Part of Growing Old? (Bandemax DOT net) by phouse

I can’t tell if this is just the waxing and waning of mood but these days I’ve felt rather uninterested in politics. I’m not sure if uninterested is the word. I don’t know what the word is. There’s a quote and an almost-quote that seem to reflect how I feel. My friend Craig once said, “Peter, you’re making a common mistake. You believe that politics is about governance. It’s really just about winning”.

And to bend a quote Richard Rorty once said on Entitled Opinions, the problem with politics is that anyone can say anything about anything and get away with it. Maybe this is what apathy feels like.

I really don’t know.

Obama on Leno, the full interview (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

The full interview with President Obama on Jay Leno from Thursday, March 19, 2009. Well worth watching whether you're conservative or liberal. He's going to be fun a fun president when he's out of office…

I don't know how long the Hulu embed will be good for, so get it while it's good.

Sausages and Laws (Bandemax DOT net) by phouse

One moment it’s, “STIMULATE NOW”.

The next is, “THIS IS NOTHING BUT PORK”.

Whatever.  It was pork before and it’s pork now.  The only difference is that it’s not their pork.  I’m fairly centrist and I’ve voted for many Republicans in my time but it’s going to be hard to evaluate each candidate fairly when their aggregate behavior is like this.  I know I won’t be voting for Senator Murkowski when she comes up for re-election.  Not unless she runs against something like a yo-yo or a hat.  Natch.  I’ll vote for the hat.

What the stimulus vs tax cuts debate misses (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

A week or two ago, Greg Mankiw and Nate Silver had a bit of a back-and-forth on stimulus vs tax cuts. In order:

1. Mankiw's NYTimes article
2. Silver's response
3. Mankiw's "teachable moment" reply
4. Silver's retort

Ignoring the attitude readily apparent on both sides, I was struck by how much this tiresome debate over taxes vs direct stimulus actually misses. Indeed, many of the other macroeconomic factors seems equally important, and without solving these other problems, the current debate — while fun and exciting — is ultimately pointless.

Tyler Cowen's 8 reasons we are in a recession:

1. We have zombie banks.
2. There is considerable regulatory uncertainty in banking and finance.
3. There is a negative wealth effect from lower home and asset prices.
4. There is a big sectoral shift out of real estate, luxury goods, and debt-financed consumption.
5. Some of the automakers are finally meeting their end, or would meet their end without government aid.
6. Fear and uncertainty are high, in part because they should be high and in part because Bush and Paulson spooked everyone.
7. International factors are strongly negative.
8. There is a decline in aggregate demand, resulting from some mix of 1-7.

I don't think any serious person would argue with this list.

As I see it, the problem with stimulus seems to be that it doesn't address anything but decreased aggregate demand. A real problem, sure, but not the only problem.

To my way of thinking, tax cuts will do a couple of things:

1. Offset some of the negative wealth effects associated with depressed home and asset prices.
2. Offset some of the longer-term effects of our debt-financed consumption of the last 8 years. I see a tax cut as being better for individual credit card companies and loan companies than it is for the economy as a whole. If the money returned to the taxpayer is used to pay down debt, it does nothing for the macroeconomy in the short run.

Stimulating demand directly through government purchasing/construction/etc sidesteps these two problems. But it also does nothing to help with anything except problem #8, especially if you're looking at a multiplier of ~1.

All in all, which one is "better" is a pointless argument because a sound plan would have both. (And indeed the recovery act has both.)

So where are the policy debates over zombie banks? There's debate over better regulation, but it's not especially informed debate; it's more like "Omg we need more regulation!" where regulation is left undefined for all intents and purposes as far as I can see.

Why aren't we talking about negative wealth effects? We can impact them somewhat directly via tax credits, but nobody is talking about tax credits for this specific reason. Maybe because explaining what a negative wealth effect is to a layperson is difficult to do? I don't know. It's not sexy? That seems a more likely explanation. It's not terribly partisan? That seems even more likely.

The auto industry is obviously being hotly debated, and conservatives seem to think that a chapter 11 restructuring is the best way to go. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but going through chapter 11 requires financing… otherwise it turns into a chapter 7 liquidation, which is clearly undesirable. How about making the auto bailouts contingent upon using that taxpayer money to restructure, in effect making the taxpayers the DIP financiers? I haven't heard that mentioned as a possibility, but I hardly think I'm the only person on the planet who hasn't wondered if this could be done.

How can we restore consumer confidence? The new administration taking office will help with that somewhat, but I don't see any ready-made solutions in the economists' handbook except for (maybe) time and getting the other 7 factors under control.

In the final analysis, I want to know why we are beating the stimulus vs tax cuts drum exclusively when there are so many other factors in play. Krugman's hammering of the Keynesian, great depression angle seems incredibly narrow because this recession strikes me as being somewhat different, and supply-siders like Mankiw hammering the tax credit/cut/rebate angle miss so many other factors that need to be talked about. (Though to be fair, Mankiw doesn't talk exclusively about the tax angle the way Krugman seems to with his Stimulus Now! rhetoric.)

Am I totally off-base in thinking that both sides are being somewhat partisan, here, which is ultimately bad for meaningful discussion?

NSA Analyst discloses surveillance procedures (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

One of the more disturbing things I've seen in quite a while:

Later from Rachel Maddow:

Some more backstory.

Did you hear that Ben & Jerry's is making an ice cream in honor of George W. Bush? (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

ImPeachMint
WireTapioca
Nut'n Accomplished
Neandertholitan
Flunky Monkey
Choc and Awe-lmond
Grape Depression
Iraqi Road
Hurricane Ice-cream-a
Everlasting GOP-stopper
Impeach Cobbler
Guantanmallow
George Bush Doesn't Care About Chocolate
Mess-o-Pistachio
SNAFUdge
Douche de Leche
Credit Crunch
Osama Split
Caramel Preemptive Stripe

9 bills on the table in front of the 111th Congress: (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

THE INTERESTING

TARP reform with fulltext. Introduced by Barney Frank (D-MA).

On Executive compensation:

SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS- The standards established under paragraph (1) shall include–

(A) limits on compensation that exclude incentives for senior executive officers of an assisted institution which received assistance under this title to take unnecessary and excessive risks that threaten the value of such institution during the period that any assistance under this title is outstanding;

(B) a provision for the recovery by such institution of any bonus or incentive compensation paid to a senior executive officer based on statements of earnings, gains, or other criteria that are later found to be materially inaccurate;

(C) a prohibition on such institution making any golden parachute payment to a senior executive officer during the period that the assistance under this title is outstanding;

(D) a prohibition on such institution paying or accruing any bonus or incentive compensation, during the period that the assistance under this title is outstanding, to the 25 most highly-compensated employees; and

(E) a prohibition on any compensation plan that would encourage manipulation of such institution's reported earnings to enhance the compensation of any of its employees.

Good, good. There's lots more in that bill if you're interested. Moving on…

• H.R. 391: To amend the Clean Air Act to provide that greenhouse gases are not subject to the Act, and for other purposes.
   
  Greenhouse gases aren't toxic to people per se, the way the other pollutants covered in the Act are. As much as it pains me to say it, this restriction probably makes sense. Greenhouse gases should be addressed in their own bodies of legislation instead of being shoehorned into a bill that was never meant to account for greenhouse-type externalities.

 

• H.R. 374: To require the closure of the detention facility at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba, to limit the use of certain interrogation techniques, to prohibit interrogation by contractors, to require notification of the International Committee of the Red Cross of detainees, and for other purposes.

 

• H.R. 426: To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to reduce the depreciation recovery period for certain roof systems.
   
  Fulltext not available, but if it's what I suspect it is — an amendment to the IRC that allows for a quicker accounting depreciation schedule for roofing systems — it's a win for whatever businesses have these systems. The quicker you can write off a capital expense, the better it is for your bottom line.

 

• H.R. 448: To protect seniors in the United States from elder abuse by establishing specialized elder abuse prosecution and research programs and activities to aid victims of elder abuse, to provide training to prosecutors and other law enforcement related to elder abuse prevention and protection, to establish programs that provide for emergency crisis response teams to combat elder abuse, and for other purposes.
   
  My family owns a homecare agency for seniors and disabled, and elder abuse — usually through neglect — is quite common. I'll be interested to read the fulltext when it's available.

 

• H.R. 429: To permit the televising of Supreme Court proceedings
   
  Change we hope to believe in… continuing the opening up and focus on transparency of government procedure. Sponsored by a Republican, no less.

THE BAFFLING

• H.R. 423: To provide compensation for certain World War II veterans who survived the Bataan Death March and were held as prisoners of war by the Japanese.
   
  The Bataan Death March took place in 1942… 67 years ago. Most of these folks are probably already dead. Why now? I'm not against it; it just seems a little late.

 

• H.R. 364: To restrict nuclear cooperation with the United Arab Emirates, and for other purposes
   
  The fulltext of this bill is not available, unfortunately. It's a bipartisan bill, which surprised me; I would have pegged it as a Republican machination. In general, I am in favor of nuclear power, and while I realize that there's not a single country on Earth that has nuclear power without some nuclear weapons capability, nuclear power is ultimately a clean, environmentally-friendly means of generating electricity. I don't see the UAE as a particularly dangerous entity. They're fairly progressive as Muslim nations go, and they're interested in moving away from a petroleum-based economy, which is a good thing.

THE ABSURD

• H. J. Res. 17: Expressing support for designation of the month of October 2009 as "Country Music Month" and to honor country music for its long history of supporting America's armed forces and its tremendous impact on national patriotism.
   
  Introduced by Ted Poe (R-TX). I'm not sure how this particular bill could possibly reinforce certain stereotypes more than it already does. It's like a pre-packaged joke just begging to be used in a bad sitcom. And I resent the insinuation that music is patriotic because it may include jingoistic overtones and the glorification of "small town" values.

Well at least they were candid… (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

From change.gov:

Q: "Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?"

- S. Man, Denton

 

A: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

I'm happy to see that the administration didn't skip over this kind of question. I think it shows an unusual level of political inclusiveness.

Personally, I am in favor of legalizing marijuana — and I believe it's only a matter of time — but now isn't the time or place. Doing such a thing would have very little overall benefit, while burning copious amounts of precious political capital. (Which I believe Obama will use to push through his green programs and his healthcare proposals.)

I also disagree with the assertion that marijuana will create a multi-billion dollar industry, because once you let supply and demand function more freely, the scarcity premium is minimized. (Though this slack may be taken up by higher bureaucratic costs.)

In terms of demand, I see marijuana more like the cigar business than the cigarette business: while there is doubtless a large number of regular users, I suspect they are the relative minority in the pot-smoking demographic.

On that note, I think I feel a larger drug post coming on soon in the next couple of days…

Brokaw quizzing Obama on Pigovian gas taxes (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

Right around the 7 minute mark on this past weekend's Meet the Press. (The video should start playing just as Brokaw asks him about it.)

Obama's response pretty much jives with what I said last week about now not being the right time, but when Brokaw pushed him, he kind of waffled on the possibility of a gas tax hike in the future. Impossible to read into his response at all because it'd be detrimental politically to do so. (Though if he slipped it in at the beginning of his term, it might be forgotten at the end of four years.)

It's right around the 7 minute mark, and the video should start playing right as Brokaw asks the question.

Now is not the time for a Pigovian gas tax (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

Wrote this a little while back. The macro policy bits in the second to last paragraph may or may not remain my opinion in the light of some of the data that Mankiw has posted here. Let's just say my thinking is… fluid on the more Keynesian bits I've referenced. I'm going to have to read the whole paper (PDF) in the near future.

Several weekends ago, the Washington Post editorial board came out in favor of a Pigovian gas tax. A guest op-ed in the New York Times advocated essentially the same thing. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Pigovian tax is a fee levied on a particular good or service designed to reduce consumption of that good or service to compensate for a negative externality. Even if the revenue raised from the tax is returned to the public in the form of an income subsidy, it has a real tendency to reduce consumption of that particular good or service, even though an individual has experienced no real drop in income. (They have not dropped to a lower indifference curve.)

In the case of gasoline, the tax has many reasons: pollution generated by the combustion of fossil fuels isn't accounted for because clean air never enters a market system, therefore it has no market price so we treat it as free. (Obviously clean air has value even though we don't buy or sell it.) Another externality is the US's reliance on foreign oil, often provided by otherwise hostile nations who derive their economic power from US petrodollars. There are several other, more wonkish reasons for desiring a Pigovian gas tax as well.

In general, I consider myself a bandwagon fan of the Pigou club. I agree with their aims, and Pigovian taxes have demonstrated a remarkable ability to meaningfully compensate for externalities otherwise unaccounted for in a free market system. However, now is not the time to institute such a tax. At a time when the federal government is considering a large-scale stimulus package that certain Keynesians think needs to be in the neighborhood of US$600 billion to have any chance of working — a figure that jives with China's US$585bn package — the tremendous drop in gas prices is equivalent to a US$318 billion stimulus package that Uncle Sam doesn't have to ultimately borrow from China or sovereign wealth funds to put into play in the here and now.

This trumps any marginal environmental benefit that might be gained by instituting a Pigovian tax at this moment in time.

Recession economics suggest that when all normal tools of correction have been tried, the government should increase spending and/or cut taxes. Trying to close a budget deficit while in the middle of a recession will only exacerbate the economic turmoil, and you run a very real risk of pushing a recession into a depression. (Though a nation's long-term stability obviously requires fiscal responsibility, which the US has been lacking in recent years.) Raising taxes takes money out of consumers' pockets, and cutting government spending tends to lead lead to lost jobs. Obviously lost jobs and decreased consumer buying power are undesirable. Doing nothing can cause the recession to deepen, and doing too little is no better than doing nothing at all. The question isn't whether we need a stimulus package, the question is how big it needs to be. Therefore we should take what the burst petroleum speculation bubble has given us, and let it ride until the current economic crisis has passed.

It would have been better for the WaPo and NYTimes to have published these pieces back in the spring and summer — not in the middle of a recession. During the Democratic primary, Senator Clinton suggested rolling back the federal gas tax, which was a pretty bad idea. Ironically, if we still had $4/gallon gas prices today, her ideas might make more sense, except that a temporary reprieve of the relatively small federal gas tax wouldn't amount to very much. However given petroleum's relatively low cost right now, rolling back the gas tax temporarily wouldn't amount to much in the way of meaningful consumer relief. ($31.46 billion on the generous side — an amount in the same ballpark as the recent Citigroup bailout.) When the seas are calmer, then we should discuss nifty tricks like Pigovian taxes and other consumption taxation vehicles as part of a responsible long-term fiscal policy.

Now is not the time to balance the budget. While there will always be arguments over timing, it seems obvious to me that instituting a Pigovian gas tax today — or even this year — isn't in the US's, or the world's best interest. Let's revisit this idea sometime in 2010. Hopefully by then, we'll have weathered the worst of this recession.

Massachusetts: a less than perfect healthcare model (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

I will have a large writeup on real, honest-to-God ways we can reform healthcare in this country without resorting to re-distributionist tactics in the next couple of days. No hand-waving. No pie-in-the-sky. I promise. But until then…

By Frank Micciche from the New America Foundation/Providence Journal:

439,000 people have acquired health insurance since the reform became law — an astonishing 9 percent increase in coverage at a time when the national rate increased by one-half of 1 percent.

Nearly 200,000 of the newly insured acquired private, unsubsidized coverage, mostly through their employers.

Written another way: "More than half of the individuals are subsidized with taxpayer money."

Libertarians will have a field day with the other piece of puzzle: many individuals would rather pay the fine associated with forgoing the mandatory medical insurance than pay the premiums. Why? The fine costs less. Many healthy people simply don't want to buy health insurance. The original projections for the number of unsubsidized signups ended up being wildly optimistic:

Massachusetts' financing challenge emerges from its success in covering the state's neediest residents. Enrollment in the fully subsidized Commonwealth Care program has been higher than expected, while enrollment in the unsubsidized Commonwealth Choice plans has been lower than anticipated. Therefore, costs to the state have risen dramatically.

Micciche spins it another way:

The state's success enrolling lower-income households in the subsidized "Commonwealth Care" program has driven overall costs above original projections, but the actual cost per person covered is lower than expected, as is the average premium.

From an economic standpoint, enrolling lots of lower-income households is not success unless it is offset by sufficient numbers of unsubsidized enrollees.

Obviously it follows that the average premium is lower than anticipated because the majority of enrollees are subsidized and therefore pay lower premiums.

This isn't rocket science econometrics, folks.

In the fiscal year before passage of health-care reform, Massachusetts spent $710 million to reimburse hospitals and community health centers for unpaid bills. 81 percent of these costs were incurred by individuals without insurance.

Now we spend that money getting these people the insurance they need so when they go to the ED, they aren't "uninsured". Instead we buy these people insurance with taxpayer money so we don't have to spend taxpayer money reimbursing hospitals directly.

What's not mentioned is that this is good for the hospitals. A lot of "free care" ends up not being reimbursed at all, meaning hospitals have to eat the costs of treating those who cannot afford to pay. The upside for hospitals is that now that these folks have insurance — subsidized though it may be — hospitals can get reimbursed for services they provide that wouldn't have been reimbursed in the past. It will be interesting to see if there's an effect on the number of hospital closures and bankruptcies going forward from here.

Costs aside, all agree that sporadic treatment of the uninsured through emergency rooms and clinics is much less effective medically. The commonwealth took on the problem by diverting much of its uncompensated care pool dollars into subsidies to buy private insurance by lower-income individuals and families. Quarterly costs for free care have subsequently dropped 40 percent.

From one money hole to the next. Yes, that has "sustainability" written all over it. Payments to hospitals have dropped by 40%, and that's a good thing. Except that that money went to the Commonwealth Care program instead. Instead of being red ink in one set of books, it's red ink in another.

Clearly there's a difference between red ink and politically-acceptable red ink. At the end of the day, though, the same people end up paying the piper:

The subsidized insurance program at the heart of the state's healthcare initiative is expected to roughly double in size and expense over the next three years - an unexpected level of growth that could cost state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars or force the state to scale back its ambitions.

State projections obtained by the Globe show the program reaching 342,000 people and $1.35 billion in annual expenses by June 2011. Those figures would far outstrip the original plans for the Commonwealth Care program, largely because state officials underestimated the number of uninsured residents.

Back to Micciche:

And the individuals who acquired private insurance now receive coordinated, cost-effective care that will improve overall health outcomes and reduce the need for more expensive late-stage intervention.

An oversimplification. Many of the patients that are now insured — both subsidized and unsubsidized — cannot find primary care physicians because the program didn't even attempt to solve one of the major problems with healthcare today: there aren't enough practicing primary care physicians to handle the influx of new patients. Why? Because being a PCP isn't a financially attractive proposition. Attempts to alter the landscape of our medical system are continually undercut by talk of reducing Medicare reimbursements to primary care physicians — the very people who will bear the brunt of that manufactured demand. This, in turn, sends the wrong signals to medical students weighing a career in primary care as opposed to a more lucrative specialty.

This dearth of PCPs isn't unique to Massachusetts, either.

Look, I'm all for increased access to healthcare when it makes sense, and I don't think ED overusage and overcrowding is sustainable or desirable. I know that health outcomes are worse when non-emergent cases are seen in the ED. ED care is also inherently more expensive. In short, you get less bang for more bucks — and it potentially endangers those who are at the ED for real emergencies by diverting the limited resources to non-urgent cases.

I would like to think that everyone in this country can have their own primary care doctor, but I know that our infrastructure cannot support it. I am not a Darwinian capitalist. I don't hate poor people. But I do know what is sustainable and what isn't.

It worries me that if the nation looks to Massachusetts as some kind of prototypical model to be copied, we're going to be manufacturing big problems, because coverage is only a superficial issue.

Healthcare coverage is not the same thing as healthcare access, even though it is politically expedient to conflate the two concepts.

Universal health coverage will manufacture healthcare demand in dramatic fashion, and the existing healthcare infrastructure isn't equipped to deal with the kind of patient influx that that kind of universal program would create. We don't have the human capital to meet that demand. We need to work on our healthcare infrastructure before we dump millions of new patients into the system overnight.

–

The most interesting thing that strikes me when you look at these numbers is what they say about real demand. Demand for universal health coverage by those that can afford to pay for it is less than our models predict. Even by making health insurance mandatory and enforcing it with a fine, many people are still opting out; they find that their money is better spent in other ways.

Maybe we need to revisit our models and (certainly) our cost projections.

Obama and farm subsidies (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

From Greg Mankiw:

Like President-elect Obama (but unlike candidate Obama), I am all for getting rid of farm subsidies. But why would you want to use taxpayer funds to encourage large, efficient, profitable farms to break up into smaller, less efficient, less profitable farms? Isn't that precisely what you do if you maintain subsidies only for small farmers?

I've thought about this, too. A lot. The answer is pure politics wrapped in an age-old economic battle: equity vs efficiency. Doing what's efficient vs doing what's "fair". (Fairness being a subjectively ambiguous term.)

I'm all for getting rid of farm subsidies to everyone and letting the market sort out who wins and who loses. This places smaller farmers a distinct disadvantage because an industry like wheat farming is the almost-perfect definition of perfect competition. Neither side has market power. The only way for a farmer to increase their income is by producing more wheat. As the big guys are bigger, they have economies of scale, especially in terms of capital investment on their side. In a price-taking market, this advantage is the only business advantage possible.

Subsidizing the little guys makes them more competitive with the big guys, but this is a distortion of market efficiency. Sometimes this makes sense, but not in the case of farming in the US: we produce more food than we could ever consumer, so why are we subsidizing anyone? (Food shortages are not a production problem, they are political and logistics problems.) Subsidizing smaller producers can be done to encourage competition, but we're already in a perfectly competitive market, so distorting the market in some way is entirely counterproductive.

Alas it is politically unacceptable to make a move that favors the big guy over the little guy. Even though doing so would ultimately better for society. Let us not fall victim to the broken window fallacy that we're keeping smaller farmers in jobs by subsidizing them. We could just as easily be spending that money more efficiently by putting other people to work in areas that actually make sense: infrastructure repair and long-term capital investments in green energy technology, for example. We need these two things more than we need greater quantities of domestic farm products.

UChannel on iTunes (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

Fantastic:

Some of the players include:

• The London School of Economics
• University of Chicago
• NYU
• Cornell
• Vanderbilt

There's some great stuff here. I sucked down probably 50% of the LSE's offerings to listen to in the car.

While I'm on a similar line of thought, I've currently watching Eric Schmidt on policy priorities for 2009 on YouTube. Wish it was encoded better. He's incredibly well-spoken and conversant on an incredibly wide range of topics — clearly an out-of-the-closet intellectual in the way GM's Wagoner could never hope to be, as well as being a visionary and a dollars and cents kind of guy. It's pretty clear that Larry and Sergei made a good choice.

Thoughts on this citizen's mind (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

The Obama transition team has a website up at change.gov, as many of you may know. Specifically, they have a section where you can share your thoughts with the transition team. I don't know if they are actually reading these submissions, but I wrote one up anyway. I'm sharing it here…

I'm going to set aside my inner cynic that someone will actually read this, and talk about what has been worrying me as a concerned US citizen. I know that there is only so much an administration can do to solve the myriad problems we face, and that trying to tackle too much at once is a recipe for universal failure. Therefore prioritization is obviously key.

My primary overarching concern over this country has been any lack of a long-term strategy. I don't mean for one specific area like the economy or healthcare, but I mean *any* kind of long-term strategy for *anything.* Thus far, it seems as though we've been shifting aimlessly from one priority to the next, dictated to us often by market prices of various commodities and shifting popular wants.

That's no way to run a country.

This list is not in any kind of prioritized order because I think all are equally important at the end of the day:

1) Education: The US has been falling behind in the ability of our high school graduates to afford and go to college. This is happening even as the entry-level requirement for many jobs is having a college degree (even though the particular job may not actually warrant it).

Almost universally, my college professors have publicly lamented the fact that high school graduates are not prepared for the intensity of the material that they face as freshmen in college. As a smart, in-touch individual, I know for a fact that my math was not up to par, and I went to an excellent public high school and graduated in the top 10% of my class. Our state colleges and institutions do a spectacular job, and we should continue to invest in them, but if a student is incapable of succeeding there thanks to a poor secondary education, something is wrong. Accountability in secondary schools is very important. Maybe we need better ways to measure student performance, I do not know. Something must be done, however, because we are falling behind countries like India whose high school students are better prepared for college than ours.

The gap between boys and girls continues to widen. While we've done very well by our girls in the last 20 years, our boys have languished. Education should not be a zero-sum game wherein one sex succeeds at the expense of the other. We have neglected boys and focused all of our efforts on girls, and this is neither fair nor desirable. Both sexes can succeed together, and our educators need to remember this, and not just recommend a visit to a pediatrician or psychiatrist for our boys because stimulant ADHD medication isn't the universal diagnosis and answer.

2) Healthcare: The US lacks any kind of long-term healthcare strategy or vision. While I believe that some form of universal healthcare coverage is both necessary and desirable, President-Elect Obama should stop saying that every person will be able to get health coverage like members of Congress have because this is not possible, nor is it desirable. When and if universal coverage happens, there will still be two tiers of healthcare. A basic, public tier, and a second private tier that citizens may opt to use if they desire to pay more. Please keep in mind that I say this with no malice toward the currently uninsured. My dad had a heart attack this past spring and waited 36 hours before going to the ER — because he knew that he would end up $50-80K in debt. (And he did.)

Secondly, politicians need to stop conflating the idea of universal health coverage with universal health access. The two are not the same. Just because you are covered doesn't mean you can see a doctor. We don't have enough doctors and physician extenders (Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants) in this country to see everyone, and going to the ER is not the answer either: they're already overcrowded.

Massachusetts is experiencing this now. While we are often looked to as some kind of model for the rest of the country, the reality is that our system is far from perfect. It's costing the taxpayers boatloads of money because healthy people that can afford to pay are NOT signing up at nearly the rates that the unhealthy poor are. After all, if you're healthy, you don't need preventative care, the colloquial thinking goes, and even if you do, it's cheaper to pay out-of-pocket to see a doc than it is to pay a high monthly premium. In Massachusetts, the accounting math isn't working out as expected because of this particular adverse selection catch-22. Complicating the financial problem, there are not enough primary care physicians in this state to see the massive influx of new patients which highlights the second point I made: coverage does not guarantee access. That means they go to the ER, which is inherently more expensive than an ambulatory office visit.

To reform healthcare meaningfully, you need to do it in a multi-phase manner:

1. Attract the best and brightest back into medicine. That means making the idea of practice attractive which means real, honest-to-God tort reform, not lipservice. When a physician is paying more to medmal companies than s/he is taking home, there is a very serious problem. Talk about a disincentive to practice.
2. Along those lines, we need more primary care physicians. That means paying them more. Right now, the RVRBS is stacked in favor of specialists, and members of the committee are appointed for life (stupid idea). PCPs do more patient visits than specialists on the order of 8:1, but they are not represented in anywhere near this ratio in the RVRBS committee. That means that procedures are over-valued and cognitive specialties (primary care, rheumatology, endocrinology, etc., etc.) are undervalued because it is difficult to measure the relative value of a cognitive visit. As a result, medical students are gravitating towards specialties which pay more, and the free market is not allowed to compensate for the relative lack of PCPs because the way reimbursement is calculated is fundamentally flawed. In the long-run, this means more expensive healthcare because patients will be seeing specialists instead of PCPs, simply due to lack of PCP supply.

Senator Obama has advocated investing in technology, which is very necessary, but electronic medical records and other efficiency concerns are not a panacea, either. The entire system is broken from top to bottom and improving efficiency in a superficial fashion will NOT solve the huge, underlying problems. A study recently published estimated that only 50 cents of every dollar spent in the name of healthcare is spent on patient care. That's a bigger problem than mere technological inefficiency.

3) Energy independence: Senator Obama has promised energy independence, and his message has not changed since his 2004 DNC keynote speech. Right now, our government is listing from priority to priority. Gas prices go up, and all of a sudden the public is clamoring for the government to "do something." Prices go down, and people stop caring, but we know that petroleum supplies are fixed and demand is effectively infinite. That means that eventually prices will go back up, and we need a long-term solution. Keeping the country's eye on the ball is the government's job, because it's clear that most private citizens cannot or will not.

Command and control government regulation is sexy and it makes it look as though government is "doing something" about our dependence on foreign oil, but a more progressive Pigovian tax is probably a better way to accomplish the goal of getting our automakers on-board with the next generation of propulsion than is mandating fuel efficiency and carbon emissions standards. Even if the money is returned in the form of an income subsidy, modifying demand is more effective than trying to legislate supply.

We need government intervention because energy independence and a healthy environment cannot be achieved by individuals acting by themselves — bless their hearts. It needs to be broad and bold in scale and impact. Replacing the light bulbs in your house and planting a few trees might be part of A solution, but it's obvious that it's not the ENTIRE solution.

4) Iraq: Iraq is the only US priority that seems to have a strategy under the Bush administration. While I believe firmly that the Iraq war was "dumb," like Senator Obama, we cannot simply leave and end up with a power vacuum in that nation. We messed it up, and now we should be on the hook to fix it. I am reminded of the lessons from the 70s in Afghanistan which allowed us to defeat the Soviets covertly, but ultimately paved the way for the Taliban because the US "wasn't in the business of nation-building". Money for war, but not for education and infrastructure-building. We can see the disastrous long-term consequences of these policy choices that we are dealing with even today.

5) Outsourcing and Globalization: O&G will continue under any administration, and we should not try to stop it. In the long run, it is good for our economy anyway. However we cannot forget the workers that have lost their jobs. Suggestions run the gamut for re-training builders and makers for the healthcare and technology sectors, but we cannot ignore the fact that people are not cattle to be herded in one direction or another. Many of these individuals don't want these jobs because building and making things is part of who their identity. They don't want to be nurses, phlebotomists and IT technicians. And they shouldn't have to be.

Instead we should gently nudge them in the direction of infrastructure repair (which needs to be a priority in the new administration) and the new renewable energy economy. With a focus on renewables and infrastructure repair, President-Elect Obama can employ the tens of thousands who have been laid off in fields that are not dissimilar to where they came from, which will keep them happier and more productive.

(Of course, if these people want to change careers completely, they should have these educational opportunities available as well, which ties into my thoughts about education.)

6) Public Service: The best and the brightest need to see government as a worthwhile place to spend their energies. The politics of the last decade has been toxic for self-actualized smart people, and they haven't wanted to go into public service. I know Senator Obama knows this, and simply by being open-minded and obviously intellectual, he has done a lot to change the stereotype of politicians and public service. For that, I am grateful, and I can honestly say that I am considering public service as a long-term career whereas under the Bush administration, such an idea would have been laughable. I know that there are many other smart people in my generation who feel the same way. For that, I am thankful.

Wow, Keith Olbermann. Just… wow. (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

Fantastic.

Fulltext.

conservative post-fight analysis (Super Dave's Mundanities (DaveChen)) by dave

From Some Guy With A Website.com via edminstond’s shared items.

I'm feeling optimistic about the next 4 years (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

Yes, another blogosphere election entry. I'm not here to gloat, though, but merely to point out that I am feeling really optimistic about an Obama administration. It is certainly landmark in this country's history, and it's something that I believe all rational Americans can feel proud of, regardless of who they voted for, if for no other reason than we've accomplished a few major things in one fell swoop:

1. We have elevated America's status in the world. This was very important to me when it came time to choose, and this map (preserved here against link rot) played no small part in my choice. Globalization is here to stay, and Americans need to think more about what's going on outside their borders.
2. We have broken the final racial barrier in this country once and for all. (I look forward to the day when we have a female Commander-in-Chief as well.)
3. We have undermined real terrorist — as opposed to made-up terrorist — ideology in the Middle East and elsewhere by demonstrating that a black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama can be elected leader of the free world, showing much better than words could ever tell that we are indeed a nation that looks deeper than skin color; a nation that sees past a foreign-sounding name.

Senator McCain's concession speech was graceful, and I hope that this election did a lot to heal the wounds inflicted by the last two cycles that were further deepened by lawsuits before finally being ended prematurely by the Supreme Court, in the case of the 2000 election. I sincerely hope that we don't see any more elections like those for a long, long time. Senator McCain, despite his disaster of a campaign is, and always will be, a very classy man, and a man to be admired and respected. It is a pity that I could not vote for him. (I was too young in 2000, and he wasn't the best candidate in 2008.)

I voted for Senator Obama for many, many other reasons than the three I've mentioned above, not the least of which was the innate curiosity and equanimity with which he has approached everything from real politics to his day-to-day campaigning. More surprisingly, his message has not deviated over the years. Go back and watch his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention (part 1, part 2) and then go watch his acceptance speech at this year's DNC, and then watch his victory speech from a few nights ago.

His message hasn't changed in the last four years. That kind of consistency speaks volumes about a person and their convictions. No other candidate since I've been walking this earth has done anything even remotely similar. Every other candidate has been characterized by trying to find their voice and their message, but not Senator Obama. I like that.

Today Senator Obama gave his first news conference as President-Elect, and I watched the whole thing. It wasn't nearly as flashy or practiced as the speeches linked above, and this is to be expected: the audiences are different. What I was particularly interested in was the message, and it's not very similar to his campaign messages, except perhaps with more detail and less polish. Beginning at the 6 minute mark, Senator Obama begins taking questions from the reporters there, and it's clear that he intends to honor his campaign promises inasmuch as he humanly can in terms of policy, but more importantly, the promise he made about frank and honest communication with the public. This is in stark contrast to Bush in 2004 where he ran a campaign based on the premise of keeping America safe from terrorists, but instead went after gay marriage and aggressively tried to privatize social security after he won.

Back to Senator Obama's news conference, which I have embedded below. If you're not interested in the details, skip ahead to the six minute mark and listen to the questions, and the thoughtful and direct manner with which Senator Obama tries to answer them. This is a huge departure from American politics as usual, and it's this kind of behavior that leads me to believe even now, that Senator Obama is, and always was, the real deal. It's these kinds of subtleties that thrill me as a voter, and more importantly, as an American.

Real America II (a salmon of doubt (shade1978)) by David

Clint Ecker shared this awesome photo he came across on Flickr this week:

The awesome thing about kids: they don’t give a damn about skin color until some jerk teaches them to. Now if we can just get people to stop doing that…

Real America (a salmon of doubt (shade1978)) by David

During the recently-concluded Presidential campaign, quite a bit was said by one side about “real” America.

That’s why I found this article I came across today with letters from fourth graders so interesting. This was my favorite part:

Also I’m African American too and I might be just like you. When you get to the white house please try to stop the war for once and for all. Obama I’m very proud of you especially my mom. She’s really proud because she woke up 5:30 AM to go vote for you and I went with her.

sarah’s shopping spree (Super Dave's Mundanities (DaveChen)) by dave

From a Newsweek article:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Live from Times Square (Stonetable) by Adam

We walked through Times Square earlier this evening, hours before the first poll closed. The crowd was large and people were still filing in. Hours later, after the post-trade-show meetings and work were done, I sat down and watched the acceptance speech in awe. A block and 31 stories away, I could hear the people cheering.

Fear of crowds be damned. I left the hotel and let the noise be my drummer.

In Times Square, the people cheered and cried. Chants of “Oh-bah-ma” and “Yes-we-can” rang clear. Cars honking. Passengers waving. Signs waving. Camera’s flashing. Strangers embracing in celebration and saying, “we did it.”. We. A victory for us all. Ethnicity, sexual preference, gender, citizenship, it did not matter.

Empowerment.

I was overwhelmed by the surge of emotion, of hope and possibility. I teared up several times, looking up at the digital billboards proclaiming the historic news: Barack Obama, President-elect. Never in my thirty-three years have I seen or experienced anything like this. It looks like my generation has its Lincoln or Kennedy. A catalyst for change, a driving force for prosperity. It’s about damn time. Maybe the US can shed it’s reputation as the biggest dickhead and start working with the world instead of trying to cram our ideologies down its throat.

Celebrate and cheer now. We’ve a lot of work to do. We still have bigotry and intolerance to fight and a long road to walk before we can hold our head high and be proud of our record of human rights. At least now, we’re on the right road.

My First Reaction: (Bandemax DOT net) by phouse

:)

My second reaction:   Like many Alaskans, I volunteered for the Obama campaign right here in Palin country.  I got the door slammed on, cursed at over the phone and many times I wanted to do other things.  I don’t know and I’m doubtful that Obama will carry Alaska but I’m glad that I contributed to the campaign.  Locally, I hope Berkowitz and Begich make it in as well.  Good luck guys!

In the Big Apple (Stonetable) by Adam

I made it to New York City with minimal difficulty today. Court went smoothly and traffic was light, so I made it to O’Hare with enough time to catch an earlier flight. One shuttle and subway ride later, I found the Westin and checked-in.

I met my co-workers for dinner at Quality Meats, followed by 40/40, where we co-sponsored a VIP party for the trade show. A fun night, and I got to meet several people I’d only known via email or instant message.

Feeling a little dead tonight. My original flight was canceled and American Airlines decided they needed to call me at 4:15AM and 4:45AM to make sure I knew about it. Between that and the flight I managed about four hours sleep today and tomorrow’s going to be another busy day. Here’s to hoping the beds here are comfortable.

It also looks like I’ll be staying over an extra day, so home again on Wednesday. I’m already missing Andrea and our menagerie of pets. I hear the dogs have been camping out at the front door all day and night, waiting for my return.

I sent in my absentee ballot a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t already, please go vote and make your voice heard. I think we’re on the brink of seeing some real change happen and that makes me feel pretty damn good.

In the Big Apple (Stonetable) by Adam

I made it to New York City with minimal difficulty today. Court went smoothly and traffic was light, so I made it to O’Hare with enough time to catch an earlier flight. One shuttle and subway ride later, I found the Westin and checked-in.

I met my co-workers for dinner at Quality Meats, followed by 40/40, where we co-sponsored a VIP party for the trade show. A fun night, and I got to meet several people I’d only known via email or instant message.

Feeling a little dead tonight. My original flight was canceled and American Airlines decided they needed to call me at 4:15AM and 4:45AM to make sure I knew about it. Between that and the flight I managed about four hours sleep today and tomorrow’s going to be another busy day. Here’s to hoping the beds here are comfortable.

It also looks like I’ll be staying over an extra day, so home again on Wednesday. I’m already missing Andrea and our menagerie of pets. I hear the dogs have been camping out at the front door all day and night, waiting for my return.

I sent in my absentee ballot a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t already, please go vote and make your voice heard. I think we’re on the brink of seeing some real change happen and that makes me feel pretty damn good.

Presidential predictions and endorsements (OnThePharm (Hanser)) by RJS

The NYTimes has an interactive map that you can set to how you think each state will go, and you can view each state's polling data from the last election by clicking on it, and what current polls are saying about local trends. It's pretty neat, and I've been playing with it for about two weeks now.

Here are my predictions. You'll note it's Obama by an electoral and popular landslide:

I have Nevada going red even though recent polling data suggests that it will go Obama's way. For some reason I'm thinking that it will go Republican.

I'm also fairly certain that the Republican party has some serious thinking to do, and you'll see two schools of thought emerge:

• A further rightward shift will solve all of their ills
• A more progressive, center-leaning strategy

A further rightward shift would be suicide for Republicans at this point, just like Governor Palin ended up being the boat anchor for Senator McCain. While the idea was to "re-energize the base" to compensate for Senator McCain's relatively moderate political views, this was the wrong choice because hardcore conservatives were never going to vote for anyone but the Republican candidate to begin with. Rather, he needed to attract those independents that have been left out in the cold these last 8 years, and he only further alienated these voters.

A center-leaning strategy is their best chance, but it's my view that even a radical reinvention of the party will take the full four years to make its way into the American consciousness. The Republicans will not capture the Oval Office again unless they win Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Neither can the GOP afford to ignore the Northeast and West Coast, either. Most of the economic and educational outputs in this country are from these areas, and they rightly wield enormous political clout. It is my hope that the party does some serious soul-searching in the next few years and comes to the conclusions that it needs to have the best interests of the country at heart rather than the interests of big business and a small subsection of the population consisting of the middling rich and radical conservatives. (The super rich tend to vote Democrat.)

Speaking for myself, I have no particular litmus test for a presidential candidate, though I did when I was younger and the world seemed more black-and-white. Or rather, I thought I didn't have a litmus test, but I discovered — rather unpleasantly — that I do indeed have a few basic criteria that a candidate must meet: competence, curiosity, and equanimity. Governor Palin fails all of these in spectacular fashion, and her incredibly tenuous grasp of Constitutional fundamentals frightens me a great deal. It gives the lie to the McCain campaign slogan "Country First." Fortunately for the country, this short-sighted decision has backfired, and hopefully Governor Palin will go back to Alaska and quickly be forgotten as the national embarrassment that she is. A McCain-Romney or McCain-Lieberman ticket would have been a stronger bet. Coupled with better campaign management, I could see myself happily voting for a Republican ticket on Tuesday, but no longer.

Of course, Governor Palin is not herself running for office, and I have not seen Senator McCain himself exhibit much curiosity or equanimity these last few months. Rather, I have seen an angry man who hops from one stance to the next in an effort to find the most popular footing possible. I've seen a man who has run an campaign characterized by exclusive rhetoric; a man whose running mate has tried to characterize parts of America as being more "real" than others. That is not what this country needs right now. I do not believe that Senator McCain is incompetent, and I don't believe that he wants to see this country further divided into Red and Blue. However he did not choose a candidate who complements him — his admittedly poor grasp of basic macroeconomics coupled with his own lack of curiosity on the topic — makes for a dangerous combination when coupled with the likes of Governor Palin. It is quite clear that Senator McCain's VP pick was entirely political, and not in the best interest of this country.

Senator Obama, on the other hand, has displayed a remarkable sense of curiosity and equanimity throughout the entire campaign, and while his resume is indeed rather thin on both foreign policy and economic issues, I am comforted by the people he has chosen to surround himself with. His off-the-cuff reaction (page 2) to Senator McCain's move to cancel the first debate was certainly Presidential, and entirely unscripted. Senator Obama's VP pick displays a careful consideration of his own real strengths and weaknesses instead of just his political weaknesses. Senator Biden has rich foreign policy experience and is a member of the National Security Council. In economic terms, while a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, Obama regularly spent time with professors from their renowned economics department, which demonstrates a necessary curiosity, and while lunchtime socialization does not equal real experience, Obama has surrounded himself with a team of economic advisors that's second to none. (Though I'm sure Greg Mankiw would disagree.)

I take strong issue with the idea of American exceptionalism, the idea that the rest of the world doesn't matter, and that somehow America operates in a global vacuum. This clearly isn't the case, as the collapse of the American financial markets has had a domino effect on the rest of the world. China's output is slumping due to falling consumer demand from America; Iceland is bankrupt and subsequently decided to go back to basics (i.e. tourism); the UK is on shaky financial ground even as Gordon Brown has engineered a unique bailout of their financial system, and the credit crunch is beginning to make its way down into the real economy. Despite these recent setbacks, globalization will and must continue, and America must repair her tarnished relationship with the rest of the globe, and the world overwhelmingly favors an Obama administration, by margins much greater than my own predictions: 9,115 to 203 electoral college votes. While the rest of the world is not voting, we must take into account their opinion because we have lots of ground to cover as we begin to unmake the current administration's mess.

Healthcare is not an issue that will change dramatically in the next four years. The medical blogosphere, of which I am a part, likes to talk about it regularly, but healthcare is so insignificant in the big picture right now that I view it as a non-issue. This country cannot afford a new social spending program on the order of magnitude that the likely winner, Obama, is proposing. And America will not be in a position to do so until she gets her feet back on solid ground.

Likewise, the educational funding proposals put forth by Senator Obama will also likely take a back seat for several years. When considering the costs of funding large-scale federal programs, one must take into account not just direct costs and where the money will be coming from today, but what spending that money today will mean for tomorrow. We do not exist in a temporal vacuum, and in a time where middle-eastern Sovereign Wealth Funds and Chinese banks are already reluctant to lend the US money, we must strongly consider whether these should be high priorities.

In my opinion, they should not, and should remain further down the list until we've gotten the rest of the country back on track. We must also consider the future, not just the next four years. How do we allocate our capital and labor to achieve the best results both for today and for our children? I believe that Senator Obama's green energy plans are better than Senator McCain's, though his lack of overt support for nuclear power concerns me. I also believe that while the healthcare sector will remain relatively stable even during this recession, it's going to be renewable energy that's going to power us out of our decline. Senator Obama wants to fix the economy and get this country on a path to energy independence. At this point energy independence is the same as renewable energy, and it's inextricably linked to growing out economy.

There will come a time for rethinking the US healthcare system, but that time isn't now. And when that time does roll around, we'll need to be talking more about revamping the system from its educational roots right up to a renewed focus on primary care as a cost saver and then on to our fractured tort system with many smaller milestones along the way.

In the meantime, we need a leader who is inclusive rather than divisive; a leader who can inspire; a leader who will be welcomed (gallery) with open arms by the rest of the world; and a leader can do a great deal for the image of this country simply by taking the Presidential Oath of Office; and a leader who supports rolling back the abuses of Executive power. For all of these reasons and many, many more, I will be voting for Barack Obama on Tuesday, November 4.

Early voting in Akron! (a salmon of doubt (shade1978)) by David

This says it all for me, really.

It was absolutely packed at the early voting location.  A good 200 or so people there—lots of younger people—and it took around 45 minutes for them to work through the list.  All told, took me around an hour to get my ballot, fill it out, and have it sealed—I was out of there around 7:00.  Well worth the hassle, and now we just cross our fingers for Tuesday!  :)

Alaska Women for Obama! (Bandemax DOT net) by phouse

Last Saturday, Alaska Women for Obama held another rally on the park strip and had a bit of fun doing it as well.  I’ve attached a video below of it.  I want to comment that there’s a very sizable group of voters (and vocal ones at that) here in Alaska that do not support McCain/Palin for president.  We support Obama.  The Anchorage Daily News and it would seem the national coverage that’s swooped down upon Alaska continue to ignore this.  One would imagine it’d be newsworthy that in Palin’s own backyard, the Obama movement is strong.  Our rallies continue to outsize our counterpart’s by a factor of 10.  I suppose that doesn’t fit into any sort of neat categorization though.

Here’s the video: 

Final note - awesome choice for background music.  Arcade Fire is pretty much still win.

538 report from North Carolina (Super Dave's Mundanities (DaveChen)) by dave

Recently I’ve become addicted to 538.com, an electoral projection site. Sean Quinn wrote a really moving report from Raleigh that ends as follows.

A young black boy, no more than eight years old, walked up to this man, who was at least eighty. The boy offered the man a sticker, probably an “I Voted” sticker, but I couldn’t see. The man took the sticker and paused. Silently, he looked down at the boy, who was looking back up at the man. The man put his hand gently on the boy’s head, and I saw his eyes glisten.

I didn’t ask the man for a quote. I didn’t need to. I walked over by myself, behind the community center, and I sat down on a bench next to the track, and wept.

49ers and Rice? (Bandemax DOT net) by phouse

Really, someone has got to be making this up.  The Niners are interested in Condi Rice?  Unlike our global strategic standing, the Niner standing in their world is low enough that I suppose it can’t be tanked any further.  I’d love to say I have more jokes about this; the situation certainly seems like it would be rife with them but I’m not picking any up.

One more reason I'm voting for Obama (rianjs.net (Hanser)) by Rian

As if I even needed another reason…

"There are no real or fake parts of this country," he said, a reference to a Sarah Palin speech in North Carolina in which she said she was happy to be in "the real America" and praised "the pro-America areas of this great nation." Obama continued: "We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation — we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from. There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq and patriots who opposed it, patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women from Indiana and all across America who serve on our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a red America or a blue America — they have served the United States of America."

From Slate.