Dirty Deals Done Dirt Cheap

In what probably has to be a new low, Virginia Republicans pay off state senator Philip P. Puckett to resign his position so that the GOP will have the votes to block medicaid expansion. Puckett will now be the deputy director of the state tobacco commission and his daughter gets a judgeship. It sounds like something out of the antebellum South and I'm sure won't be ignored this election cycle.

Both the GOP and Puckett deny such a deal took place, but it is so transparent as to be undeniable, especially since they are taking advantage of the absence of two other Democratic senators to call an early session to secure the vote they need to block medicaid expansion, and appoint Puckett's daughter to her new judgeship.

Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe apparently has little recourse. Obviously the state Republicans did their homework, using both hook and crook to get the advantage they needed in the state legislature. With political stunts like this, you have to wonder how long an advantage like this will last.

What has been so disconcerting these past five years is the way the GOP has been able to use red states to block key parts of the Affordable Care Act. Some red states appear to have relented to medicaid expansion, notably Florida, as Rick Scott makes a last ditch effort to overcome Charlie Crist in the polls. Florida Republican legislators, who control the state legislature and have been adamantly opposed to medicaid expansion, appear to be changing their position as polls show Floridians strongly approve medicaid expansion.

So, why does Virginia continue to fight it? It is already a state in transition politically, having twice voted for Obama, and elected McAuliffe as governor last year in a bitterly contested election. You would think Republicans would see the writing on the wall and accept the fact that people want medicaid expansion and full access to the Affordable Care Act. Instead, we see the same old ideological battle rear its ugly head again.

I suppose this is the result of the overwhelming fear among conservatives that the ACA will eventually lead to a single-payer system that would do away with state health care systems all together. This was the biggest obstacle for Affordable Care Act, resulting in a myriad of state health insurance exchanges, with rates depending greatly on the number of providers available in those states.

Some states opted out all together, leaving it up to its' residents to apply through the federal health insurance exchange, which got off to a very bad start. It was hoped at the time that this would be the death knell of "Obamacare," but the federal exchange was able to overcome its rocky start and eventually reach its target goal of new enrollees. However, the ACA is relying heavily on medicaid expansion to pick up a great number of uninsured Americans who can't afford health insurance even with the substantial discounts available through the exchanges.

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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