One key challenge is that while Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the system overall, vastly more – 75 percent – rate their own quality of care favorably. The difficulty thus remains where it’s been all along: Forging solutions to the current system’s problems that don’t leave people fearing they’ll lose what many see as their own good quality of care now.
Obama leads Romney by 9 percentage points in Ohio, 6 points in Pennsylvania and 4 points in Florida, according to the June 19-25 “swing-state” survey [from Quinnipiac].
Because of the electoral system, it really doesn't matter if he loses by 35 or 40 points in places like Utah and Alabama. Romney is now finding out what it is like to go up against an actual opponent who knows how to target their message. And right now it looks like the Bain Capital attacks are being relatively effective.
As the political discussions heat up with the approaching 2012 elections, I think it is of value to ponder this little experiment.
We create through the wonders of cloning two candidates to run for the US Representative seat in every district in the country. The one running on the Democratic ticket would be a shoe in for membership in the Progressive Caucus, whereas the other would sit up shop in the Tea Party Caucus. Neither of them would be wackos or nutjubs. Both would be skilled in the game of politics. A Bernie Sanders vs. Mike Pence sort of battle.
On June 17, Greeks again voted Golden Dawn into Parliament. The group won 6.92 percent of the vote, which will give them 18 seats in Parliament despite a platform hinged on kicking all immigrants out of Greece and setting up landmines on the borders.
Just figured someone ought to write something about it. I have never served in the military, nor have I lost anyone close to me as a result of their service. My dad was in Korean War, but he never spoke about it (he didn't see actual combat, being stationed in Japan). The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all the other conflicts around the globe, are inevitably abstractions to me for the most part. As with everyone who has a heart, I hate war. It would be nice if life was so simple as that.
These pictures are some of the 60 photos from a blog on the website theBrigade, called Memorial Day...Home. This website is cousin site to theChive website, which is one of the most popular sites globally out there. Taking a trek through these sites I think reveals a facet of the American culture, both the good and the bad, the mundane and the profound. But just pondering all of the pictures of this one blog is enough to make one ponder - what exactly is up to each of us alone.
Another high profile political event came and went. This time it was NATO in Chicago. Some leaders met. Some people hit the streets to protest and have their voices heard. There was some clashes between police and protesters. Some people were hurt, some were arrested, some were hurt and arrested. The media took pictures and wrote stories about the leaders and the protests outside.
I recently spent some time driving across a good portion of this fine country and as one might expect I saw a number of maneuvers on our nation's highways that would lead one to conclude we are a nation of idiots. Or at least a nation that has a good number of idiots. Actually I would have more choice words for these folks. And one of the most glaring examples I experienced occurred on I-15 between Salt Lake and Provo, which is currently under serious construction.
Like most of these incidents of idiocy, the I-15 idiocy revolved around a group of cars wanting to go faster than another group of cars. The latter group, of which I belong, is usually attempting to drive at or near the speed limit, whereas the former group is seeking to move down the road at speeds 10, 15 or 20 miles per hour faster than the posted limit.
The last three polls have Santorum leading Mitt +9, +3 and +15. It would seem one of the few times that Mitt actually took a stand on an issue in severely conservative way - the auto bail out - may just be the cause for his most humiliating defeat of the season. The SuperPAC cluster bombs may come in and save the day for Mitt, but he just may learn that in the world of primary politics, all politics is local.
When President Obama‘s administration last month unveiled rules that would require some religious hospitals, colleges and other institutions to provide free contraception to their employees under the new health care law, it might have seemed to be a political winner.
The idea of birth control being covered by insurance companies is popular across the political spectrum, even among Catholics. The new policy will exempt churches themselves and will have no effect on doctors who object to prescribing contraception. And the decision means the president’s health care law will help make birth control cheaper for millions of women.
If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see. Give yourself a label.
Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.
The environmental activist Hazel Wolf once wrote that if one wanted to convince an economist, one had to talk to them like an economist. In the contentious atmosphere of socio-political discourse, this is often easier said than done. The principles and fundamental assumptions of the economist are in the grand scheme of things are relatively easy to grasp. The challenge becomes how to translate one's stance through the prism of those principles and assumptions.
When we confront, however, the vast scope of socio-political ideologies the situation gets a whole lot messier.
The alpha males still control the top of the hill. For now. Their time, however, may be coming to an end, a victim of necessity, of survival. In their place will not be a replacement, a mere shifting of their hierarchical ranking from them to their conquerors. There will be no conquering. Rather, there will be a truce of sorts, an agreement, a reconciliation. Who will be there on the top of hill will shift in a collaborative act of play and thought.
I was nine years old in April 1974 when the images of Patty Hearst -- newspaper heiress and Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) kidnapping victim -- wielding an M1 carbine while robbing a San Francisco bank with the SLA splashed over the news. Because I was nine, I wasn't aware of the whole back story or who the SLA or Randolph Hearst were. I knew Ms. Hearst was some kind of an "important person" who normally doesn't go around robbing banks. I was aware of the debate as to whether she had voluntarily joined in the SLA or whether she had been somehow brainwashed into doing so. And somewhere along the line, I became aware that Ms. Hearst's apparent new revolutionary tangent was purported by some to be a consequence of the Stockholm Syndrome.
I recently spent some time driving across a good portion of this fine country and as one might expect I saw a number of maneuvers on our nation's highways that would lead one to conclude we are a nation of idiots. Or at least a nation that has a good number of idiots. Actually I would have more choice words for these folks. And one of the most glaring examples I experienced occurred on I-15 between Salt Lake and Provo, which is currently under serious construction.
