By Ed Stein | September 1st, 2010
Last night President Obama formally announced the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq, bringing that sorry adventure closer its end, whatever that may be. Perhaps the fledgling Democracy, against formidable odds, will take root and flourish. Perhaps not. Al Qaeda and other disaffected parties may well be able to undermine the struggling government and an unproven army, bringing a new era of chaos and terror to an already traumatized people. There’s no point in rehashing the strategic errors, deranged assumptions and questionable motives that led George W. Bush to commit this country to the long, agonizing, expensive struggle. We can only hope that somehow, someday, the Mission Accomplished banner will fly without irony over a free and democratic Iraq.
Topics: cartoon, combat troops, Iraq, Mission Accomplished, Obama, opinion, withdrawal | 2 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 30th, 2010
It’s not even a question that the national economic policies of the last few decades have favored the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. We’ve seen an astonishing increase in income inequality as taxes have become more regressive and the marketplace has been increasingly deregulated. The percentage of the nation’s wealth controlled by a tiny minority has grown exponentially while the income of lower- and middle -class Americans has stagnated.
I’ve wondered for years how so many people have been persuaded to vote again and again against their own economic self-interest. A revealing article by Jane Mayer in the August 30 issue of The New Yorker magazine helps explain it. Over the years billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers have steadily funded operations designed to stoke populist anger against the government and progressive ideas. The Tea Party, far from being a spontaneous populist movement, has been underwritten with tens of millions of dollars and coordinated through a network of organizations with names like Americans for Prosperity, with the singular goal of creating an angry block of disaffected voters who will unwittingly vote for policies that benefit the very wealthy.
Lurking behind the trumped-up fear of a government takeover of our lives is a desire on the part of these rich funders to force government out of the job of regulating how they do business, protecting workplace safety, defending the environment, overseeing the safety of the food supply, and raising their taxes–in other words, doing anything that might reduce their profits. That would also include, by the way, paying for the safety net. How this will be good for the army of middle class Americans they’ve enlisted to fight their battles for them is something I can’t answer, and I suspect the zealous Tea Party devotees can’t either. But letting out the anger, I guess, feels really good, even if the eventual consequences most certainly won’t. But, by then, we might have another Democrat in the White House we can blame for our troubles.
Topics: 2010 election, anger, billionaires, cartoon, Fox News, Koch Brothers, opinion, Rupert Murdoch, tea party | 33 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 26th, 2010
Now that the stimulus spending is winding down (note to critics of stimulus spending, who said it didn’t do anything: if it didn’t do any good, why is the loss of it endangering the recovery?), the job market is looking grim again. For reasons I can’t quite fathom in this oddest of election years, neither party seems to have much to say about the number one issue in the polls: jobs. The Dems know that they can’t pass anything right now, but instead of trying to get a big jobs bill through, and forcing the GOP to defend the indefensible, they seem to have given up. The Republicans are all about one issue only–extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, because it’s not a good idea to raise taxes in a recession, although it’s hard to know who will be hurt by taking a bit more from really rich people, and on the discredited theory that keeping the tax cuts will create jobs, (note to GOP: where are all the jobs that the tax cut was supposed to produce in the first place?).
In the meantime, the millions without work can spend their days waiting for the economy to tank again and looking for jobs that don’t exist, or worrying about a mosque in New York or immigrants taking the jobs that don’t exist in Arizona.
On that Islamic Center issue, I just returned from a few days in New York, where nobody I met was talking about the Ground Zero mosque (note to readers: it’s a community center, not a mosque, and it’s not at Ground Zero) even though Rupert Murdoch’s Post was doing its lurid best to keep up with his Fox News and make an election issue of it. I’m convinced the only politician in America with any courage at all is Mayor Bloomberg (a Republican), who is still standing firm on the principle of freedom of religion.
Topics: cartoon, economy, employment, jobs, opinion, recession, unemployment | 4 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 18th, 2010
On the wall of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island–the oldest synagogue in America–is a letter from President George Washington welcoming the congregation to our shores. It is a moving document, for it affirms that this new nation, only a few years old, intends from the beginning to live up to the ideals upon which it was founded.
Washington eloquently states, “The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
Here are the words of Newt Gingrich, welcoming another religious congregation: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington,” and “we would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There is no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center.”
At least he can speak in complete sentences, unlike Sarah Palin, who tweeted her own strident opposition to the mosque with these words: “Doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.”
My, how far we’ve come.
Topics: opinion; cartoon; Ground Zero; mosque; Islam; religion; religious tolerance; Oklahoma City; TimothyMcVeigh; church | 34 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 16th, 2010
I know people are angry; heck, I’m angry. It’s an inevitability of American politics that the party in power during bad economies gets punished at the polls, and the Democrats certainly haven’t distinguished themselves with the power we’ve given them. But I keep coming back to this question–what has the Republican party done to earn our trust? Their unanimous obstruction of any and all proposals has paralyzed Washington, and helped create the climate of voter anger. To remind you of how extensive this opposition has been, Republicans unanimously (or almost unanimously) opposed the health care bill, the energy bill, the financial reform bill , aid to small businesses, the extension of jobless benefits, the oil spill protection act, and recently and most egregiously, help for 9-11 first responders. More than 120 Obama nominees for important posts and judgeships are still blocked. This is the party we will reward in November, expecting them to do what, exactly? Other than absolute opposition to anything Obama, do they have a plan for getting the nation back to work (other than cutting taxes for the wealthy and cutting Social Security for the rest of us)? So, is this how we will conduct business from now on? The minority party, so long as it has at least 41 votes in the Senate, simply filibusters everything, and sweeps to power in the next cycle. When and if the GOP regains the majority, I can’t wait to hear their furious denunciation of the filibuster they abused to such devastating effect when they were the minority.
Topics: 2010 election, cartoon, filibsuter, GOP, obstruction, opinion, partisanship, Republicans | 8 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 11th, 2010
The Great Recession goes on and on and on. With the stimulus dollars (never enough to begin with, despite the claims of the deficit hawks) running out, the economy is shrinking again. Alas, now that we’re in the late stages of the election cycle, there’s zero chance that Congress or the president will undertake the bold action required to pull us out of this mess. All the Republicans want to do is give more to the rich and cut everyone else, slashing the tattered remnants of the safety net. And Obama is reduced to blaming Bush rather than pushing a people-first agenda. Hang on, folks. We might be stranded on the runway for quite some time.
Topics: opinion; cartoon; economy; recession; recovery; jobs; housing; consumer confidence; double-dip; Great Recession | 1 Comment »
By Ed Stein | August 9th, 2010
The government announced last week that three-quarters of the oil spewed from BP’s Deepwater Horizon leak had already vanished. Great news, right? Maybe the damage wouldn’t be so bad, after all. Except that numerous experts from outside the administration, which underplayed the severity of the leak from the beginning, believe that these optimistic numbers woefully underestimate the amount of oil still lurking beneath the surface. Massive amounts of chemical dispersants created huge columns of undersea oil, suspended in tiny droplets, which still may be wreaking havoc on the undersea ecology, the full extent of which may not be known for decades. Fish oil could take on a whole new meaning in the coming years.
Topics: opinion; cartoon; oil spill; BP; Gulf of Mexico; Deep Water Horizon; oil platform; environment; static kill | 3 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 5th, 2010
Jobs is the number one issue for Americans, according to recent polling. Ever anxious to help, I am proposing a solution to the vexing problem of persistent unemployment. Even better, my resolution includes ending illegal immigration AND extending tax cuts, all in one elegant package!
Topics: Bush tax cuts, carton, employment, illegal immigrants, immigration, jobs, opinion, taxes | 10 Comments »
By Ed Stein | August 3rd, 2010
I’m still trying to get my head around how anyone can support the Republican Party in the upcoming elections. I know they have a big lead in the polls, and I understand that the party in power usually takes it on the chin when the economy is bad, and this economy is REALLY bad. Still, what has the GOP done to merit our trust? To date, opposed extending health insurance to the almost 50 million Americans without it, opposed the climate bill (Republicans supported cap and trade when it was their idea), opposed toughening offshore oil drilling regulations (even in the wake of the BP disaster), opposed extending unemployment benefits during the worst recession in our lifetime, opposed further stimulus (even though it clearly kept the economy from tanking even further), and the latest outrage, opposed transparency in campaign funding. The only thing the party has come out in favor of is extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, even though that giveaway to the rich, enacted while we were fighting two unfunded wars, is largely responsible for the massive deficit the GOP now swears is our biggest problem. This is the same party, if you remember, that told us, when the tax cuts were enacted, that deficits don’t matter.
Somehow, though, they’ve persuaded a majority of Americans that they deserve another shot at wrecking the country. If you like oil in your oceans, melting ice caps and rising seas, larger deficits, greater unemployment, cuts in Social Security, Medicare and little what remains of the safety net, a shrinking middle class, the wealthy grabbing an ever larger share of the pie, and are fine with not knowing who funds political campaigns, then by all means, put these guys back in power. You’ll get what you deserve.
Topics: campaign disclosure act, campaign finance, cartoon, Congress, GOP, opinion, Republicans, Senate, transparency | 6 Comments »
By Ed Stein | July 30th, 2010
If I weren’t so angry about it, I’d be amused by the opponents of health care reform who just don’t get what it’s like for those Americans who either can’t afford or can’t get coverage. Many of you who have health insurance through an employer or are fortunate enough to be able to buy it on the individual market don’t understand what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. Maybe this letter my wife just sent to an insurer that just denied her coverage will help those who think that private enterprise is the only answer to comprehend what the real world is like. Oh, and you’ll notice that the Tea Party folks aren’t the only ones angry right now.
Dear (Unnamed Insurance Company),
I wish to call your attention to a double irony that would otherwise escape your notice.
Today, I received in the mail a flyer titled: (Unnamed Insurance Company) Cares. The message suggests that you want me to talk to my doctor about having a mammogram every 1-2 years. So what’s wrong with that? Here’s what’s wrong– if you check your records you will find that you paid for my double mastectomy after my breast cancer diagnosis in 1994. I no longer have breast tissue. I don’t need a mammogram.
But WAIT! There’s MORE! My husband’s job was eliminated in March of 2009, and our Cobra coverage will run out in a few months, and you have informed me that I don’t qualify for individual coverage because, it’s true, I also have MS. No cancer since the mastectomy. I am well, I am fit. I exercise and eat a healthy diet. I don’t take any medication, but none of that matters a bit because the truth is YOU DON’T GIVE A RAT’S ASS ABOUT ME!! In spite of what your flyer says, you do not care.
Please, take me off your mailing list.
Lisa Hartman
Topics: health care reform, insurance companies, Obamacare, opinion | 9 Comments »
