Posts by Hines Brian

Two things drove me crazy during today's drive from Salem to pick up my wife at the Portland International Airport: (1) Listening to right-wing talk show host Lars Larson, because his station, KXL, has good traffic alerts, and (2) getting stuck for a long time in a backup on I-205 whose seeming cause says a lot about the need for more mass transportation. This afternoon Larson didn't blather on about the blessedness of cars, and the hellishness of bicycles, light rail, high speed trains, and other alternatives to getting around in automobiles. But I've often heard him do this. Which…

Beware! Republicans want to raise taxes on the middle class. A lot. How? By repealing Obamacare, a.k.a., the Affordable Care Act, thereby making health care much less affordable for Americans. Obamacare will provide tax credits for those who want insurance, but can't afford to buy it on their own. $686 billion worth over 10 years. By contrast, well-to-do people who can afford health insurance, but refuse to buy it, would pay only $54 billion in shared responsbility penalties. If you want to call those penalties a tax, as the Supreme Court did recently, fine. The net result of repealing Obamacare…

Mitt Romney never met a flip that he didn't soon flop. The guy has no spine. He bends to whatever his right-wing Tea Party masters want him to say and do. Not a great leadership quality for a would-be president of the United States. Latest case in point: at first he and his campaign argued that the Affordable Health Care penalty for not having health insurance wasn't a tax, contrary to the Supreme Court majority opinion. Probably this was because the penalty in Massachusetts under "Romneycare," which "Obamacare" essentially copied, also was handled by the tax collection folks, so if…

When I said that "compassionate conservatism" is dead in today's GOP, a few commenters on my post disagreed with me. I stand by my assertion. Even more so, after watching in full an interview with Mitch McConnell on Fox News.  Even after being asked repeatedly how Republicans would handle the problem of 30 million uninsured Americans, how they would move toward universal coverage, McConnell kept dodging the question, saying "that's not the issue." What a jerk. What an uncaring, heartless, uncompassionate jerk. This is the modern GOP: out of ideas, out of caring. Here's the proof.  

This is how far modern-day conservatives have walked the Tea Party's right-wing plank: progressives like me now look back on Republicans like George W. Bush (and his father, George H.W.) a lot more fondly than we did when they were president. Like Ronald Reagan, both of the Bush's would be viewed as dangerously -- gasp!-- moderate by today's GOP faithful. Remember when "compassionate conservatism" was viewed positively by Republicans? No more. Just three years after George W. Bush left the White House, compassionate conservatives are an endangered species. In the new Tea Party era, they've all but disappeared from Congress, and…

Does Mitt Romney have no shame? For a supposedly religious guy, he sure has no problem lying. Today PolitiFact caught him in an obvious falsehood.  The Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, doesn't add trillions of dollars to the deficit. Actually, the Congressional Budget Office says that it will reduce the deficit. So Romney is just making crap up.  So says PolitiFact, in a more polite manner. How is it that a law can raise taxes and cut spending, but also add trillions to the deficit?That was Mitt Romney’s claim after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the core of the health…

There. I've gone out on a limb. I put a "will survive" in the title of this blog post. I've been thinking that the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, is going to fare better with the Supreme Court than most pundits are predicting. But until today I felt this was wishful thinking. My wife and I hate Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon, who we send a large amount of money to each month for an individual policy that steadily costs more and covers less. We're looking forward to becoming eligible for Medicare in a few years, having experienced the…

Do you want a puppet to represent you in Congress or be your President? Wouldn't you prefer to have someone who thinks for himself or herself and acts in the best interest of the country, rather than a robot who jumps whenever strings are pulled by a behind-the-scenes controller? Republicans are those puppets. Grover Norquist is the puppeteer. His rigid anti-tax pledge is the strings. Columnist Dana Milbank reports that it's been signed by all but four House Republicans, most Republican Senators, and Mitt Romney. Read his column, "Grover Norquist delivers the GOP's marching orders." Then make your own independent,…

I'm sure the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 555, had other reasons to endorse a proposed 2012 ballot initiative here in Oregon -- the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, which would legalize and tax marijuana consumed by adults. But when I saw the Portland Business Journal story, all I could think was: Smart move for a food group. Munchies! There's also some marijuana legalization news from Washington state today: The other ballot measure is Initiative 502, which would essentially legalize marijuana, regulate it, and tax it. Washingtonians seem to like pot even better than gay marriage, as the initiative is…