We can appreciate Senator Rand Paul's (R-KY) honest answer with regard to Edward Snowden and his mixed feelings about what he did, and we agree that the death penalty should be taken off the table. And Mr. Paul brought up a good reason as to why; and that is because Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, we know for a fact perjured himself in front of Congress when he stated that there was not mass collection of data on the part of the N.S.A. What happened to him? Nothing.
However, the notion that Mr. Snowden has suffered and been punished enough, according to Jesselyn Radack, one of Snowden’s legal advisers, is a bit too far for the simple reason that this is a choice that Mr. Snowden made himself.
One question hanging out there from last week is whether Mr. Snowden acted alone or not. Former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff buttressed Congressman Roger's comments from last week saying that there are questions about how Mr. Snowden knew where to go and what to do making it difficult to understand how he acted alone. However, Ms. Raddack did point out that the FBI believes that Mr. Snowden acted alone, and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said he had seen no evidence that he had help. Mr. Paul also said he hadn't seen any details of that. It begs the question of whether or not our Senator's are as fully informed as they should be, but that's a whole other topic.
All this speaks to the complicated nature of what Mr. Snowden has done, and we still contend that he did the right thing in the wrong way. We're glad that Mr. Snowden has brought this illegal N.S.A. spying to our attention, but we just can't bring ourselves to say he's a hero, not quite. However, what Mr. Durbin said just seems implausible to us which was that the N.S.A. program has to be changed so that it keeps the American people safe but doesn't overreach - practically impossible. There shouldn't be amnesty or clemency for Mr. Snowden as Attorney General Eric Holder said, but there's just no way that a deal is going to be struck if the minimum penalty for what he did is 25 years in prison as Mr. Chertoff said.
And where Mr. Paul has to be careful, by the way, is in the type of libertarianism he advocating for in the United States because his libertarian philosophy is what leads people like Edward Snowden to think that it's good to break the law, complete flout the government and then think there shouldn't be any penalty. You can't have it both ways.
Speaking of having it both ways, one can not disqualify Hillary Clinton from the presidency because of Bill Clinton's actions as Mr. Paul did. He said that Mrs. Clinton should be judged on her own merit, but then said that Mr. Clinton's past actions should factor in. Well, what is it? If he's making that call, then he would have to make the same call against Senator David Vitter (R-LA) who has announced that he's running for governor of his state and had openly admitted that he broke the law by soliciting prostitutes, for which he received no punishment.
With regard to presidential politics, Chuck Todd outlined an interesting notion that will be considered, which is if voters are thinking of the 'Hillary' brand (our word) instead of the 'Clinton' brand then she'll have a better chance of winning if she runs, which is very true because of the notion of looking toward the future, which the round table also brought up. Does Mrs. Clinton represent the future, being progressive enough for today's changing Democratic party? Of course the answer, as with everything, is yes and no. Progress in this country would certainly be having a woman as president and in our humble opinion, a really good idea, but it is also true that Mrs. Clinton is not the most progressive of Democratic politicians. This seeming conundrum is one solved by the 'party' that most Americans belong to, which is Independent. Both of those seemingly at-odds notions with regard to Hillary Clinton work for independent voters, and it speaks to another truism about the American people which that they are more socially liberal, but also more fiscally conservative - otherwise known as the center.
Mr. Paul is trying to get to the center but the way in which he's going about it will take a longer time than he has to be a viable presidential candidate. Instead of shaping his views to fit into the mainstream - the center, right of the country - he's trying to get the mainstream to see it his way. With that comes a lot of scrutiny; with scrutiny comes clarity, and it's clear that on many issues Mr. Paul's views are well outside the mainstream, especially his cavalier attitudes toward race in this country.
This leads us into what to expect from Mr. Obama in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. In the wake of another deadly mall shooting, not to mention another recent school shooting in South Carolina, unfortunately the president will not talk about gun control as he had last time around.
We agree with Chuck Todd and Mike Murphy who basically said that this is the last State of the Union address that counts for Mr. Obama in as much as setting an agenda to get things done. One of those things will be immigration because both Republicans and Democrats alike know that something has to be done; it's more politically advantageous for Republicans because of their dismal numbers with minorities and Hispanics.
Another topic will certainly be income inequality and helping the poorest Americans. There is not question that the distance between the richest and poorest is widening rapidly but also just as important is the fact that the middle class in America is being thinned out. In this vein will also be discussion of the farm, which plays across the issue of the poor and tax reform as the farm bill address the SNAP program ('food stamps') and corporate welfare in the form of subsidies that go to big agri-business.
Contrary to popular thought, there is still a lot for the president to do and things that he can get done. Does he still command the stage, as Carolyn Ryan questioned. The answer is yes, but only if he decides to take it... without compromise, and that's not to say that he shouldn't compromise to get things done. Sure, it's important to pay attention to the laws being broken, but it's equally important to get laws passed for the betterment of the most amount of people. That's what it's all about anyway.
Round Table: Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA); former FCC Chairman, now President
and CEO of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association,
Michael Powell; Republican Strategist Mike Murphy; New York Times
Washington Bureau Chief Carolyn Ryan; and NBC's Chuck Todd.
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
1.19.14: Did Edward Snowden Have Help?
We'll admit that over the week, we've softened on our hardline attitude toward former Security Gates, but not on Governor Chris Christie, nor on Edward Snowden, really.
For Governor Christie, it's actually become worse for him as the week has progressed with city mayors in the state coming out and accusing the Christie administration of quid pro quo deals with private developers, leveraging Hurricane Sandy relief funds as bargaining chips. And as for today's program, Rudy Giuliani didn't make any impact in defense of Mr. Christie. In fact, he made the same mistake as many other Republicans are making and that is trying to deflect attention away from Mr. Christie's situation by referencing President Obama in terms of Benghazi and the I.R.S. What that does is elevate the bridge lane closings to the same level of Benghazi and the I.R.S. Politically, Republicans should be trying to diminish the situation by focusing Mr. Christie's policy accomplishments, and Mr. Christie should keep the politically mega-fundraising to a minimum from now. As Newt Gingrich said, it's not going away any time soon and you know where we stand.
As for the former Security, we greatly appreciate that he cares for the troops so deeply but he admitted that it sometimes clouded his judgement and we're uncomfortable with that because that also means that he was perceiving others decisions through a clouded lens as well. Our one question for Mr. Gates, would be simply this: At the end of the day, can you honestly say that you did everything in your power as Secretary, given your deep concern for the troops, to get them home as quickly and as safely as possible while bringing about an effective [a vague term, admittedly] military conclusion?
Americans can handle and accept war if necessary, but what they've learned is that they have a real distaste for preemptive war.
Lastly, Mr. Gates said the president has the right temperature in terms of what he feels should be done about the NSA's bulk collection of data that it will continue but with strict oversight domestically and that the government should not store the data. Sure, the president has the right temperature, but on which planet?
If the government isn't going to store the data but the government insists that it in fact needs to be collected - bulk data collection is not stopping - then who does store it? Just as someone can ask of Edward Snowden, who are you to decide what state secrets everyone knows or not; someone could ask of the government, if you're not storing the information, who gets to decide who stores it if not you? All of this doesn't even include the overriding question of why they are collecting your information in the first place.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said it's a false choice between security and privacy; we agree with that, but he made the distinction between the government collecting data vs. Google or Amazon because you opt-in for those. That's a false choice as well. You know how many times you have to do a Google search or buy something on Amazon for those companies to get your information? Answer: once. As we've said before - you're privacy these days comes by being one of a million faces walking down Broadway in New York City - you can see them all but nothing specific about any. That's the new reality in terms of your online identification.
And as for the call for stricter oversight, we heard Congressional Intelligence Committee Chairs Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) both said that there have been no abuses and everything the NSA has done has been legal. Yet, we still need stricter over? That doesn't sound right.
One could answer, as Secretary Gates did, that we're talking about things that might happen, as opposed to things that have happened. In this case, if one can imagine that something 'might' happen, it certainly will happen. And the reason we know this is because they were happening without our knowledge and we didn't know it until Mr. Snowden informed the world about it.
We always contended that Mr. Snowden did the right thing, but in the wrong way. If Mr. Snowden went to work at the NSA strictly for the purpose to disclose secrets or unknown governmental agency operations, as Senator Feinstein explained, then he's technically not a whistleblower as Mr. Ohanian explained how Mr. Snowden will eventually be viewed.
Are we glad, we know what we know because of Mr. Snowden, no doubt. Did Mr. Snowden leak this information then go to China then Russian, also no doubt.
The reason we bring this up is because Mr. Rogers eluded to something even more serious and that was the question of if Mr. Snowden acted alone. Mr. Rogers obviously thinks that the answer is that Mr. Snowden did have help (see the clip below):
Though it would certainly affect the labeling of Mr. Snowden, whether he had help or not doesn't change the fact that someone at the NSA, a relatively low level contractor, could have access to so much sensitive information, so much so that the United States government has stated that it will never know the extent of how much. How does this not show us that abuse is not only probably, but easy as well.
Round Table: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, NBC political analyst and former Obama adviser David Axelrod (actually it was Harold Ford), The Washington Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson and NBC Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Date of Note (thanks to Andrea Mitchell): June 15th. This is the date by which Congress has to reauthorize this mess.
For Governor Christie, it's actually become worse for him as the week has progressed with city mayors in the state coming out and accusing the Christie administration of quid pro quo deals with private developers, leveraging Hurricane Sandy relief funds as bargaining chips. And as for today's program, Rudy Giuliani didn't make any impact in defense of Mr. Christie. In fact, he made the same mistake as many other Republicans are making and that is trying to deflect attention away from Mr. Christie's situation by referencing President Obama in terms of Benghazi and the I.R.S. What that does is elevate the bridge lane closings to the same level of Benghazi and the I.R.S. Politically, Republicans should be trying to diminish the situation by focusing Mr. Christie's policy accomplishments, and Mr. Christie should keep the politically mega-fundraising to a minimum from now. As Newt Gingrich said, it's not going away any time soon and you know where we stand.
As for the former Security, we greatly appreciate that he cares for the troops so deeply but he admitted that it sometimes clouded his judgement and we're uncomfortable with that because that also means that he was perceiving others decisions through a clouded lens as well. Our one question for Mr. Gates, would be simply this: At the end of the day, can you honestly say that you did everything in your power as Secretary, given your deep concern for the troops, to get them home as quickly and as safely as possible while bringing about an effective [a vague term, admittedly] military conclusion?
Americans can handle and accept war if necessary, but what they've learned is that they have a real distaste for preemptive war.
Lastly, Mr. Gates said the president has the right temperature in terms of what he feels should be done about the NSA's bulk collection of data that it will continue but with strict oversight domestically and that the government should not store the data. Sure, the president has the right temperature, but on which planet?
If the government isn't going to store the data but the government insists that it in fact needs to be collected - bulk data collection is not stopping - then who does store it? Just as someone can ask of Edward Snowden, who are you to decide what state secrets everyone knows or not; someone could ask of the government, if you're not storing the information, who gets to decide who stores it if not you? All of this doesn't even include the overriding question of why they are collecting your information in the first place.
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian said it's a false choice between security and privacy; we agree with that, but he made the distinction between the government collecting data vs. Google or Amazon because you opt-in for those. That's a false choice as well. You know how many times you have to do a Google search or buy something on Amazon for those companies to get your information? Answer: once. As we've said before - you're privacy these days comes by being one of a million faces walking down Broadway in New York City - you can see them all but nothing specific about any. That's the new reality in terms of your online identification.
And as for the call for stricter oversight, we heard Congressional Intelligence Committee Chairs Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) both said that there have been no abuses and everything the NSA has done has been legal. Yet, we still need stricter over? That doesn't sound right.
One could answer, as Secretary Gates did, that we're talking about things that might happen, as opposed to things that have happened. In this case, if one can imagine that something 'might' happen, it certainly will happen. And the reason we know this is because they were happening without our knowledge and we didn't know it until Mr. Snowden informed the world about it.
We always contended that Mr. Snowden did the right thing, but in the wrong way. If Mr. Snowden went to work at the NSA strictly for the purpose to disclose secrets or unknown governmental agency operations, as Senator Feinstein explained, then he's technically not a whistleblower as Mr. Ohanian explained how Mr. Snowden will eventually be viewed.
Are we glad, we know what we know because of Mr. Snowden, no doubt. Did Mr. Snowden leak this information then go to China then Russian, also no doubt.
The reason we bring this up is because Mr. Rogers eluded to something even more serious and that was the question of if Mr. Snowden acted alone. Mr. Rogers obviously thinks that the answer is that Mr. Snowden did have help (see the clip below):
Though it would certainly affect the labeling of Mr. Snowden, whether he had help or not doesn't change the fact that someone at the NSA, a relatively low level contractor, could have access to so much sensitive information, so much so that the United States government has stated that it will never know the extent of how much. How does this not show us that abuse is not only probably, but easy as well.
Round Table: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, NBC political analyst and former Obama adviser David Axelrod (actually it was Harold Ford), The Washington Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson and NBC Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
Date of Note (thanks to Andrea Mitchell): June 15th. This is the date by which Congress has to reauthorize this mess.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
1.12.14: What's Really Important - Meet The Press Drops the Ball
Just this once, we wish that someone on the Meet The Press staff would read this column because someone there needs to know that today's program totally dropped the ball. Instead of discussing the important issues of the day, it was 40 minutes of political gossip about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Is it an issue that should be one of the topics? Sure, but not for 40 minutes - simply ridiculous. And when the topic switched to Robert Gates' book, it was all about how 2016 presidential candidates will be effected.
Never mind that Iraq is disintegrating into a sectarian civil war that threatens to destabilize the entire region or that the jobs report for December was the weakest it's been in three years and Congress has decided not to extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million U.S. citizens. How about the passing of Ariel Sharon and the legacy that his leadership of Israel, the United States' only true ally in the region, has left?
Yet, we have to hear the Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, defend Governor Christie, not holding him accountable for his administration's actions while he hypocritically continued to bash President Obama - insufferable programming.
They didn't even really touch on the real reason the story matters. It wasn't a lane closing on a bridge. No, instead it was a lane closing on the busiest bridge in the world that leads to the biggest city in the United States that has already had to face terrorist attacks. That's what makes what the Christie administration did so despicable. On so many levels, they put general public safety at extreme risk for political purposes. Left out of today's conversation.
As 'Wall Street Journal' Columnist Kim Strassel, and many others have said, he [Christie] better be telling the truth when he said that he didn't know anything about it. Regardless of whether Mr. Christie knew before Wednesday or not, he might as well take off the lap band because despite what Mr. Prebus would tell you, Mr. Christie's chances for becoming president of the United States are now close to zero.
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Christie did create a culture in his administration that would enable something like this to occur. We agree with Rick Santorum when he said that personnel is policy, and this completely puts into question Mr. Christie's judgement on who would run the country in a Christie Administration.
And getting back to the Robert Gates passive aggressive (Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg's words) book for a moment, we haven't read it but that he's willing to dish with scorn on a sitting administration clearly illustrates in retrospect that he was not the right person for the job. The the discussed controversy about whether you interpret Mrs. Clinton's and Mr. Obama's stance on the troop surge in Iraq as political or not, it doesn't really matter because the surge should have never had to be decided upon in the first place if the Bush Administration didn't create the military folly that the Iraq War turned out to be.
And again, that Anbar province in Iraq is a de facto war zone, the memories of over 1,300 U.S. soldiers have been dishonored because with conditions as they are now, one is compelled to ask, 'What was the point in the first place?'
We would have really have liked to get all the guests take on that question, but it's not gossipy enough.
Round Table 1: Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake; Wall Street Journal Columnist Kim Strassel; former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs; NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and Political Director, Chuck Todd; and TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin.
Round Table 2: former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), now president of the Wilson Center; Former GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum; Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg; and host of MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews.
End Note: The topic that have taken more center stage should have been Maria Shriver's story of how 1 in 3 women in the United States is in economic peril and one big bill away from financial ruin. We'd talk more about this but at this point today, we're so cynical about the topics covered today that we have concluded that the only reason it was discussed at all was to plug programming, The Shriver Report.
Is it an issue that should be one of the topics? Sure, but not for 40 minutes - simply ridiculous. And when the topic switched to Robert Gates' book, it was all about how 2016 presidential candidates will be effected.
Never mind that Iraq is disintegrating into a sectarian civil war that threatens to destabilize the entire region or that the jobs report for December was the weakest it's been in three years and Congress has decided not to extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million U.S. citizens. How about the passing of Ariel Sharon and the legacy that his leadership of Israel, the United States' only true ally in the region, has left?
Yet, we have to hear the Republican National Committee Chairman, Reince Priebus, defend Governor Christie, not holding him accountable for his administration's actions while he hypocritically continued to bash President Obama - insufferable programming.
They didn't even really touch on the real reason the story matters. It wasn't a lane closing on a bridge. No, instead it was a lane closing on the busiest bridge in the world that leads to the biggest city in the United States that has already had to face terrorist attacks. That's what makes what the Christie administration did so despicable. On so many levels, they put general public safety at extreme risk for political purposes. Left out of today's conversation.
As 'Wall Street Journal' Columnist Kim Strassel, and many others have said, he [Christie] better be telling the truth when he said that he didn't know anything about it. Regardless of whether Mr. Christie knew before Wednesday or not, he might as well take off the lap band because despite what Mr. Prebus would tell you, Mr. Christie's chances for becoming president of the United States are now close to zero.
The fact of the matter is that Mr. Christie did create a culture in his administration that would enable something like this to occur. We agree with Rick Santorum when he said that personnel is policy, and this completely puts into question Mr. Christie's judgement on who would run the country in a Christie Administration.
And getting back to the Robert Gates passive aggressive (Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg's words) book for a moment, we haven't read it but that he's willing to dish with scorn on a sitting administration clearly illustrates in retrospect that he was not the right person for the job. The the discussed controversy about whether you interpret Mrs. Clinton's and Mr. Obama's stance on the troop surge in Iraq as political or not, it doesn't really matter because the surge should have never had to be decided upon in the first place if the Bush Administration didn't create the military folly that the Iraq War turned out to be.
And again, that Anbar province in Iraq is a de facto war zone, the memories of over 1,300 U.S. soldiers have been dishonored because with conditions as they are now, one is compelled to ask, 'What was the point in the first place?'
We would have really have liked to get all the guests take on that question, but it's not gossipy enough.
Round Table 1: Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Stephanie Rawlings-Blake; Wall Street Journal Columnist Kim Strassel; former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs; NBC News Chief White House Correspondent and Political Director, Chuck Todd; and TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin.
Round Table 2: former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), now president of the Wilson Center; Former GOP Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum; Bloomberg View columnist Jeffrey Goldberg; and host of MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews.
End Note: The topic that have taken more center stage should have been Maria Shriver's story of how 1 in 3 women in the United States is in economic peril and one big bill away from financial ruin. We'd talk more about this but at this point today, we're so cynical about the topics covered today that we have concluded that the only reason it was discussed at all was to plug programming, The Shriver Report.
Sunday, January 05, 2014
1.5.14: Government Responsibility - Home and Abroad
We'll get into the conversation about U.S. healthcare and the larger economic condition in a moment, but we wanted to comment on a subject that was addressed on the program but insufficiently and that is what is going on in Iraq with Al Qaeda extremists taking control of Fallujah and Ramadi. The extremists are Al Qaeda, yes, but more prominently they are Sunni Muslims fighting Shiite Muslims, a religious war that has been going on for 700 years as Republican Steve Schmidt noted.
He also said that it isn't the United States' fight and that it shouldn't get involved, an opinion that Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) concurred with, but also went on to say that it's not America's responsibility. We find it disturbing how the United States has dismissed an ever escalating conflict that it is indeed responsible for. We're not saying that the U.S. should become involved militarily again, but washing our hands of it, ignoring it in large part as we are, and letting Anbar province slip into chaos, disgraces the memory of over 1,300 American soldiers who died there. The Iraq War wasn't smart then and proves itself to be less so every day.
The rest of the world is faced with a vital region that is essentially leaderless and is facing a complete meltdown. The elected, dictatorial, and anointed leaders alike in the region are all so consumed with the fear of losing power that they are all just covering themselves with layers of radicals and weapons. The loss of this province as NBC's Richard Engel pointed out is directly tied to the Syrian civil war and gives radicals with a solidified geographical base of significance. The U.S. needs to openly push for someone in the region to step up and end the violence.
And as athletes from the world's countries gather in Sochii, Russia for the Olympics, our fear is that extremists will want to interrupt the games by violently calling attention to their cause - security needs to be top of mind for every country participating.
***
After the joint interview with Dr. Delos Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic and Dr. John Noseworthy of the Mayo Clinic, we couldn't help but thinking how long overdue it was. They gave us the straight skinny on the Affordable Care Act, which is that it has increased access for individuals and is improving the quality of care. That's the good news, but the bad news is that we're not sure how much this is going to cost and whether it really will bring healthcare costs down. Dr. Noseworthy said that if the payment system were modernized that would do a lot to keep costs down. To us, that seems like a nonpartisan fix that should be happening now.
Also, Dr. Cosgrove stated it frankly, saying that hospitals were going to make less money - nothing that anyone in any industry likes to hear. Speaking of industry, the doctor explained that U.S. healthcare is not a system but a bunch of cottage industries, and that now the government is trying to create a 'system.' We don't know much about healthcare, but we do know that if the government is going to create a system, that indeed will cost a significant amount of money up front before you start saving anything down the line. With that said, getting access to all Americans while getting caregivers (i.e. hospitals) more or less on the same page is essential if you have a program like... we don't know... say, Medicare.
In addition to discussing the Affordable Care Act, we were relieved that the two doctors also did talk about Medicare, which desperately needs reform - a whopping 50 percent of healthcare costs. And while you think about that percentage, you try to make sense of it analytically unlike the other percentage that they pointed out, which was that 10 percent of healthcare is spent due to the epidemic of obesity in this country. That can only make one reel back in disgust.
And make no mistake, that disgust we mention is not toward the people afflicted with obesity; it's for the fact that we as a society have not given the people of this country the means to make healthier choices in their lives. U.S. citizens eat so much processed food because economically they can not afford healthier food.
This brings us to the economic topic of 2014, which is income inequality and will factor in prominently in every economic policy decision from extending unemployment benefits (something Congress should do) to raising the minimum wage (also something Congress should do, if only a little) to tax reform. We've arrived at an economic breaking point for the middle class in America where a stark choice in Washington needs to be made - are we as a country going to enact policies to bring more people into it or are we going to eliminate any kind of social safety net or contract or cohesion of a fabric. America is after all the precarious balance between those two directions. The first step in addressing such a grossly tangled problem as income inequality is to first acknowledge it and start the conversation so at least we're to that point.
In the more practical sense, like we said, Congress should extend unemployment benefits to the 1.3 million people the Director of the National Economic Council, Gene Sperling, cited in his joint interview with Jim Cramer.
There was mention of a bipartisan agreement for a 3-month extension, which is a good start as it at least gets families through the winter. Unnecessarily, Congress will have to keep extending them because it can not conceive of an answer to Mr. Cramer's central question is how are you going to help get these Americans into the in-demand skill jobs, jobs in this countries biggest growth industry as Steve Schmidt thankfully pointed out - energy. Without an answer to that question, there is no choice but for extension.
There is the other practical matter of raising the minimum wage. We all know that the minimum wage is entirely insufficient to keep up with the cost of living so most say raise it. However, there are many that say if you raise it to $10 per hour for example, that will cause businesses to hire less and even lay people off because of the increase in labor costs. Whether the data bears that out or not, for the sake of the argument, we'll concede it a valid argument. However, the underlying problem still exists so Congress could raise it incrementally so the shock, particularly for small businesses, isn't so acute. Simply just a thought from which a negotiation toward a bipartisan solution could stem.
Leaders and Kings need to think more about the hope and dignity of their people over which they hold power, as opposed to simply thinking about holding onto the power itself.
Round Table: Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff and NBC Political Director Chuck Todd
He also said that it isn't the United States' fight and that it shouldn't get involved, an opinion that Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) concurred with, but also went on to say that it's not America's responsibility. We find it disturbing how the United States has dismissed an ever escalating conflict that it is indeed responsible for. We're not saying that the U.S. should become involved militarily again, but washing our hands of it, ignoring it in large part as we are, and letting Anbar province slip into chaos, disgraces the memory of over 1,300 American soldiers who died there. The Iraq War wasn't smart then and proves itself to be less so every day.
The rest of the world is faced with a vital region that is essentially leaderless and is facing a complete meltdown. The elected, dictatorial, and anointed leaders alike in the region are all so consumed with the fear of losing power that they are all just covering themselves with layers of radicals and weapons. The loss of this province as NBC's Richard Engel pointed out is directly tied to the Syrian civil war and gives radicals with a solidified geographical base of significance. The U.S. needs to openly push for someone in the region to step up and end the violence.
And as athletes from the world's countries gather in Sochii, Russia for the Olympics, our fear is that extremists will want to interrupt the games by violently calling attention to their cause - security needs to be top of mind for every country participating.
***
After the joint interview with Dr. Delos Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic and Dr. John Noseworthy of the Mayo Clinic, we couldn't help but thinking how long overdue it was. They gave us the straight skinny on the Affordable Care Act, which is that it has increased access for individuals and is improving the quality of care. That's the good news, but the bad news is that we're not sure how much this is going to cost and whether it really will bring healthcare costs down. Dr. Noseworthy said that if the payment system were modernized that would do a lot to keep costs down. To us, that seems like a nonpartisan fix that should be happening now.
Also, Dr. Cosgrove stated it frankly, saying that hospitals were going to make less money - nothing that anyone in any industry likes to hear. Speaking of industry, the doctor explained that U.S. healthcare is not a system but a bunch of cottage industries, and that now the government is trying to create a 'system.' We don't know much about healthcare, but we do know that if the government is going to create a system, that indeed will cost a significant amount of money up front before you start saving anything down the line. With that said, getting access to all Americans while getting caregivers (i.e. hospitals) more or less on the same page is essential if you have a program like... we don't know... say, Medicare.
In addition to discussing the Affordable Care Act, we were relieved that the two doctors also did talk about Medicare, which desperately needs reform - a whopping 50 percent of healthcare costs. And while you think about that percentage, you try to make sense of it analytically unlike the other percentage that they pointed out, which was that 10 percent of healthcare is spent due to the epidemic of obesity in this country. That can only make one reel back in disgust.
And make no mistake, that disgust we mention is not toward the people afflicted with obesity; it's for the fact that we as a society have not given the people of this country the means to make healthier choices in their lives. U.S. citizens eat so much processed food because economically they can not afford healthier food.
This brings us to the economic topic of 2014, which is income inequality and will factor in prominently in every economic policy decision from extending unemployment benefits (something Congress should do) to raising the minimum wage (also something Congress should do, if only a little) to tax reform. We've arrived at an economic breaking point for the middle class in America where a stark choice in Washington needs to be made - are we as a country going to enact policies to bring more people into it or are we going to eliminate any kind of social safety net or contract or cohesion of a fabric. America is after all the precarious balance between those two directions. The first step in addressing such a grossly tangled problem as income inequality is to first acknowledge it and start the conversation so at least we're to that point.
In the more practical sense, like we said, Congress should extend unemployment benefits to the 1.3 million people the Director of the National Economic Council, Gene Sperling, cited in his joint interview with Jim Cramer.
There was mention of a bipartisan agreement for a 3-month extension, which is a good start as it at least gets families through the winter. Unnecessarily, Congress will have to keep extending them because it can not conceive of an answer to Mr. Cramer's central question is how are you going to help get these Americans into the in-demand skill jobs, jobs in this countries biggest growth industry as Steve Schmidt thankfully pointed out - energy. Without an answer to that question, there is no choice but for extension.
There is the other practical matter of raising the minimum wage. We all know that the minimum wage is entirely insufficient to keep up with the cost of living so most say raise it. However, there are many that say if you raise it to $10 per hour for example, that will cause businesses to hire less and even lay people off because of the increase in labor costs. Whether the data bears that out or not, for the sake of the argument, we'll concede it a valid argument. However, the underlying problem still exists so Congress could raise it incrementally so the shock, particularly for small businesses, isn't so acute. Simply just a thought from which a negotiation toward a bipartisan solution could stem.
Leaders and Kings need to think more about the hope and dignity of their people over which they hold power, as opposed to simply thinking about holding onto the power itself.
Round Table: Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), PBS Newshour’s Judy Woodruff and NBC Political Director Chuck Todd
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