We cannot hallow ... but we must consecrate

Abraham Lincoln uttered the first phrase 150 years ago, in his Gettysburg Address. It is up to us, today, to continue to do with the second phrase, reversing his secodn "cannot," started being done on Nov. 19, 1963, so that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

In an era when BOTH major political parties actively support spying on We the People, actively support dissing We the People by pandering to the rich, and cast crumbs to the "dogs" of seemingly loyal constituents, including increasingly nutty ones on the GOP side, this is more important than in many a decade.

Allen Guelzo does a good job of that, from a mainstream history point of view. His new book, "Gettysburg," is worth a read indeed. But, we must go beyond mainstream history and gauzy veils. That is then, this is now.

Voting Green, or Socialist, or even Communist, rather than Democratic, at least for today's national Democrats, is part of that, for me.

It is about this:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

And doing so requires moving beyond today's largely neoliberal (certainly at the national level) Democratic Party and its leaders. Period. As Lyndon B. Johnson said a bit over a century after Lincoln, you don't take the shackles off someone and immediately expect them to start running and sprinting. (Unfortunately, he was on a sprint to send more troops to Vietnam, too.)

Speaking of, I forgot all about LBJ's speech at Gettysburg, not at the official 100th-anniversary celebration, but earlier in the year:

One hundred years ago, the slave was freed.

One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin.

The Negro today asks justice.

We do not answer him--we do not answer those who lie beneath this soil--when we reply to the Negro by asking, "Patience." ...

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact. To the extent that the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in fact, to that extent we shall have fallen short of assuring freedom to the free.

Bingo.

And, if only LBJ had known, at the time he was escalating in Vietnam, that Kennedy traded Turkish (and Italian, which most people don't even know) missile sites for ones in Cuba, he might have been less likely to escalate quite as much, perhaps.

Anyway, speaking of him ...

We must dedicate ourselves to the unfinished work of a 21st-century Great Society, something about no national Democrat of today would endorse. Jobs training programs? Enforcing the Fair Housing Act? Enforcing both environmental and labor safeguards in NAFTA? Ditto in the WTO?

Oh, no, because that might offend rich Silicon Valley donors.

But, We the People need "a new birth of freedom." And, it's insanity to expect that to come, in terms of labor rights, economic equality, class-based as well as race-oriented opportunity assistance, and more, from going back to the same old well, time after time.

Abraham Lincoln was the first president of a new party, founded less than a decade before he was elected. We have liberal third-party vehicles now. We need to boost them. We need to unite them. We need to get Greens to better explain the jobs value of environmentalism, and its health value. We need Socialists to better explain to Greens why they want a focus on jobs, income equality and related issues above all else. We need the Justice Party to explain adequately why it was ever formed as another party in the first place, especially since 2012 presidential candidate Rocky Anderson ain't all that liberal.

Above all, we who already feel this way need to convince more other people to stop voting Democratic for nothing other than "fear factor" reasons. After all, what did Obama provide? An underfunded stimulus, a national health care plan handout to insurance agencies and even more spying on Americans than Bush. Gay rights? His administration opposed DOMA, and gay marriage was a state-level issue. Besides, while not belittling civil rights, without economic rights, that's still neoliberalism.

That said, third parties start from the ground up. That was a bit true with the 1850s GOP, and its very true today. So, that means voting for Green or Socialist city council members, county commission members, state representatives and such, too.

It also means third parties finding better ways to sell themselves to the public. And, it means better running the ways they already have. I asked the Texas Green Party a couple of weeks ago if there had been people filing for 2014 elections yet. I got no answer to my email, and the last news bit on the website is from the start of August.

Finally, third parties of the left, without totally ditching idealism, must have real, realistic policy proposals. Regular readers here know how much I critiqued the various wrongs of the Occupy movement. And, third parties, even more than national-level Democrats, must not let linguistic political correctness substitute for real liberalism.

That, that whole train of the last few paragraphs, is what LBJ was getting at in that same speech:

The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law. Law has not failed--and is not failing. We as a nation have failed ourselves by not trusting the law and by not using the law to gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone serves.

He worked hard to that end, to bend the arc of justice. That arc needs further bending today.

The more national Democrats continue in their neoliberal pandering to big banking and big business, the more opportunity opens up for alternatives. But, this won't come easily.

A simple first step? Extending the presidential campaign finance law to Congressional races, and making it easy for third-party candidates to get at least partial financing.

Robbie Cano, meet Albert Pujols; introduce your agents, too

It's becoming more and more clear that Robinson Cano, the Yankees' Division 1-AA star, is NOT going to get $300 million in his next contract, not from the Yankees and not from nobody else. Why would his agent be making carefully parsed noise like this if the case were otherwise?

While no teams have publicly emerged for Cano, his agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, continues to say that it would be silly to believe there's no interest in a player of Cano's magnitude.

There's a lot of difference between "no interest" and "less than $300M difference," and Wagenen knows that well.

Why did I make the Albert Pujols and agents comments in the header?

First, Pujols' 10-year length on his contract surely has scared off other teams from similar ideas with Cano, first. Second, I suspect that Van Wagenen, like Pujols' agent, Dan Lozano, was hoping to get his name in the American Sports Agents Book of Records with a new record new contract for a player. (And, when I first wrote this, I forgot that the ultimate mogul here is Jay Z.)

Well, Lozano couldn't pass Alex Rodriguez (and Scott Boras) and neither will you two.

And, ESPN's story on the latest Yankees response makes clear that that's part of what's at stake for Van Wagenen and Jay Z: bumping aside Boras.

Calling Cano "the next Michael Jordan" as part of that is simply laughable. Plus, as the story notes, the Yankees made Derek Jeter "drink the reality potion" a few years back. Cano & Company will be drinking that potion, whether with the Yankees or somebody else.

Next, why did I make the "Division 1-AA" comment?

Because Cano isn't at the level of those players. He's not the next Jordan, nor is he the next Pujols or A-Rod.

Steroids or whatever, as late as 2008, at the age of 32, A-Rod had an OPS+ of 150. Pujols had a 173 at the age of 30, followed by 148 at 31. No steroids involved, to the best of our knowledge.

Now, let's note this fact:

Cano has NEVER had an OPS+ of 150. Never. Period. End of story. Maybe he's 1-A, but, he's not part of the BCS mix, to continue that analogy.

OK, since he's won multiple Gold Gloves, let's compare the three on WAR and WAA, then.

Cano's best? A 8.5 WAR, 6.0 WAA in 2012. Pujols had a 9.7/7.6 in 2009. (And won two Gold Gloves.)  A-Rod had a 10.3/8.1 in 2000. (And won two Gold Gloves also.)

I think, even in today's baseball salary world, anything above $25M is an overpay, as is more than 7 years. So, Cano and Van Wagenen, if you want 7/$180M, you might get that. But, more? Not a chance. Certainly, not a chance for 7/$200M, which closely approaches the $30M/year mark.

Because, you, Robbie, aren't worth it. Even if you're a bit of a late peaker, I still don't expect you to every break 150 on the OPS+, nor get any better on fielding range. And, if your agent's in this for head games, I'd find another one, and quickly. The one-year tender system has been a way for owners and GMs, if not those of the Arte Moreno ilk, to exercise a modicum of enforced self-control by mutually assured undercutting with those compensatory draft picks.

And, that's the deal. The more you pay for a free agent with a tender offer, the more burden to perform you face.

You see, you and your agent aren't only facing Pujols and his injuries, you're facing tender-forfeited draft choice Michael Wacha. Maybe owners aren't thinking quite so much about that, but at least a few GMs surely are. If you deteriorate like a cheap suit at a post-George Zimmer Men's Wearhouse, a GM comes under fire for your overpay. If you deteriorate like that and the Yanks get the next Michael Wacha in return, for pennies on the dollar, said GM is really in trouble.

Beyond that, where's the market for Cano? The Dodgers already signed Cuban defector Alexander Guerrero. Boston has Dustin Pedroia. The Angels don't have the money. Neither do the Phils, who anyway have Chase Utley through 2018 if he hits vesting option targets.

The Cubs are the only other team with this type of money floating around, with the exception of the Astros if they put a crowbar in their wallet, and there's been no serious buzz about you going to either place. Besides, the Astros have Jose Altuve as one of their less bad, more promise, cheap young players.

And, if the Yankees are thinking about signing Stephen Drew and trying him at second, according to some rumors, or doing that with Jhonny Peralta, if he's not replacing a suspended A-Rod, or moving the re-signed Brendan Ryan there on days he's not spelling Jeter, the Yankees sure aren't overpaying.

Of course, a Yankee signing of either of those first two affects the Cardinals' SS plans.

Obama himself makes best argument for single-payer

Although he will certainly deny it, his Thursday announcement that insurers can wait one year to cancel low-grade plans has, to some degree, thrown health insurers under the bus. Nonetheless, as the ACA was written at the behest of America's Health Insurance Plans, their lobbying arm, they have little room to grumble.

It also throws his own Obamacare under the bus, with the stipulations insurers have a couple of hurdles to meet if they want to do this:

The temporary fix allows insurers — if they so choose — to reinstate canceled individual policies for a year or two instead of having them expire at the end of 2013. They can extend the policies only if they first take two crucial steps — inform the policyholders of all the consumer protections their current policies lack (like yearly limits on a patient’s out-of-pocket expenses), and make them aware of their options to buy better policies in the exchanges, often with the help of federal subsidies. This option would apply only to people who have had their current policies canceled. It does not apply to others who might want to buy similar plans. 

In other words, Obama is admitting Obamacare inadequately regulates insurers. And, because his Band-Aid only applies where people have already had plans cancelled, he admits that won't change.

But, that's OK, because, now, as of Nov. 18, Obama is considering letting people sign up for Obamacare directly via insurance companies, which is an obvious indication that HealthCare.gov will NOT be fixed by Nov. 30. (And Megan McArdle claims this is breaking the law.)

But, the insurers are saying even this introduces more instability and confusion into the market. That said, they should like that. Such confusion is part of the bamboozlement that helps sell insurance policies. If anything, they now have another year to test-market how much of that will transfer to full-blown Obamacareland.

The Times is honest about GOP Rep. Fred Upton's bill, which would let these non-complying plans remain in place forever. But, Obama's opened the floodgates, and now, he'll have to explain why, if his one-year delay is good, Upton's bill isn't. Which, in turn, will lead to yet more obfuscation somewhere.

Even Obama's proposed fix will lead to more confusion. And, at least one state with a state-level change is officially opposing it.

Commissioner Mike Kreidler said Thursday he won't allow insurance companies to extend their old policies that didn't meet the requirements of federal health care reform. An estimated 290,000 Washington residents have received notices that their old insurance policies will be canceled.

"Trying to do what the president has proposed would be very disruptive to the insurance market in the sate of Washington so no, we will not be allowing insurance companies to extend these policies," he said. "You'd have to go back and re-rate all of the policies, and the premises for what they originally proposed rates would all change." ...

"I do not believe his proposal is a good deal for the state of Washington," Kreidler said.

That said, per the story, Obama's plan requires state approval from states that have their own exchanges. And, especially if wingnuts start astroturfing, people like Kreidler are on the firing line.

That, in turn, leads to Obama making the best argument yet that the gap between Obama the reality and hope and change the myth is at least as much as between the reality of JFK and Camelot the myth.

No wonder more and more Democrats become more and more leery of a man who seems to be flying by the seat of his pants, and with less skill and suavity than Slick Willie Clinton had at it. Beyond the Obamacare undercutting, there's the apparent lack of backbone this demonstrates and more.

And, that afraidness showed up in the vote on Upton's bill. It got 39 Democrats. I'm pretty sure it will still fall short in the Senate, but ... it might not.

This has other political fallout. All of the alleged advantage Congressional Democrats, by generic ballot, had gained over the government shutdown, has vanished. And, since insurance CEOs are at the White House today, we may see yet more flip-flopping to come.

As for the success stories? Sure, they're real — in states with state-level exchanges.

Yes, in states without, in many of them, governors have been deliberately obstructive, and that's part of the problem. And? Dear Leader should have anticipated that, and thus, could have made more provisions for that, even if he found it hard to find much more money for that.

Don't blame me, folks; I didn't vote for him either time, and in 2008, I voted for the black and the woman on the same ballot, to boot. Only George W. Bush's famous phrase, "the soft bigotry of low expectations," keeps many people from realizing just how bad Obama is at times, because he's being compared to the low expectations from the Bush presidency.

Otherwise, just be honest — you can claim a lot of the problem is about optics, as long as you don't claim all of it is. You can claim that Obamacare has helped reduce health care costs without claiming it's been the primary driver.

That said, it's  understandable why Obamiacs would like to blame anything and everything, usually starting with  tea partiers and now running on to claims there's a targeted effort to take the exchange website down with directed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

When, over the real question of that website, Obama either has a White House and related staff of gross incompetence levels, which ultimately gets back to the rotting fish's head at the top, or else, once again, is lying with less suavity and conviction than Slick Willie, I understand the psychological need to grasp at conspiracy theories, no matter how untrue they are.

I'm about ready to stop following the NFL (updated)

It's becoming ever more clear, that on the issue of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and the likelihood that its "product" is a significant scientifically causal contributor to this, that the National Football League is indeed like big Tobacco.

The continued denial by the league and Commissioner Roger Goodell is in the same class. 

If you missed "League of Denial," the start of a new season on PBS's Frontline, go to the website. There's a lot more there, beyond the two hours of show. 

(Update, Nov: 18: The NFL surely doesn't love this. Quarterbacking icon Brett Favre, whom the Rams tried to talk out of retirement just a month ago, is worried about possible CTE symptoms that he's already showing, and said that, if he had a son, he probably wouldn't let him play football. Coming on top of Cowboys legend Tony Dorsett saying he's sure he's got CTE-type symptoms, the NFL has to "love" this.)

And, I'll again take the opportunity to call ESPN chickenshit to the tune of $2 billion (its NFL contract) for backing out of its original partnership with Frontline, as I originally did here. No, Frontline did not overly sensationalize the issue. But, ESPN, after ducking out, can't even put up a link to the Frontline piece?

To not admit responsibility for this as part of the $765 million concussion settlement, with its flaws, was bad enough. For Goodell to explicitly state after that settlement was announced that the NFL was not admitting liability of fault is disgusting.

Yes, it's technically true that we don't have a causal correlation scientifically nailed down yet. But, given that CTE has also shown up in the head-banging sport of hockey, was originally known as pugilistic dementia from boxing (aka the old "punch-drunk" syndrome that doesn't go away) and has been identified in one deceased high-school and one deceased college football player, to continue to skate along on such narrow technicalities is disgusting. And, it's what Big Tobacco did. Of course, eventualy, with cigarettes, the correlation was nailed down as being causal, and Big Tobacco still remained in denial. And, I think there's a fair likelihood, given more than 15 years now of history, that the NFL is carving out a mindset to remain in denial after a causal correlation on CTE starts getting established.

And, undercutting the NFL, it now seems possible that a PET scan on still living players can find evidence of CTE.

And, if the findings first noticed by Dr. Bennet Omalu do lead to the end of football as we currently know it, at least, is that such a bad thing either?

It's also disgusting in another way, the NFL is. No American sports league is at the top of the game in testing for steroids, but, Major League Baseball is well ahead of the NFL. So, for the NFL spokespeople to say that roiding rather than concussions might be the cause of CTE is a big hypocrisy. And, while steroids might be of moderate help

Also disgusting is the NFL's racism toward Dr. Omalu and sexism toward Dr. Anne McKee. There's no other word for it, and, with Dr. Omalu, the Richie Incognito crap hitting the fan, and related issues, don't make this good in general.

And, I know that for many liberals as well as conservatives in Texas, football is about like God. That said, I agree with two of the researchers on the issue: If I had a kid, at a minimum, he wouldn't play tackle football under the age of 14. At a maximum, he wouldn't play at all. 

And, that's not just me saying that. See Favre, Brett, above.

Meanwhile, Goodall wants to add two more playoff teams to the postseason. Great — two more teams playing another game in the current NFL to have more chances of brain damage. 

Update, Oct. 11: ESPN's shunning of Frontline turned out all for Frontline's good, a big spike in viewership and its website. Beyond this being a #fail by the Worldwide Leader (in bad ethics), it seriously did good in showing just how bad the problem is — the concussion problem and the dollar bill problem behind that. 

And, don't forget, folks. We could have safer helmets, but out of the fear of indirectly admitting liability, Goodell teamed up with helmet-maker Riddell to quash them. 

Also, yes, the NFL is a nonprofit; that's not an urban legend. More here on the different 501(c) categories.

Change in commenting, hopefully temporary

I've got a persistent, obviously computer-generated bot trying to drop spam comments here. I have moderation set up, so they don't get posted, but I still have to officially mark them as spam and then do a permanent deletion.

So, for a day or two, at least, you have to have a Blogger or G+ account, or otherwise be registered, if you feel the urge to comment here.

Is Drew the shortstop answer for the #Cardinals?

Boston free-agent shortstop Stephen Drew wasn't my original top choice for the Cardinals to fill the Pete Kozma black hole at short.

That's because I thought he would be too pricey.

That made my top options Erick Aybar via trade, as discussed here, or Rafael Furcal via internal re-sign.

But, Christina Karhl, in her weigh-in on the Redbirds' shortstop needs, thinks Drew is available for less than $10M/year. I kind of doubt that, but ... if he is, I'd take him over Aybar for sure. Because then, we're near a salary wash, without trading anybody. Sign me up in that case.

That's a lot cheaper than Jhonny Peralta from the Tigers,  if he's wanting "much more" than 3/$45M, which is a massive, massive, overpay. Hell, 3/$45 is an overpay itself, let alone "much more," whatever that means. And, it's in spitting distance of Aybar's contract, as noted.

Drew, Aybar and Peralta are all in the same neighborhood, at least. Decently above average at bat for the position, and at least a bit above average with the glove. Peralta's a year older than Drew, and with a lot more MLB games mileage on his tank. Aybar's a year younger than Drew, but with about the same amount of MLB games.

That said, to be honest, I'm not even close to convinced Karhl's right. She also didn't even mention the Scott Boras factor with Drew's free agency, of which Bernie Miklasz reminds us. If Peralta's asking $15M/yr, let alone "much more," then Drew has to be asking at least $12M, right? Now, whether either one will draw offers in that area, I don't know. But, $12M/year makes me think a bit more, at the least.

If anybody comments, let me know if you think Kahrl's right, and if not, what's the max per year you'd pay for Drew?