Fashion news

It’s a truism that health care reform is so hard in large part because so few people actually understand the stuff. Well, President Obama is working mightily to frame this year’s debate simply: It’s a tug-of-war between those who want to fix a self-evident problem and a few flat-Earthers who thrive off its dysfunction. So the president held fast last night to the simple message he’s articulated repeatedly in recent days: American health care costs both consumers and taxpayers way too much money, yet still offers lousy service to most and none at all to millions. As David Corn points out over at MOTHER JONES, Obama’s rhetorical game plan is to mesmerize folks with his calm, confident mastery of both the policy details and that simple big picture. Sound familiar? Yes, it does.

Which is crucial. Ultimately–and maybe very soon–Obama is going to have to sell a health care reform package as his plan. [snip] Obama will essentially have to say, Take it from me, this is good legislation that the country needs now. And to do so, he will have to have a boatload of credibility. That’s what he displayed in the East Room of the White House.

Forcefully, Obama talked us back to the halcyon days of 2008, when huge majorities agreed that we must wade out of our old quagmires, from Iraq to health care. He’s betting that, despite Congress’ daily twists and turns, he can keep Americans rooted in the consensus from which this all began—that the current system is broken. It costs too much:

Right now, premiums for families that have health insurance have doubled over the last 10 years. They’ve gone up three times faster than wages. So what we know is that, if the current trends continue, more and more families are going to lose health care.

It’s draining taxpayers:

We also know that health care inflation on the curve that it’s on, we’re guaranteed to see Medicare and Medicaid basically break the federal budget.

And it’s not even providing the best care:

On average we, here in the United States, are spending about $6,000 more than other advanced countries where they’re just as healthy. And I’ve said this before, if you found out that your neighbor had gotten the same car for $6,000 less, you’d want to figure out how to get that deal.

This last point is both the most salient and the most elusive for reform advocates. A growing, but too easy conceit is that the president is hiding the pain of reform. As ABC’s Jake Tapper offered in questioning Obama, “You don’t talk about the sacrifices that Americans might have to make.” Yes and no. If the public plan does its job, there’s plenty of reason to believe that employers will migrate to it. Which means people will in fact be forced to give up their current coverage. But it also means they’ll be getting cheaper, better care. And here’s where Obama was at his best last night. “They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier,” he told Tapper, before launching into an all-too-relatable scenario in which needless, repeated tests waste not just time but money.

You may not see it, because if you have health insurance right now, it’s just being sent to the insurance company. But that’s raising your premiums. It’s raising everybody’s premiums. And that money, one way or another, is coming out of your pocket. Although we are also subsidizing some of that because there are tax breaks for health care. So, not only is it costing you money in terms of higher premiums, it’s also costing you as a taxpayer. Now, I want to change that. Every American should want to change that. Why would we want to pay for things that don’t work?

The fact is that all of our beloved choice in the health care market is hurting us. Obama was also refreshingly frank in describing who benefits from the status quo—Republicans groping for a political win and an insurance industry that’s making a killing. (“Right now, at the time when everybody’s getting hammered, they’re making record profits and premiums are going up.”) But he was much less direct about those in his own party who are trying to run out the clock. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted yesterday she’s got at least her caucus under control. Chris Hayes over at THE NATION joined a group interview of Pelosi and reports,

She seemed confident about the House being able to pass a healthcare bill with a “strong” public option, the importance of which she repeatedly stressed. “That’s gonna happen,” she said flatly. She also said that for all the stories about Democrats rebelling over the Ways and Means proposed surtax on the rich, she’s gotten very little push back from members of her caucus. [snip] While she suggested the house would pass their version of the bill before August recess, she stopped short of promising it. She clearly feels the urgency, however. “Ideas can melt in the sun,” she said, “especially in August.”

That’s a nice line, but it’s likely at this point Obama and Pelosi nonetheless will have to figure out how to keep reform cool through August.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is considering the nominations of two men to represent the United States in East Asia: Republican Governor Jon Huntsman of Utah, and Democrat John V. Roos of California. But it’s the Democratic appointment who is selling out Obama’s promise.

The nomination of Huntsman as ambassador to China was sheer political brilliance on the part of Barack Obama: He exiled a potential 2012 electoral opponent, neutralizing one of the few promising moderate, business-minded, “family values” politicians that the Republican party has left. And Huntsman, whose Mormon mission and longtime business interests have taken him repetedly to China over the years, will bring a skilled hand to his new posting.

The claim to fame for Roos, on the other hand, is that he raised a lot of money for Obama’s campaign. Roos, a powerful lawyer in Silicon Valley, bundled some $500,000 to support Obama’s election and inauguration (under George W. Bush’s system of rewarding cronies, he would have been a “pioneer”). As thanks for the massive haul, Obama gave Roos the lead diplomatic posting for America’s closest ally in the Pacific: Japan.

Peter Baker wrote about this practice in the NEW YORK TIMES when the first slew of underqualified ambassadors were announced:

The new ambassador to France? What is his qualification? Does he speak French?

“He does,” [White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs said.

And the new ambassador to Britain? What is his qualification? “He speaks English,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Mr. Gibbs was kidding, but mastery of English may be one of the most relevant items on the résumé of Louis B. Susman, the new ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. Mr. Susman, a retired investment banker, earned the London posting not through diplomatic service but by collecting big checks for Mr. Obama’s campaign. Charles H. Rivkin, an entertainment mogul who once headed the company that created the Muppets, is heading to Paris for the same reason.

These men are unlikely to engage in hardball diplomatic negotiatiations with Britain or France, whose leadership has always been quite close to the White House. But using important diplomatic postings as high fives for various political allies is bad form. Why? Senator Jim Webb of the Foreign Relations Committee, made the obvious point in his statement introducing Huntsman, Roos, and several other nominees to the region:

Over the past twenty years, the United States has confronted a series of challenges critical to our interests in Asia, such as long-standing territorial disputes, contentious trade disputes, nuclear proliferation, environmental destruction, and a changing regional balance. The region is transforming as a result of its economic integration, the spread of Islam, competition over natural resources, and emergence of China as a regional power.

Despite these changes, the United States has continued to approach the region with a limited, short-term scope.

Quite obviously, then, you want the best and the brightest, those steeped in the nuance and delicacy of regional politics. After all, Japan is a member of multiparty talks to walk North Korea back from the brink of nuclear armament. Has Obama seen proof that John Roos, whose law practice focused on technology and startups, knows the first thing about these issues?

Granted, as Laura Rozen of FOREIGN POLICY pointed out to me yesterday, Obama’s dubious motivations are hardly the backslapping free for all that characterized ambassadorial appointments under Bush. But it’s a reminder that despite all the talk of Obama’s online money machine, lots of old-fashioned check-cashing was going on behind the scenes. And it is certainly disappointing to see Obama make such a smart move on Huntsman, followed by a politics-as-usual play with the remainder of his diplomatic selections.

–DAYO OLOPADE

What does Valerie Jarrett do? Robert Draper (of the scathing Donald Rumsfeld expose) spills 8,000 words of ink on Jarrett for this weekend’s NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, in search of that very idea. He tells a lot of great stories about Jarrett’s influence with president Barack Obama, stretching back to the glory days in Chicago’s Hyde Park, before their close-knit group of friends and power brokers–including Marty Nesbitt and Anita Blanchard, John Rogers, Susan Sher and Mike Strautmanis could ever dream of running the country. And his thesis seems to be that Jarrett’s intimacy with the president and his wife can, at times get in the way of normal White House protocol. “If you want him to do something,” he reports, “there are two people he’s not going to say no to: Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama.”

That’s not a bad magic trick. Over at THE NEW REPUBLIC, Michelle Cottle, who profiled Jarrett during the presidential campaign, has also written a progress report on Obama’s “White House Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement.” She thinks Jarrett is playing the same role she has always played for Obama: the Stealth Diplomat.

The post is to some degree an extension of Jarrett’s work during the presidential campaign, when she was forever taking on delicate diplomatic missions that, for whatever reason, Obama himself couldn’t tackle. Post-primaries, when disappointed Hillary diehards were being coaxed into the fold, Jarrett spearheaded the drive. Even more critically, early in the race, she took the lead in making nice with old-school civil rights leaders. With proper tending by Jarrett, compulsive gadflies like Al Sharpton remained surprisingly wellbehaved. And, when the occasional storm did erupt–think Jesse Jackson’s expressed desire to geld Obama–Jarrett moved swiftly to restore calm.

Cottle tells some memorable anecdotes as well, but generally seems a bit too enamored of Jarrett’s (stylish) fashion and (impressive) personal cool. It’s Draper who really starts to pull at the thread that links the “exotic” president to this stunningly accomplished black businesswoman from both Iran and from the south side of Chicago. Obama himself referenced their synergistic backgrounds: “She and I both are constantly looking for links and bridges between cultures and peoples. That’s central to who we are. And that probably has contributed to forging an even closer relationship than we might’ve otherwise had,” he said.

But is that a liability in the White House? Draper doesn’t really prove this point. He seems to manufacture a bit of controversy between chief of staff Rahm Emanuel (”speed and brutal practicality”) and Jarrett (”deliberateness and sensitivity”), ultimately concluding that they represent both sides of Obama. But for the most part, he paints a portrait of a woman who knows intuitively and emphatically just what she is doing at the seat of power–even if we don’t.

–DAYO OLOPADE

In honor of the reconciliatory beer being shared tonight at the White House, between president Barack Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr, and Cambridge police Sergeant Joseph Crowley, it’s worth revisiting, however briefly, discussion of the larger issues raised by the arrest.

I appeared on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show to discuss racial profiling and race in America in the days immediately after the story broke. I was joined by Dennis Parker, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program and Lorie Fridell, associate professor of criminology at the University of South Florida. I provide the tick-tock of what happened to our editor-in-chief, and a synthesis of what the president’s remarks at last week’s news conference might mean—but both of the other guests offer valuable, expert insights based on years of academic research and years of advocacy.

Give it a listen.

I got my hackles up when Mike Edes, chairman of the National Troopers Coalition joined the debate with unfortunate, mildly patronizing talk about cops wanting to protect black folks from black criminals, but otherwise we had a very civilized chat. Seeing many sides of any hotly contested political issue is key to moving forward. Hopefully tonight’s “beer summit” will retain the same dynamic.

—DAYO OLOPADE

The U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and it’s first Latina Justice by a vote of 68-31.

Nine Republicans broke ranks and voted with 59 Democrats to confirm. The other 31 Republicans, whether intentionally or not, wound up ratifying the ugly, disingenuous attacks against Sotomayor that came from Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh and GOP members of the Judiciary Committee—who called Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee, an “affirmative action” pick and a “racist.”

Republicans—who preach that people of color advance with hard work and a good education—tried to tell her that her impeccable credentials and years of experience weren’t really the issue.

What they were really worried about was her attitude.

In one sense, Republicans did what the loyal opposition is supposed to by voting against Sotomayor. But they picked the wrong time and the wrong person. They tried to get their Bork moment using a nominee who a lot of people see as both a role model and a cool-as-hell single auntie. With the coming reality of a majority minority country working against them, Republicans boxed themselves in this time. They messed with Tia Sonia, and eventually they’ll pay the price.

During the confirmation process, GOP Senators hammered away at Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” remark hoping to trigger some kind of outburst or slip up that would have “proved” she was the biased, unqualified candidate they said she was—and if they could also get her to validate a particular stereotype by coming off as an aggrieved, hot-headed “minority,” even better for them.

But Obama nominated someone very much like himself—a leader of color who has spent a lifetime preparing for moments just like her Senate confirmation hearings, and insulating herself against the kind of glossy slurs that she faced, by fashioning a career by the book, and then never breaking her game face, no matter what the circumstances.

Ironically for Republicans, “minorities” like Sotomayor are on their way to becoming a political plurality—call it a “Sotomajority”—and the GOP’s lasting impression on this group will be that when one of them played by the rules, worked hard, and earned the pedigree that was supposed to make her acceptable to the white “majority,” she met with condescension rather than respect.

Establishment conservatives aren’t dealing with the parochial style of the civil rights generation of Latino and African American leadership anymore, and they haven’t adjusted to that yet. As NYU’s Arlene Davila describes, leaders like Obama and Sotomayor don’t just contribute “to their own group, but to the entire American society.” They also have the tools to appeal to the entire society. Until Republicans figure this out, they’ll have no way of making demographic change work to their advantage or finding a nexus between their issues and emerging constituencies like Latinos.

By deciding to portray Sotomayor as someone who didn’t earn her place at the top on her own, or who couldn’t apply the law fairly because she was Latina, Republicans got in their own way when they most needed to see what was already clear: Sotomayor isn’t their grandfather’s version of colored folk—she’s not “the help” and she was never going to “melt down” like Sen. Lindsey Graham (who ultimately voted for her) suggested she might. She’s people of color 2.0.

Conservative Latina commentator Linda Chavez, a former Ronald Reagan appointee, thinks that when the 2010 elections come around, “few Hispanic voters will remember or care” about this episode. But Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) predicted that the GOP vote would negatively impact Republican efforts to reach out to Latinos in the future, saying that it “sends a tough message to our community, and it’s a message that will be viewed in the days ahead.”

Menendez added, “For the Hispanic community, while it is not monolithic, it is monolithic about Sonia Sotomayor.”

UPDATE: Cuban American Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) resigned this morning. His last act as a U.S. Senator was voting as one of the nine Republicans to support Sotomayor for SCOTUS. No reports yet on whether or not the GOP Sotomayor vote tally influenced his decision to step down early, but it’s probably a safe bet that he wasn’t going to resign before he cast that vote.

In the thick of August, President Obama has a very specific challenge: to yank the health care reform conversation up out of the weeds and back into the broad, easily understandable consensus he tapped during the campaign—that the current system is a disastrous failure that grows more expensive and less effective every year we continue to wallow in it. People have to become more afraid of the devil they know than the one they don’t. Which is why we need to see a lot more about things like the Rural Area Medical Volunteer Corps.

The group, which has been getting sporadic coverage as a counterpoint to the GOP’s town hall protests, started back in 1985 as an effort to bring care to people in remote areas of poor countries. Today, 60 percent of its work is in the U.S. The REUTERS piece below is from an event RAM held in rural Virginia a couple of weeks ago, where more than a thousand people lined up to get basic care. It’s powerful footage, particularly because those lined up are the poor and working-class whites that the GOP wants the world to believe are powering its protests. Obama and his Democratic allies need to get this kind of stuff back into the forefront of the public discussion.

All you needed to hear was “New Hampshire” to know the White House’s game plan. If you want to stage a big political moment, to tie yourself and your message to democracy and revolution and good government—you go to New Hampshire. And so it was that President Obama mounted his retort to the GOP’s town hall disruptions in Portsmouth.

Throngs of protestors railed outdoors (one with a—legal—gun; not the first firearm to turn up at these events). They didn’t take Obama’s bait and give him a chance to face them down directly, but he took his swings—and largely connected—nonetheless. The take home: “This is what they always do. We can’t let them do it again. Not this time, not now.” Sound familiar? That’s ’cause it was straight up 2008, when candidate Obama turned every effort to scare voters away from him back on itself. And it’s part of the wise effort to bring this conversation back to the point.

The White House’s second goal was to remind everybody they were more scared of the status quo six months ago than they were of change. “What is truly scary,” Obama declared, “what is truly risky, is if we do nothing.”

The scare of the moment—and to be sure, there will be many new ones—is the lie that the House bill includes “death panels.” Obama pounced on it after a schoolgirl asked how to separate fact from fiction (like, say, the notion no one put her up to the question). He wasn’t half as good as Claire McCaskill, but he used the moment to acknowledge “legitimate” fears of rationing and, once again, turn that fear back on the private sector. “Right now,” he said, “the insurance companies are rationing care.”

The real rhetorical juice here, however, is in the battle for the hearts and minds of seniors. That’s where support is eroding as fears Medicare will get gored increase. It’s one of the great ironies of this debate: the people who have and largely love the biggest government-run health program in America are scared the government will screw it up. The reality is that, for both political and fiscal reasons, the final bill will have to cut Medicare. So between now and then, Obama will surely keep repeating what he hammered today: The goal is to make Medicare more efficient by cutting “give aways” to providers and private insurers, not by cutting subscriber benefits.

What Obama didn’t do was address any critique of his plan from the left. There remain real and meaningful questions about what, exactly, the White House has promised all of these industry groups that it’s met with behind closed doors. As the president himself noted this afternoon, a key tool for reducing costs for both consumers and taxpayers is the ability to negotiate a “better deal” through a large pool. Has the drug industry in particular blocked such negotiating power in exchange for its support? Obama must answer that question clearly.

On August 4, 2009 Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus and Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of Green For All sat in a room surrounded by a diverse group of notable national leaders: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Department of Energy Under Secretary Kristina Johnson to announce a campaign that is sure to change how America looks at going green. Green the Block is a national campaign and coalition led by the Hip Hop Caucus and Green For All working to ensure that low-income communities and communities of color have the resources and platforms needed to access the benefits and opportunities of the growing clean-energy economy. Rev. Yearwood calls this “our lunch counter moment of the 21st century.” I call it about damn time.

As a Youth Climate Justice activist and now the Green the Block Program Coordinator with the Hip-Hop Caucus, I see this campaign as so much more than the White Jouse press conferences, the celebrity good deed or the hip new green campaign. Green the Block is a movement to regain control of our communities and our economy. For far too long, people of color and low-income communities have lived in the shadow of dirty polluting industries, continuously getting the short end of the environmental and economic sticks.

This campaign is a bold message that we are fired up and ready to go. From the Barrios of Los Angeles to the hoods of New York City to the Navajo Nation’s reservations all the way to the suburbs of Maryland, organizations are signing on in droves ready to Green the Block. We will work together to make sure our communities are not left behind in the emerging green economy. We want to bring environmental justice and clean, green jobs to our communities. Furthermore, we want to show America and the world that we are ready to be leaders and investors in the Clean-technology industry. Through Green the Block we will work to make sure our country creates a clean energy economy that is strong enough to fight pollution and poverty at the same time.

The only thing we need now is you. On Sept. 11th the Green the Block Coalition will join President Obama’s United We Serve campaign in hosting service and awareness events all over the country. To find out what eco-friendly service events are going on in your city or to volunteer visit Greentheblock.net. At Greentheblock.net you can also find out more information on the Green the Block Coalition and how you can sign up your organization. We hope you can join us on September 11th and as we grow the Green the Block movement. Remember this is bigger than hip hop and deeper than politics; it is about saving us from pollution and poverty today and this planet for generations tomorrow.

President Barack Obama bestowed the National Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, to a host of prominent Americans today, including actor Sidney Poitier, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Obama gave a particularly moving tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, the last to be cited, and said at the start of the ceremony:

The recipients of the Medal of Freedom did not set out to win this or any other award.  They did not set out in pursuit of glory or fame or riches.  Rather, they set out, guided by passion, committed to hard work, aided by persistence, often with few advantages but the gifts, grace, and good name God gave them.

All of the attendees beamed as Obama distributed the medals. The most touching moments came when Poitier and Obama gave one another a longer-than average hug, swaying back and forth for about half a minute as the crowd cheered them on. Likewise, Lowery, the civil rights icon and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who delivered the memorable “mellow yellow” benediction at Obama’s inauguration, appeared to choke up as the first black president placed the award around his neck. The extraordinary symbolism, it seems, was not lost on him.

The affair was littered with the friends and families of the distinguished awardees, whom the White House cited as follows:

Nancy Goodman Brinker: The founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s leading grassroots breast cancer organization.

Pedro José Greer, Jr.: A physician and the founder of Camillus Health Concern, an agency that provides medical care to over 10,000 homeless patients a year in Miami.

Stephen Hawking: an internationally-recognized theoretical physicist.

Jack Kemp: a former U.S. Congressman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Republican Nominee for Vice President.

Sen. Edward Kennedy: Known as the “Lion of the Senate,” Senator Kennedy is widely respected on both sides of the aisle for his commitment to progress and his ability to legislate.

Billie Jean King: an acclaimed professional tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s, who has helped champion gender equality in all areas of public life.

Rev. Joseph Lowery: a leader in the U.S. civil rights movement, co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), with Dr. Martin Luther King.

Joe Medicine Crow – High Bird: the last living Plains Indian war chief, is the author of seminal works in Native American history and culture.

Harvey Milk: the first openly gay elected official from a major city in the United States.

Sandra Day O’Connor: the first woman ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court.

Sidney Poitier: a groundbreaking actor and the first African American to be nominated and win a Best Actor Academy Award.

Chita Rivera an accomplished and versatile actress, singer, and dancer, who has won Two Tony Awards and received seven more nominations.

Mary Robinson: the first female President of Ireland and a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Janet Davison Rowley : the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers.

Desmond Tutu: an Anglican Archbishop emeritus who was a leading anti-apartheid activist in South Africa.

Muhammad Yunus: a global leader in anti-poverty efforts, who pioneered the use of “micro-loans” to poor individuals without collateral.

It’s safe to say Obama did better than George w. Bush.

—DAYO OLOPADE

On the last legs of her ten-day trip to sub-Saharan Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared the US to Nigeria. Speaking generally about the need to lift the shroud of illegitimacy that often covers elections on the sub-continent—rather notably, in the disputed 2007 vote that seated current Nigeria president Umar Yar’Adua—Clinton told a town hall in Abuja, the Nigerian capital:

In 2000, our presidential election came down to one state where the brother of the man running for President was the governor of the state. So we have our problems too.

Predictably, conservative proponents of American exceptionalism soon accused Clinton of airing US dirty laundry in public, suffering from “Bush Derangement syndrome,” and even harboring “moonbat conspiracy theories” about the Florida recount (as though slander about Clinton and her husband aren’t hard currency on the right).

To be clear: The secretary didn’t accuse Bush the junior of anything; she made a statement of fact. Jeb Bush *was* responsible for certifying the results of the election that featured his brother. This isn’t the same thing as 20th century African cronyism and clannishness, wherein nepotism in private and public dealings is rampant, and free elections and fair political succession are considered an inconvenient liability by those seated at the levers of power. (For an example of the public-private revolving door, note that flashy Nigerian tycoon Aliko Dangote, who “controls much of Nigeria’s commodity trade, including rice, salt, cement, textile, vegetable oil and sugar,” last week became head of the nation’s stock exchange.)

But, as with the gracious hostess who drinks from the finger bowl to make the badly-behaved guest feel better—the secretary of state probably made the point to help the patrons of Nigeria’s unruly democratic apparatus feel less bashful about their subpar ethical performances.

What’s more, Clinton went on to cite America’s positive example in this arena:

In my country the man that I was running against and spent a lot of time and effort to defeat, asked me to join his government. So there is a way to begin to make this transition that will lead to free and fair elections in 2011.

Here’s hoping.

—DAYO OLOPADE