What's in a Name other than a Frame?

Via Joan McCarter at Daily Kos: 

Obamacare unpopular, unless it's not called Obamacare 

Another poll, and more confirmation that people really don't like Obamacare but ...

(Reuters) - Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama's healthcare reform even though they strongly support most of its provisions, Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Sunday, with the Supreme Court set to rule within days on whether the law should stand. Fifty-six percent of people are against the healthcare overhaul and 44 percent favor it, according to the online poll conducted from Tuesday through Saturday.

They don't like it—that is, until they hear about what's in it. Same old story. Greg Sargent got the partisan breakdown from Reuters/Ipsos on this poll.

* Eighty percent of Republicans favor “creating an insurance pool where small businesses and uninsured have access to insurance exchanges to take advantage of large group pricing benefits.” That’s backed by 75 percent of independents. [...] * Fifty two percent of Republicans favor “allowing children to stay on parents insurance until age 26.” That’s backed by 69 percent of independents.
* Seventy eight percent of Republicans support “banning insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions; 86 percent of Republicans favor “banning insurance companies from cancelling policies because a person becomes ill.” Those are backed by 82 percent of independents and 87 percent of independents.
* One provision that isn’t backed by a majority of Republicans: The one “expanding Medicaid to families with incomes less than $30,000 per year.”

Just don't call it "Obamacare" and it's all good, even with Republicans—except for that bit about making things a little easier for the working poor, because that's practically anti-American.

The problem, of course, is that you can't separate the law from the very effective (albeit shockingly untruthful) narratives the Republicans created against it. As of now, Republicans have decided they won't do anything to reinstate these popular elements. Even if they change their minds, they'll be relentlessly attacked by the even further Right.

But polls like this show what President Obama is going to have to do politically if the law is overturned. He's going to have to run against the activist, extremist Republican majority on the Supreme Court and what it has done to overturn these provisions, provisions that even normal (non-elected) Republicans support.

The linguist George Lakoff gives as an example of framing an exercise he gives to his students. 

The exercise is: Don't think of an elephant! Whatever you do, do not think of an elephant. I've never found a student who is able to do this. Every word, like elephant, evokes a frame, which can be an image or other kinds of knowledge: Elephants are large, have floppy ears and a trunk, are associated with circuses, and so on. The word is defined relative to that frame. When we negate a frame, we evoke the frame.

So too with the "negative frame" Obamacare that the Republican Tea Party have labeled the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The opposition is not is the parts, but in the part of the label spelled OBAMA!

 

Jesse Ventura Speaks Out

Jesse Ventura, the former Governor of MN, was a recent guest on the Larry King show. Ventura, a former Navy SEAL, indicated that he had completed the SERE program, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. As part of that program he experienced being water boarded.

VENTURA: It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence -- every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.

Larry King asked Ventura what it was like to be water boarded. Jesse tells it like it is:

VENTURA: It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

King also asked about Cheney and whether Rush Limbaugh was a better Republican than Colin Powell.

VENTURA: I don't have a lot of respect for Dick Cheney. Here's a guy who got five deferments from the Vietnam War. Clearly, he's a coward. He wouldn't go when it was his time to go. And now he is a chicken hawk. Now he is this big tough guy who wants this hardcore policy. And he's the guy that sanctioned all this torture by calling it enhanced interrogation.

KING: Do you think Rush Limbaugh's a better Republican than Colin Powell?

VENTURA: No, not at all. In fact, if you compare the two, let's look at Colin Powell, who's a war hero, who strapped it on for his country, and didn't run and hide.

KING: Twice.

VENTURA: And then you look at Dick Cheney who ran and hid. I have no respect for Dick Cheney. I have tremendous respect for General Powell.

The Decision to Prosecute Bush Officials

The media has been focusing on a statement by Rahm Emanuel that President Obama will not pursue criminal charges against former Bush officials for their use of torture on terrorism suspects. Rahm said "this is not the time for retribution or anger."

Today President Obama stated during a press conference with the King of Jordan that he will leave the decision of whether to bring charges against any Bush officials to the Attorney General, Eric Holder.

President Obama said that “With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more a decision for the attorney general within the parameter of various laws, and I don’t want to prejudge that.”

From College News:

It’s understandable that the President doesn’t want to create major waves that would result from the prosecution of Bush officials. He is correct in stating that the decision should be left up to the Attorney General.

This should not be a political issue; it’s a matter of law and order. Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, and independents alike should be interested in holding our elected officials and their staffs responsible for their actions.

Hiding behind a wall of bipartisanship is not going to serve our country. Eric Holder needs to do his job and start investigating the Bush administration for its use of torture and illegal wiretapping during the war on terror.

Anyone who has had their head forcibly held underwater in a swimming pool can tell you that waterboarding is torture. There is no excuse for the use these interrogation methods in pursuing our enemies. On the contrary, the more that we violate our own moral code and international laws, it becomes easier for terrorist organizations to recruit fighters for their cause.

It’s not the President’s job to file charges against his predecessors. But it would be reassuring to hear him come out and say that an investigation needs to take place.

Who Wants to Block Obama?

From Think Progress:

Bayh: My Group Of Blue Dogs ‘Literally Has No Agenda’ Other Than Blocking Obama’s

Yesterday, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, and several other progressive groups began running ads urging “moderate” Democratic members of Congress to “get on board with the president’s budget.” The ads are, in part, a response to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and 14 of his Democratic colleagues who are creating what they call a “moderate coalition that will meet regularly to shape public policy.” Bayh responded to the new ads late yesterday, telling Politico that his group of “moderates” should not be targeted because they have “no agenda”:

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is also unhappy with the friendly fire. Bayh…found himself targeted by an ad accusing him of “standing in the way of President Obama’s reforms.” “We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”

Bayh’s claim that his group has no agenda is hard to believe. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal explained yesterday, the group’s “stated goal is to…protect business interests.” Even before the group was officially formed, their efforts dampened a number of progressive policy proposals and they clearly have aspirations to expand their portfolio:

– Shrinking Economic Recovery: The group’s first significant “success” was “paring down the more than $900 billion economic stimulus bill to $787 billion,” reducing the government’s ability to spur economic recovery quickly. [Roll Call, 3/12/2009]

– Preserving The Bush Tax Cuts: Regarding Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, Bayh said, “I do think that before we raise revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back on spending.” [Politico, 3/3/2009]

– Delaying Cap-and-Trade: Bayh coaltion member, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), explained that the group might “push for a more lenient phase-in period for a cap-and-trade system and revenue-raising offsets to pay for expensive mandates.” [CQ Politics, 3/9/2009]

– Weakening Bankruptcy Protection: Centrist Democrats “forced changes to a House bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages, ensuring that the legislation better reflected the concerns of the financial-services industry.” [WSJ, 3/25/09]

If Bayh is to be believed and his new group of moderates “literally have no agenda,” then what exactly are they doing? As MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained last night, it appears that Bayh and his colleagues have found at least one niche to fill by helping Republicans obstruct the President’s agenda and deny voters the policies they endorsed last November:

Anyone voting against a Democratic agenda voted Republican. Those votes produced a very small Republican minority in Congress. A small minority that now has way more power than they otherwise would because of conservative Democrats deciding to give Republicans as much power as they can.

Watch it:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Frame is the Game

An article by Robert Parry exposes how the right wing news media is creating a negative frame for the Obama administration which is then picked up and disseminated by the main stream media. The complete article is a must read, "Framing Obama -- by the WPost."

The following is an excerpt:

As Barack Obama reaches the two-month anniversary of his presidency, he is facing such a problem from the powerful Washington Post, which is creating a negative “frame” for his administration.

The Post’s news pages have been filled with supposedly objective news stories that have portrayed Republican obstructionism not as the GOP’s determination to hobble Obama – much as the Republicans did to Bill Clinton in 1993-94 – but as Obama’s “failure” to achieve the bipartisanship he advocated during the campaign.

The Post and other leading news organizations also have suffered from a strange amnesia about the fact that today’s worldwide financial disaster has been in the making for many years and reached a crisis point in 2008 under the “self-regulatory” theories of President George W. Bush.

Instead of that context, the recession is portrayed as an Obama problem, with the Post and other news outlets even forgetting to mention in stories about the 6.2 percent drop in the gross domestic product in the fourth quarter of 2008 that the startling decline occurred under Bush, not Obama.

The Washington Post pulled those two peculiar threads together in a March 14 page-one article entitled “Obama’s New Tack: Blaming Bush,” which claims that Obama is violating his pledge of bipartisanship by alleging that the economic crisis predated his presidency. The story’s sub-head reads: “President Points to ‘Inherited’ Economy.”[...]

Once that frame is created, the conclusion becomes obvious: Obama is a liar for talking about bipartisanship during Campaign 2008 and at his Inauguration, while now trying to excuse his own failure to resolve the economic crisis by unfairly shifting blame to Bush and the Republicans, who are the victims.[...]

The significance of how the Post frames the two-month-old Obama administration – both in its news pages and in its neoconservative-dominated opinion section – is that the Post is the dominant newspaper in the nation’s capital and thus influences the news agendas at other mainstream outlets, such as CNN and the TV networks.

(Washington’s two other daily newspapers – the Washington Times and The Examiner – are right-wing publications.[...]

During the Bush-43 years, the Washington Post’s opinion section also became thoroughly dominated by neoconservatives and pro-Iraq War voices. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “WPost Is a Neocon Propaganda Sheet.”]

But these neocon trends extended well beyond the opinion pages, into the news sections, mostly through the Post’s framing of important national issues in ways usually favorable to Bush and to neocon sentiments.

Now, that pattern has continued into the early days of the Obama administration, with stories that selectively omit such key context as when the current recession began or that blame Obama for Republican obstructionism, rather than seeing it as a possible strategy for restoring GOP power in 2010 and 2012.

Until this problem of the U.S. news media’s rightward tilt is seriously addressed, it is hard to imagine how the nation will ever confront – let alone solve – its many challenges.

Obama's First Judicial Pick

AP/ President Barack Obama on Tuesday nominated an Indiana judge to serve on a Midwestern federal appeals court, his first act in reshaping the federal judiciary and preparing for a possible Supreme Court opening.

Obama's choice was a mainstream jurist.

The White House chose U.S. District Judge David Hamilton of Indiana for the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, contending Hamilton was a mainstream jurist who could overcome the bitter Senate confirmation fights of the past several years.

The importance of this choice.

Some Republicans were troubled by Hamilton's ruling against a sectarian prayer to open the Indiana House of Representatives.

That ruling was in 2005, when Hamilton banned the practice of opening the chamber's business with prayers mentioning Jesus Christ or using terms such as savior. He said that amounted to state endorsement of a religion. The circuit court where he would serve, if confirmed, overturned the ruling.

In 2003, he struck down part of an Indiana law on abortion. It required abortion clinics to give women information about alternatives to abortion in the presence of a physician or nurse, 18 hours before the procedure. The 7th Circuit court also reversed that decision.

Previous rulings by Hamilton cover issues ranging from pornography to corporate misdeeds. He:

Upheld an Indianapolis ordinance requiring parental consent for children to have access to video games with extreme violence, or explicit sexual content. The video game industry had challenged the law.

Held white-collar criminals accountable for corporate wrongdoing. He sentenced a former credit union head teller who embezzled $7 million to eight years and one month in prison, and ordered restitution. He sentenced a former real estate executive, who had written $217 in bad checks, to 6 1/2 years in prison.

Sentenced a child pornographer to 100 years in prison, a penalty upheld by the 7th Circuit.

Admitted into a case a surveillance video of drug defendants, even though the police did not have a warrant. The police did, however, have permission from a person with access to the room.

Struck down a state provision requiring sex offenders to provide authorities with personal information.

The American Bar Association gave Hamilton a "well qualified" rating, resuming its historic role in evaluating judicial nominees. The Bush administration had eliminated the ABA from its selection process.

AIG: "Recklessness and Greed"

Obama On AIG: "How Do They Justify This Outrage?"

President Obama’s full statement:

I want to comment on the news about executive bonuses at A.I.G. This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.

Under these circumstances, it’s hard to understand how derivative traders at A.I.G. warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay. How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?

In the last six months, A.I.G. has received substantial sums from the U.S. Treasury. I’ve asked Secretary Geithner to use that leverage and pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.

I know he’s working to resolve this matter with the new C.E.O., Edward Liddy, who came on board after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to last year.

This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s about our fundamental values.

All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses. And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules.

That is an ethic we must demand.

What this situation also underscores is the need for overall financial regulatory reform, so we don’t find ourselves in this position again, and for some form of resolution mechanism in dealing with troubled financial institutions, so we have greater authority to protect the American taxpayer and our financial system in cases such as this. We will work with Congress to that end.

Standing up to Rove

On ABC's This Week, Karl Rove was very critical of President Obama's proposed budget.

He's now going to add more debt in the first 20 months and 11 days than was incurred in 2 wars, 9/11 and the previous administration.

Katrina vanden Heuvel who was on the panel with Rove was refresingly bold as she countered Rove's GOP talking point.

It's laughable for you to talk about fiscal responsibility from someone who helped plunge this nation into trillion dollars of debt through tax cuts for the very rich and a war we never should have fought. Starving the beast, starving the government has been a republican role in terms of government and therefore when George asks why government hasn't functioned, people have not seen the role of government in improving the conditions of their lives in decades.

It is about time that the GOP's critism of the President's budget is being countered with a dose of reality. How refreshing!!!!

All Troops Out of Iraq by End of 2011

President Obama spoke to an audience of U.S. Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on Friday. He acknowledged the length of the Iraq war and the need to remove U.S.troops.

Next month will mark the sixth anniversary of the war in Iraq. By any measure, this has already been a long war.[...] Today, I have come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end.

With renewed hope he announced a new strategy to end the war in Iraq.

The first part of this strategy is therefore the responsible removal of our combat brigades from Iraq.

As a candidate for President, I made clear my support for a timeline of 16 months to carry out this drawdown, while pledging to consult closely with our military commanders upon taking office to ensure that we preserve the gains we’ve made and protect our troops. Those consultations are now complete, and I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months.

Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.

The second part of the strategy means that troops will remain to support the transition.

After we remove our combat brigades, our mission will change from combat to supporting the Iraqi government and its Security Forces as they take the absolute lead in securing their country. As I have long said, we will retain a transitional force to carry out three distinct functions: training, equipping, and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq. Initially, this force will likely be made up of 35-50,000 U.S. troops.

ALL troops will be removed from Iraq by the end of 2011.

Through this period of transition, we will carry out further redeployments. And under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. We will complete this transition to Iraqi responsibility, and we will bring our troops home with the honor that they have earned.

Diplomacy is an element which is necessary to stabilize the region.

That leads me to the third part of our strategy –comprehensive American engagement across the region.

The future of Iraq is inseparable from the future of the broader Middle East, so we must work with our friends and partners to establish a new framework that advances Iraq’s security and the region’s. It is time for Iraq to be a full partner in a regional dialogue, and for Iraq’s neighbors to establish productive and normalized relations with Iraq. And going forward, the United States will pursue principled and sustained engagement with all of the nations in the region, and that will include Iran and Syria.

This reflects a fundamental truth: we can no longer deal with regional challenges in isolation – we need a smarter, more sustainable and comprehensive approach.

Obama's approach is to have a date certain to end the war, a timeline for complete withdrawal and finally diplomacy and engagement with all nations of the region to sustain the peace. At least he has a plan!

Trying to Find Transparency

As President Obama gave his address to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, he commented on the transparency of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

I know there are some in this chamber and watching at home who are skeptical of whether this plan will work. I understand that skepticism. Here in Washington, we’ve all seen how quickly good intentions can turn into broken promises and wasteful spending. And with a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right.

That is why I have asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort – because nobody messes with Joe. I have told each member of my Cabinet as well as mayors and governors across the country that they will be held accountable by me and the American people for every dollar they spend. I have appointed a proven
and aggressive Inspector General to ferret out any and all cases of waste and fraud. And we have created a new website called recovery.gov so that every American can find out how and where their money is being spent.

According to The Hill, the website that President Obama spoke of is getting an enormous amount of hits since it was launched.

The website President Obama said will allow Americans to monitor the spending of the $787 billion recovery plan is generating intense traffic, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

Peter Orszag, Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget, said recovery.gov received 3,000 hits a second upon its launch last week."

The president has repeatedly touted the site as a means through which Americans can ensure that their tax dollars are not being wasted as the largest spending measure in the country's history is doled out.

In his response to the President, Gov. Bobby Jindal spoke of transparency.

We need to bring transparency to Washington, D.C., so we can rid our capital of corruption and ensure that we never see the passage of another trillion-dollar spending bill that Congress hasn't even read and the American people haven't even seen.

Will somebody please show the Gov. where he can get this information.

The Obama Code

George Lakoff is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. The following is a quote from an article he recently published.

"The Obama Code is based on seven deep, insightful, and subtle intellectual moves. What President Obama has been attempting in his speeches is a return to the original frames of the Framers, reconstituting what it means to be an American, to be patriotic, to be a citizen and to share in both the sacrifices and the glories of our country. In seeking "bipartisan" support, he is looking beyond political affiliations to those who share those values on particular issues. In his economic plan, he is attempting to realign our economy with the moral missions of government: protection and empowerment for all."

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