AnnotatedOpinions.com

Before “fixing” health care, maybe Washington should focus on education. Because it looks like no one in Congress ever learned basic math. . . .  

Under Baucus’ scheme, money from tax hikes starts coming in three years beforecash for benefits starts going out. Which makes it pretty easy for revenue to top spending if you’re looking at the balance sheets through just 2019, which is what the CBO does. . .  

. . . CBO projects deficits will keep falling even after its 10-year budgeting window . . .  

[AO: I am no fan of the Baucus plan. But, I am also no fan of commentators who have no qualms about writing statements that are clearly not true, inconsistent or otherwise, shall we say, logic deficient. Today we visit with our good friends at the New York Post. Yup. That New York Post.  

The editorial board argues that under the Baucus plan, revenues top spending only because the CBO uses a 10 year window to measure costs. The implicit argument is that if only the CBO look at longer periods, the plan would be shown to actually include more spending than revenue.   

Alas, the Post contradicts itself a few paragraphs later. See, the CBO did look beyond ten yeas. It found that the plan continues to generate more revenue than spending. Moreover, the Post attempts to use this very fact to argue against the plan.   

I am left wondering how the Post reconciles the arguments it makes. Or maybe the editors do not see internal consistency among their arguments as necessary or desirable. ]

Iran, the United States and five other big-power nations met yesterday in Geneva for what were described as “constructive” talks.

Terrific.  

But does anyone seriously think the world is any closer today to bursting Iran’s dreams of nuclear weapons?

[AO: Yes. The heads of the five big-power nations, --the US, Britain, China, France, and Russia-- and people in their governments. I suppose we can count the New York Post editorial board and other vocal naysayers like Beck and Limbaugh as being against talks. Right?]

Please.   

In fact, it’s hard to see anything good coming from these
talks.

Yes, reports say the tone of discussions turned positive. Iran  supposedly agreed to open its uranium-enrichment facility in Qom –whose existence it tried to keep secret — to international inspectors and to transfer its low-enriched uranium to a third nation.

[AO: Wow. I don’t know what to say. Sounds like something good coming from the talks. Wow. Just wow.]

Unlike Obama, Netanyahu is acutely aware of the urgent dangers [posed by Iran] . . .

[AO: YOU LIE!!!!

Obama is aware of the dangers posed by Iran. What kind of person thinks otherwise?  ]

Give President Obama half a cheer for backing free markets and personal responsibility in his Wall Street speech yesterday. Meaningful action, though, might have led to better results.

Surely, a real plan for cleaning up the financial sector is overdue. And, yes, the panic of the past year has ebbed, thanks perhaps in part to Washington’s efforts. . . .

[AO: Give the New York Post half a cheer for editorializing. A meaningful editorial, one based in fact, logic, and consistency, though, might have led to better results.

First: The Post accuses the Obama administration of doing “zilch” to promote long-term job growth. These are the same guys that accused Obama of taking his eyes off the ball. Message to the Post, the immediate problem is short-term not long-term employment. Who what’s to be employed 5 years from now when they can’t find a job today? If ou don’t fix the short-term problem, you won’t have a long-term problem to fix!

Second: Next, the Post blames the fact that businesses are not hiring on government spending and health-care reform, which may or may not happen. Seriously? Is the Post suggesting that, say, a local store owner did not hire another worker because the owner looked at the national debt, decided that it was too large, read the papers and thought that some health-care reform might pass and said: “no, can’t hire another employee?” Perhaps, just perhaps, the greatest economic recession since the great depression had something to do with it. No?

Third: The Post then looks to Bush as the model for what to do in a recession: trillion-dollar tax cuts. Unbelievable! First, it was the Bust administration that initiated the “massive federal interventions on the taxpayer's dime” that the Post complained about in the same editorial. Selective amnesia anyone? By the way, does the Post have any idea why Bush did not repeat his old solution by handing out more billion-dollar tax cuts last fall? I don’t think so. Perhaps it had something to do with billion-dollar tax cuts not being a solution after all!]

Maybe President Obama has gotten the message, after all.

After weeks of angry town-hall meetings and plummeting poll support, Obama went before the nation last night and — finally — kicked off a serious debate about health care in America.

Better late than never, we guess.   

For sure, the president took numerous partisan pot shots and repeatedly impugned his critics’ motives. . . .

[AO: For sure, these days US politics appears to have morphed into an echo chamber but every now and then one has to pause and wonder exactly what planet do some people live on?? As reported by numerous news outlets and extensively covered here, House Republicans, led by Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, stole the show yesterday with their, as the Washington Post put it, “insolence” yet, somehow, President Obama was the one “taking pot shots and repeatedly impugning his critics” while the critics, not doubt in the mind of the New York Post, sat there with decorum. Right. See here, here and here.]

President Obama yesterday delivered his much-anticipated back-to-school speech to the nation’s schoolkids and — surprise, surprise — there was nothing political or contentious about it.

. . . Which is why Democrats are asking why conservatives raised such a stink about the speech in the first place.

Too bad they didn’t take the same attitude back in 1991 — when the first President George Bush made a similar address at a Washington, DC, high school.

. . . Hypocritical?

But of course. They’re Democrats. 

[AO: This is what passes for an apology, my friends. At least all the Post did was call democrats hypocrites for pointing out, very correctly mind you, that the paranoia about the speech was baseless. Note that the article says nothing about Ronald Reagan’s speech to students which was, unlike Obama’s, politically charged.]

JUSTICES of the US Supreme Court in the 21st century, right or wrong, need to demonstrate some level of expertise in national security and military affairs.

. . . they must have expertise in this area of the law — especially as our men and women in the armed forces fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. [AO: Ok, but why? Take Chief Justice Roberts. He might be on the court for 40 years or longer. Why should national security be a significant measure of whether he will be a good justice 5, 10, 20, or 40 years from now? Second, why lift national security to such high level of importance when there are many other issues that directly touch even more Americans? Third, why is this national security “expertise” so important for what the court does: decide constitutional issues, whether they touch on free speech, national security, or many of the other constitutional issues?  ]

Add another name to the ever-growing list of environmental hypocrites: that of Barack Obama.

The president celebrated the annual Earth Day festivities by jetting aboard Air Force One from Washington to Des Moines, Iowa, and from there he choppered over to the town of Newton — delivering remarks at a plant that manufactures wind-turbine towers. . . . The sum total: at least 9,116 gallons of fuel . . . That’s not very green, is it? [AO: This one’s easy. According to my dictionary, a hypocrite is “a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.” In other words, strike Obama’s name of f the list of environmental hypocrites. Why? Because refraining from using Air Force One on Earth Day would have been an attempt to feign a desirable or publicly approved attitude!  Phew! That was close. Good thing I had my handy dictionary.

Of course, that is not to say that Obama is anti-environment. However, as president he, basically, has no choice but to use Air Force One. Are there real alternatives? Now, after recognizing that the president of the United States has to use Air force One each time he flies, suggesting he avoid using it on Earth Day would simply be a stunt . . . in other words, hypocrisy. ]

ONE of the most important events of our lifetimes may have just transpired. A federal agency has decided that it has the power to regulate everything, including the air you breathe.

Nominally, the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement last Friday only applies to new-car emissions. But almost everyone agrees that it opens the door to regulating, well, everything. [AO: NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. This “event” did not just transpire. Here is a relevant quote from Wikipedia describing the Supreme Court case that made this decision possible:

Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007), is a U.S. Supreme Court case decided 5-4 in which twelve states and several cities of the United States brought suit against the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to force that federal agency to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as pollutants.

See? Twelve states and several cities SUED the EPA to FORCE that agency to REGULATE carbon dioxide. The states and cites WON. Which means the EPA did not exactly have a choice here. The “event” you refer to is EPA coming to grips, two years later, with this Supreme Court decision. Yet, you make it sound as if while no one was looking the EPA made a power grab that even surprised the White House. ]

THE debate over the just-released Justice Department memorandums on interrogation techniques ended as soon as they were dubbed the “torture memos.” Forevermore, they will be remembered as the legal lowlights of a “dark and painful chapter in our history,” as President Obama put it.

Rightly considered, the memos should be a source of pride. They represent a nation of laws struggling to defend itself against a savage, lawless enemy while adhering to its legal commitments and norms. Most societies throughout human history wouldn’t have bothered. [AO: Right. Except, by your logic, the Nazi regime should also have been been proud. After all, their lawyers also struggled with how to make genocide legal. They “bothered.” They bothered a lot! How does that change anything?]