliban, to make huge sums of money. We are fighting ourselves, by creating an illicit drug trade, then fighting the drug trade we created. Incidentally, the same holds true for the funding of the Mexico and Colombia drug cartels.

There our others that have also noticed this. Nicholas Kristof wrote a good column explaining our lost drug war. I have also mentioned this before in an older post, outlining tasks the Obama administration needs to tackle.

The only real solution is to decriminalize these drugs, taking the huge illicit profits out of the cultivation of poppies. Possibly a program where heroin can be administered in a clinical setting only would be feasible. I realize that this might be hard to convince the politicians in Washington, but Obama should at least state the obvious, that our drug policies are actually helping our enemies. As long as the heroin trade is profitable, there is no real way to cut off the funds to the Taliban, and Obama’s attempts to pacify Afghanistan is doomed.

Thought I’d pass on this article about a potential improvement in cancer treatment. The technique uses bacteria to deliver drugs directly to the targeted cancer cells.

Google has announced that it is developing a new free linux based operating system to go with it’s Chrome browser. I think that’s great, since Windows is clearly lacking in many respects. As it stands, however, I don’t see how it is much better than using Ubuntu, which is the flavor of linux that Google is currently using on it’s servers. Critical, is whether application developers will port their software to the Chrome operating system, specifically, Intuit and Adobe. If Google can use it’s influence to convince those companies to have Quickbooks and Dreamweaver and such be compatible with linux, that will be news. Here is the link to the Huffington Post article.

Here’s a collection of photos of Iran. I believe I got the link from Andrew Sullivan’s blog. I think it’s interesting just how modern Iran looks. These are not backwards people we’re dealing with.

Part 1

Part 2

This recent article in the New York Times left me thinking about the democratic leanings of Iran. I know that Iran doesn’t have a true democracy, with the selection of who is on the ballot strictly controlled and the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei retaining control of ultimate government decisions. But I can’t help noticing the similarities in their political discourse and those of the United States. I think the categorizing of Iran by the Bush administration as an “Evil Empire” was a little misguided. We’ll see, come this Friday’s election.

The pressure for California to change it’s dysfunctional constitution is growing. The current budget crisis has finally forced the issue. The essence of the problem is rooted in Proposition 13 passed in 1978. This proposition created 2 very major problems, capping the property tax rate and allowing rate increases only when the property changes ownership, along with requiring a 2/3 vote to pass revenue and tax increases in the legislature. (For some background on the proposition click here.)

A little talked about aspect of this law is that corporations can perpetually keep their property tax rate from changing by the use of shell corporations, therefore the property never technically changes ownership. (This is explained more fully in the sixth paragraph down in the “Analysis-Negative effects-On the housing market” section of the same wikipedia link. )
This had never actually occurred to me until reading a Letter to the Editor in the May 31, 2009 Santa Rosa Press Democrat, which I reprinted below.

Krugman’s take
EDITOR: Although I generally appreciate Paul Krugman’s insight, I think he got California’s Proposition 13 wrong (”Will California’s state of paralysis spread?” Wednesday).

Propositon 13 was primarily intended to protect corporate property in California (another Republican gift), such as Chevron’s huge holdings in the East Bay and corporate farmland in the Central Valley. The portion of residential property that has not changed hands in the past 30-plus years is probably negligible compared to the corporate property that has not changed hands. So it’s not homeowners who were shielded as much as it was - once again - the corporations.
S.Rose Pareto
Petaluma

This clearly is unfair and goes a long was to explaining why California is having financial problems. The commercial owners of property are no longer paying taxes! The other aspect of Proposition 13, the 2/3 vote needed to change revenue laws, is also a serious problem, which allows a small obstructionist Republican minority to clog up the legislative process. An added problem is the misuse of the ballot initiative process. The process is now being used by factions with ample resources to bypass the legislature, the very group of people the ballot initiative process was supposed to keep in check.

I am not the only one who realizes these problems. A recent article by Joe Mathews in the May 22, 2009 New York Times pretty much says the same thing.

Possibly now, with our current crisis, state politicians will finally have the courage to repeal the most ornerous aspects of Proposition 13. I’m not sure of the steps needed to accomplish this, but the Bay Area Council is advocating a Constitional Convention. For more information regarding this approach you can go to the Repair California web site.

I’m all for it.

It is understandable to want to put the Bush administration’s secret war on terror in the past and forget about it. But Dick Cheney’s recent public statements attempting to justify their actions is just too much. Here is a link to an article describing how the information obtained from Ibn al-Shayk al-Libi by torture produced the erroneous evidence used by the Bush administration to go to war with Iraq. It is all so wrong on so many different levels. These people should be held accountable for their actions.

In a side issue, nobody ever brings up the fact that 9/11 happened on the Bush administration’s watch when the Republicans boast of their success in stopping terrorist attacks after 9/11. It seems like this should be a serious black mark on their security abilities. Here is a reprint of a recent letter to the editor in the New York Times, which brought to my mind this minor point.

To the Editor:
As the debate over torture heats up, it seems the Republican response is always to remind us that Bush & Company “kept us safe since 9/11.” That’s terrific, and the Bush administration surely gets some credit for that. But wouldn’t it have been even better if it had also kept us safe on 9/11? Why is it that 9/11 doesn’t count when Dick Cheney and the Republicans are bragging about their safety record?
Scott Miller St. Louis, May 12, 2009.

Recently I’ve been reading a lot from the liberal side about how the “Stimulus Bill” is insufficient and Obama should have never let a few Republicans water down the bill. See (Paul Krugman). I think the flow in this thinking is the idea that once the bill is passed the Democrats can’t do anything more, that everything has to be in this bill.

This is a dangerous line of reasoning. This bill HAS to be merely the first step in sweeping aside the right wing ideologues. It takes only a moment’s reflection to realize what we would be up against if the Republicans were still in power. McCain, who now would be president, recently stated: “This is not a stimulus bill; it is a spending bill”. (bottom of Bob Herbert’s article), an inkling as to how devoid of intellect the administration would have been. Look also at Michael S. Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, who according to The Washington Post is being investigated by the FBI concerning allegations by his ex-campaign finance chairman, Alan Fabian, that Steele misused funds from the campaign. What is more telling is the response from Steele’s spokesman, “It’s from, what, a convicted felon? And it has no substantiation in fact”, which completely misses the point of how damning it is for his ex-finance chairman to be convicted of a felony in the first place. This is the current head of the Republican Party.

I am very impressed by Obama’s ability to try and reconcile with his opponents. How many people in his position would have offered Clinton the Secretary of State position? Also, apparently after the election, Obama consistently consulted with McCain concerning his cabinet choices, even inducing McCain to comment “that many of these appointments he would have made himself”. But the right wing can not be allowed to retake control of the government. This must be only the opening act.

Which brings us to: “What’s next?”. If you take the view that there’s more to come, it’s perfectly okay to take out of the “Stimulus Bill” the “permanent liberal platform” spending and leave only “immediate deficit spending” that gets the economy going. It would have been nice to combine the two, but it’s really not necessary and runs the risk of doing both badly. But now, assuming the “Stimulus Bill” passes, a flurry of “permanent agenda bills” should follow on it’s heels.

First, unfinished business of the “Stimulus Bill”. Funding is needed for local and state governments, including for educational infrastructure and Headstart preschools. This is an easy mark for Obama, with Republican governors already on his side, it could easily cause a rift on the Republican side. ( a good thing)

Next, is energy. The federal government needs to build and promote renewable energy (wind and solar) and a modern energy transportation infrastructure. Although a separate issue, wiring everyone for broadband internet should also be high on the list. Critical is how the Obama administration markets this. It could easily be framed in a “patriotic paradigm”, “to allow us to keep buying oil from the middle east is just unamerican“, thereby stealing the Republican’s thunder.

Another issue high on the list is Universal Health Care. This could also easily be framed as “patriotic”. Our lack of government funded health care is a principal obstacle to the competitiveness of American companies in the international market, that have to compete with other companies that have the expense of health care and pensions paid by the government.

So how do you pay for these programs, since they are no longer technically part of the deficit stimulus package? I was struck be the editorial from Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, titled “Please Raise My Taxes”. Simply, increase the taxes on the wealthy and close wealthy and corporate loopholes. I think Obama might be surprised to discover the groundswell of public outrage at the massive redistribution of wealth to the affluent over the last decade. Plus, contrary to Republican orthodoxy, putting a crimp in the wealthy’s income flow will not hurt the economic stimulus. It’s everyone else that powers a strong economy. A little bit of fairness is good for everyone.

Let’s hope there is indeed more to come.

Here’s an interesting discussion on PBS.org with Bill Moyers. It’s a half hour long, but worth watching in my opinion.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01232009/watch.html