Ugly Retirement
As my own retirement appears to be looming now within the next 20 years, time to start thinking about how not to do it!

EJ Dionne does it again! 

This is a must–read column for at least two reasons. 

1.    He concisely identifies the most important conflict we face today:  a party that has turned its back on compromise and democracy.

2.    He reminds us that perhaps the single best illustration of this is that this party focuses its energy on passionately opposing their own ideas because the other side embraced them in an effort to forge a compromise so democracy can thrive:  subsidizing a private sector approach to health care instead of replacing it with a government run public approach. 

Read this column:  ‘This fall, every important domestic issue could crash into every other: health care reform, autopilot budget cuts, a government shutdown, even a default on the national debt.

If I were betting, I’d wager we will somehow avoid a total meltdown. House Speaker John Boehner seems desperate to get around his party’s Armageddon Caucus.

But after three years of congressional dysfunction brought on by the rise of a radicalized brand of conservatism, it’s time to call the core questions:

Will our ability to govern ourselves be held perpetually hostage to an ideology that casts government as little more than dead weight in American life? And will a small minority in Congress be allowed to grind decision-making to a halt?

Congress is supposed to be the venue in which we Americans work our way past divisions that are inevitable in a large and diverse democracy. Yet for some time, Republican congressional leaders have given the most right-wing members of the House and Senate a veto power that impedes compromise, and thus governing itself.

On the few occasions when the far-right veto was lifted, Congress got things done, courtesy of a middle-ground majority that included most Democrats and the more moderately conservative Republicans. That’s how Congress passed the modest tax increases on the well-off that have helped reduce the deficit as well as the Violence Against Women Act and assistance for the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

All these actions had something in common: They were premised on the belief that government can take practical steps to make American life better.

This idea is dismissed by those ready to shut the government down or to use the debt ceiling as a way of forcing the repeal or delay of the Affordable Care Act and passing more draconian spending reductions. It needs to be made very clear that these radical Republicans are operating well outside their party’s own constructive traditions.

Before their 2010 election victory, Republicans had never been willing to use the threat of default to achieve their goals. The GOP tried a government shutdown back in the mid-1990s, but it was a political disaster. Experienced Republicans are trying to steer their party away from the brink, the very place where politicians such as Sen. Ted Cruz and a group of fourscore or so House members want it to go.

Particularly instructive is the effort to repeal health care reform. The very fact that everyone now accepts the term “Obamacare” to refer to a measure designed to get health insurance to many more Americans is a sign of how stupidly partisan we have become. We never described Medicare as “Johnsoncare.” We didn’t label Social Security “FDRsecurity.”

Tying the whole thing to Obama disguises the fact that most of the major provisions of the law he fought for had their origins among conservatives and Republicans.

The health care exchanges to facilitate the purchase of private insurance were based on a Heritage Foundation proposal, first brought to fruition in Massachusetts by a Republican governor named Mitt Romney. Subsidizing private premiums was always a Republican alternative to extending Medicare to cover everyone, the remedy preferred by many liberals.

Conservatives even once favored the individual mandate to buy insurance, as MSNBC columnist Tim Noah pointed out. “Many states now require passengers in automobiles to wear seat-belts for their own protection,” the Heritage Foundation’s Stuart Butler said back in 1989. “Many others require anybody driving a car to have liability insurance.” Since all of us will use health care at some point, Butler argued reasonably, it makes sense to have us all in the insurance pool.

But that was then. The right wing’s recent rejection of a significant government role in ending the scandal of “a health care system that does not even come close to being comprehensive and fails to reach far too many” — the words were spoken 24 years ago by the late Sen. John Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican — tells us why Congress no longer works.

The GOP has gone from endorsing market-based government solutions to problems the private sector can’t solve — i.e, Obamacare — to believing that no solution involving expanded government can possibly be good for the country.

Ask yourself: If conservatives still believed in what both left and right once saw as a normal approach to government, would they speak so cavalierly about shutting it down or risking its credit?’

Dionne is a Washington Post columnist. He can be reached at ejdionne@washpost.com 

Loving Life with Julie
Sitting on our beautiful and expansive porch eating dinner tonight it is difficult to imagine no longer living in our 1915 arts & crafts home.  The woodwork has never been painted and previous owners have all taken loving care of this place.  I have gardened here for fifteen years.  We raised Philip and Brian here.  This has always been Annie’s dog house.  We created the big modern kitchen designed for those who love to cook or to sit at the island while others cook.  We created the spectacular second floor bathroom.  Actually Julie envisioned each and we made them happen.  This place has a lot of us in it.

But moving on is also about keeping the adventurous spirit alive, reaching for the new and unfamiliar because we believe on a balance the change—however disruptive—will be a good thing. Apartment living will not come with an expansive porch; or with lawn care and that is a novel idea.  Investing in a home near family in RI where we will retire; that is an good, adventurous, disruptive plan.

Julie continues to be good for me.  We bring different perspectives and energies, and have found a way to sync them into a strong relationship.  Julie is nearly always looking for the novel, seeking out the greener grass.  I am nearly always looking to dig in deeper and learn more about the where and who of the place I am in now, even as I have also been more ready than most to pick up and move when an opportunity comes up.  So, I might sit pat at 162 for the duration, without a push from Julie or the lure of a year abroad, because this is a good place and I feel like there is so much more for me to learn about it. 

Instead, Jules has it right here.  It is time to disrupt and embrace another adventure.  Apartment living here, walkable to work, and investing in a beautiful retirement home at the same time is a cool idea.  Scary in some ways, because there are so many questions and we have it so great now, so it will be tough to beat this.  I trust Jules and I trust my trust of Jules.  This will work out well and I am very excited about our next adventure together.

Bizzaro cartoons are consistently first rate.  This one reminds me of the scene in Life of Brian where Brian tells the huge crowd of new disciples following him against his will that 'you are all individuals!' and one random voice from deep in the crowd says 'I'm not.'

Careful Analysis of Charges Against the President
Ruth Marcus does a decent job of walking through the charges and identifying areas of concern and areas a pure theater.

UA in Top 500
A ranking of world universities from one of China's premier universities puts Akron in the top 500 (down from the top 400 ten years ago), URI in the top 400 (down from the top 300), and UW at #14.  Harvard comes in as #1 overall and in many of the individual disciplinary categories.

Long Overdue First Step

A recent Neal Peirce column, while as painfully vague and preachy as most of his columns tend to be, hits the nail on the head in response to the long overdue decision to dial down the failed war on drugs.  He points out that the driving force, making this now a bipartisan issue, is cost to tax payers.

“National awareness of the futility of the drug war has risen over recent years. And there’s growing understanding, in an era of fierce budget shortfalls, that billions of dollars are being expended — by the federal and state governments alike — on prosecutions and incarcerations that do little to stem either drug use or crime.”

He is correct that fiscal stress has brought the two parties together on this common sense move.  It is long overdue because we have known for years that the WOD is costly and ineffective: a massive waste of taxpayer dollars. 

We have also know for a long time that the costs associated with this monumental failure are not evenly distributed, disproportionately harming poor and minority urban communities and undermining family values.

I have blogged before on the importance of reading New Jim Crow to get a detailed and persuasive presentation of all the major arguments against the WOD.  The recent decision regarding stop’n’frisk in NYC, as well as Holder’s comments highlighted by Peirce, are long overdue steps in the right direction.

Fear Driven Party of No
I hope they can get their act together

Libertarian Thinking
Given the rightward trajectory of the Republican Party and the the likely candidacy of Rand Paul in 2016 it seems inevitable that we will soon be debating the merits of a libertarian approach to governance.  This should be a debate about what we mean by limited government, because limited government is a widely shared American value; what we each mean by that term, however, can vary dramatically.

Libertarians prefer maximum limits, allowing for only the smallest possible government. There is a lot to like about constitutionally limited government, where the rules of the game are set (mostly) ahead of time and the rulers (mostly) as well as the ruled are expected to follow these rules, and governments function, therefore, is limited to enforcing the limited number of rules in the constitution and protecting us against our enemies (foreign and domestic), that is, providing for national defense and running a criminal justice system. 

Libertarians are likely to favor the Articles of Confederation, for instance, where states (a much smaller unit than a national government) hold all the cards, power, sovereignty.  Today, given how power works, it might be a good idea to push back against a growing national government to re-empower states, since concentrations of power undisturbed by regular folks need to be disrupted from time to time...as we saw in the civil war, when we needed to disrupt the power of states seeking to nullify constitional authority.

I welcome this conversation, if it emerges, because it is honest and can be thoughtful, though I have my doubts the mass media will highlight these aspects.   But I also have my doubts about the extreme limitations envisioned by Libertarians.

On the one hand, minority rights are a provision in the constitution that limits government authority, making it consistent with Libertarian thinking.  On the other hand, our post civil war tradition of the federal government struggling to compel states to recognize and respect minority rights has been one contributing factor in the growth of federal, at the expense of state, power.  In this sense rights run contrary to Libertarian thinking.  So, minority rights--essential to a functioning majoritarian democracy--are one area I am concerned about in Libertarian thinking. 

A second area is, in my view, Libertarians undervalue all we do for ourselves and each other through government agencies.  National defense, criminal justice system, roads, bridges, food inspections, market regulation, public schools, public radio, environmental protection, safety in manufacturing or any building, civil justice system, homeland security, NASA, FHA, social security, medicare and medicaid, ACA, funding basic scientific research, public universities, and a lot more.  Imagining the enactment of Libertarian vision does not bring to mind pretty pictures of strong communities and family values.

Baseball has lost its way
and maybe not all lies sold as common sense come from Fox News

Joe Hallet is worth reading today. 

COLUMBUS: When I was sent from Toledo in 1985 to the Blade’s Capitol bureau, the 99 members of the House and 33 members of the Senate were mostly squeezed in tiny offices scattered through the Statehouse.

It was common for Republicans and Democrats to be neighbors. They lunched together at Mary’s diner in the basement and drank together at the Galleria bar across 3rd Street. Bipartisan friendships formed; members and their families got to know one another.

In 1988, House members moved into the Riffe Center, the new 31-floor building named in honor of the late Vernal G. Riffe, the longest-serving speaker in Ohio history. Republicans and Democrats were segregated from each other on different floors.

In 1992, Ohioans enacted eight-year legislative term limits. In 1994, Riffe retired, and when he stopped going to the Galleria, so did everyone else. It closed soon after.

Over time, “the day-to-day casual association was virtually eliminated” between lawmakers of opposite parties, recalled Paul Tipps, a retired lobbyist, who remembered a time before the current “year-round, hyper-partisan, unfriendly atmosphere in the General Assembly.”

It’s easy to forget the ugly partisan battles that occurred during Riffe’s 20-year tenure as speaker. But when the campaigns were finished and it was time to govern, there were two components then that are missing from today’s lawmaking — compromise and civility.

They have been lost to gerrymandering and term limits. With districts drawn to ensure that incumbents can’t lose except to a same-party challenger, pragmatism is sacrificed, said state Sen. Frank LaRose, an Akron-area Republican.

“When you’ve got people trying to prove they’re the farthest to the right or farthest to the left in order to survive a primary, it creates a naturally polarizing atmosphere, and there are fewer of us left who will say we’re in the center.”

The empowerment of the partisan extremes intimidates lawmakers, LaRose said: “I believe that compromise is the essential skill of statesmanship, but for some reason folks have this notion that if you compromise, you’re a sellout.”

LaRose can’t single-handedly change the system, but he can control his own behavior and demeanor and try to influence colleagues to regard one another as something more than partisan enemies. Toward that end, he has teamed up with a Democrat, former state Rep. Ted Celeste of Grandview, on a civility crusade.

Before he left the House in 2012, Celeste proved in three successive House races that you can win by staying positive. Encouraged by a movement that took root in 2005 in his Grandview Heights church, First Community, Celeste developed a program, the Next Generation project, devoted to building trust in politics through civil discourse.

After Celeste conducted a workshop last year at a Council of State Governments meeting in Cleveland, LaRose and other Ohio lawmakers from both parties were inspired to work toward creating a so-called civility caucus. Along with encouraging “respectful conversation” between the parties, LaRose said the caucus “will look for opportunities to create social interaction to get to know each other outside the legislature.”

Later this year, Celeste and LaRose will co-present a civility workshop at the Council of State Governments’ meeting in Kansas City.

[Sadly, a structural problem will not be solved with workshops]

“The sad thing about it is the public is very skeptical about the ability to make changes to the political system, so when I tell people what I’m doing they say, ‘Well, good luck with that,’ ” Celeste said. “The question is, can we reach a critical mass of people who feel the way we do to start to make a change?”

The two parties have rigged the system against bipartisanship, but at least someone is trying.

Hallett is senior editor at the Columbus Dispatch. He can be reached at jhallett@dispatch.com.

Austerity
Fox News, talk radio, and (sadly) more than a few leaders in the Republican Party continue to want to punish the poor for greedy and stupid choices made on Wall Street, in Congress, and among other powerful elites.  Wrong-headed, not at all about 'accountability,' and counterproductive.  Job growth, living wages, universal health care...these ought to be the goals elites are directing us toward accomplishing.

Whose Game to Play
MichaelGerson’s  argument that Senator Ted Cruz has chosen the wrong battlefield because his commitment to obstructionism has led him to conclude that not only is compromise cowardly, but strategy is as well.  Gerson argues persuasively that the Cruz ‘strategy’ is likely to ‘rescue Obamacare,’ the opposite of the result Cruz claims to seek.  Now that is leadership.

Here is how Gerson put it, highlighting the importance of venue, that is deciding whose game we are playing, in determining the outcome of political conflicts:

‘The outcome is predetermined by the choice of the battlefield. Any legislative effort to defund Obama’s central domestic achievement would provoke a presidential veto, requiring two-thirds of the Senate and House to override. This goal has a Dewey Decimal System problem: It is located not in political science but in science fiction.

An actual shutdown of the government — the only realistic outcome of Cruz’s strategy — works for conservatives only if voters generally blame it on Obama’s intransigence. So: Americans would need to side with a distrusted faction of a disdained institution, which is pursuing a budgetary maneuver that even many Republican lawmakers regard as aggressive, desperate and doomed. “This is misleading the conservative base,” says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., “because it’s not achievable.” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., has called it the “dumbest idea” he has ever heard.’

Even Republican leaders are stating publicly that this ‘strategy’ is misleading and will not work.

If Gerson is correct, is this the first sign of an eventual Democratic Party take-over of Congress?  That would be the market solution to what John McCain calls the ‘wacko birds’ in his own party. Further, if Ruth Marcus is correct that confronting the reality of the budget cutting slogans these ideologues have been slinging is already compelling them to back down, we might be seeing just a glimpse of a promise of an actual return to governance.

Rachel Maddow's blog is always great; it is particularly great today, highlighting one (of many) trends in how we report the news reflecting the two media biases that matter most:  commercialization bias and official bias.  Pointing out that the NYT, WPost, Politico and the Daily Show all hyped the (made up) IRS scandal and then stopped covering the story when the evidence proving the accusations false came out, Maddow concludes...

'And why does this matter? Aside from the fact that accountability should still have some meaning in American politics? Perhaps because misguided coverage of a phony controversy led the public to believe President Obama, the White House, and the IRS itself were responsible for serious misdeeds. The taint of "scandal" remains, for no reason other than the political world told the public about allegations, but decided the evidence to the contrary wasn't important.'

Reminds me of being a teenager (sorry Dad).  Thankfully the boys never did this to me (or at least not in the obvious, in your face, way we see here).  Funny.

Pope Pushing Humility
Change is hard.  So I have some sympathy for Catholics whose lives feel disrupted by Pope Francis’message to love the sinner, hate the sin, with a humility that precludes us from standing in judgment of others. 

But only a little, since the tendency to see being a Christian as nearly all about the power and duty to stand in judgment of others is, in my view, deeply non-Christ-like. 

I hope that those who have been misled into living as if humility and service were optional Christian virtues will make it through the difficult transition back to the daily struggle to humbly serve, to engage with love, to forgive and refrain from judging.

While my own struggle is often a miserable failure, I am thankful that my mother and father pointed me in the right direction and continue to be exemplary role models of humility and service with love.  For the first time in my memory, we have a Pope reinforcing the message of kindness and love I have always appreciated, even though it remains painfully challenging, from my parents.

Humility might also help us both better understand the importance of our partnership with China and the rise of a stable, strong and peaceful Chinese democracy...where humility is also a much needed leadership skill.