Alan Simpson Dances Gangnam Style (Seriously)

As a blogger, Alan Simpson is the gift that keeps on giving. I'm starting to actually like him.

This video is an absolute disaster. Obama or Clinton can make politics (almost) seem hip. Simpson has no chance with an annoying dance craze that people will look back on with horror.

Alan Simpson v. Grover Norquist

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Alan Simpson publicly disses Grover Norquist on Andrea Mitchell's show.

Mitchell:

Do you have any impure thoughts about Grover Norquist?

Alan Simpson:

Plenty. But you know, here’s a good guy with a very bad idea and he was gathering up those signatures back in the ’80s and the early ’90s when inflation was zip, when unemployment was zip, and anybody who would sign anything before they come to Congress and hear the debate and participate in it hopefully and get in to the floor, management and the amending process and the conference committee, those people I mean why would you do that? It’s like selling your soul!

Now Grover, I said, would be irrelevant in two years, and I say that– he’s got about another year and a half to go– he will be irrelevant. This guy is a zealot. A zealot is one who, having forgotten his purpose, redoubles his efforts, and he sees the crumbling of the great house of cards.

It’s like Jarvis out in California back in the late ’70s. He’s left schools destitute, he’s left institutions destitute. You can’t come in and play this kind of a game when everything has changed in America, and this time everything has changed because it’s all coming to pass on December 31st, and Grover-babe is losing a person a day and he knows it. So what does he use to cover that? Cutesies. Little smart Alecs. I know that. I don’t know who else does that. I have done that.

He is becoming irrelevant. And you can see it in his eyes. He knows the game is up. Because good people of good faith have decided that instead of being Republicans, or Democrats, they’re Americans. And instead of being beholden to Grover Norquist and the AARP, they’re beholden to the United States of America. Those guys are going to take their lumps.

"Grover Babe"? Interesting choice of words.

Rep. Peter King went after Norquist today. I often wondered when establishment Republicans were going to get tired about being pushed around by Norquist. It looks like I now have my answer.

Quote of the Day

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"So how do you deal with someone who comes to stop government? … Grover wandering the earth in his white robe saying he wants to drown government in the bathtub. I hope he slips in there with it."

Alan Simpson, expressing some less than kind feelings about Grover Norquist. Matthews was left speechless by Simpson's comment.

Quote of the Day

"He is rigid and homophobic. He said, 'I want a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage,' and they said, 'Well, what about the people who are already married?' And he said, 'Well, they would be nullified.' I mean what is, what's human, what's kind about that? We're all human beings, we all know or love somebody who's gay or lesbian so what the hell is that about? To me it's startling and borders on disgust."

Alan Simpson, commenting on Rick Santorum.

This isn't the first time Simpson has voiced his disgust with Santorum.

Quote of the Day

"I'd like to see a plan that cuts $900 trillion."

Alan Simpson, on the debt ceiling deal.

It is obvious that Simpson doesn't realize that the national debt is 14.3. Simpson wouldn't have an answer what to do with the surplus. I can guarantee that Simpson will not want a penny to go to social programs.

People wonder why I bash Obama on policy and triangulation. Only a President obsessed with appearing centrist would appoint someone as ignorant as Simpson to the deficit commission.

Quote of the Day

"It was never intended as a retirement program. It was set up in '37 and '38 to take care of people who were in distress—ditch diggers, wage earners—it was to give them 43 percent of the replacement rate of their wages. The [life expectancy] was 63. That's why they set retirement age at 65."

Alan Simpson, on Social Security.

Simpson is wrong. Franklin Delano Roosevelt intended for Social Security to protect Americans from "poverty-ridden old age."

"We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age. This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built, but is by no means complete.... It is...a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness."

FDR designed Social Security so that Republicans could not repeal it. Unlike Obama mandating Americans buying private health insurance. FDR did a more painless thing by making it part of the tax system. Over the course of time people would be used to the Social Security tax. Under Obama's health care reform, Americans can look forward to states allowing health insurers to increase insurance rates.

FDR in a private conversation on Social Security.

“I guess you’re right on the economics. They are politics all the way through. We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics.”

Quote of the Day

Republican Alan Simpson takes on the social conservatives within his party.

SIMPSON: Who the hell is for abortion? I don't know anybody running around with a sign that says, "Have an abortion! They're wonderful!" They're hideous, but they're a deeply intimate and personal decision. I don't think men legislators should even vote on the issue.

Then they got homosexuality, you've got Don't Ask, Don't Tell. We have homophobes on our party. That's disgusting to me. We're all human beings. We're all God's children. Now if they're going to get off on that stuff - Santorum has said some cruel things - cruel, cruel things - about homosexuals. Ask him about it; see if he attributes the cruelness of his remarks years ago. Foul.

Now if that's the kind of guys that are going to be on the ticket, you know, it makes you sort out hard what Reagan said, you know, "Stick with your folks." But, I'm not sticking with people who are homophobic, anti-women, moral values - while you're diddling your secretary while you're giving a speech on moral values? Come on, get off of it.

This is the type of message Democrats should be giving. Enough of the two sides to every view nonsense. Democrats will continue to get hammered if they don't come out strongly for abortion and gay rights.

Alan Simpson's Latest Episode

Alan Simpson attacks military veterans for receiving benefits for an unscientifically proven link between diabetes and Agent Orange.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson's comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

"The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess," said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Let us give Simpson the benefit of the doubt that there is a link between Agent Orange and diabetes. Now let us calculate the number of Vietnam veterans receiving VA benefits and treatment for diabetes caused by Agent Orange. I doubt the cost of treating these veterans for Agent Orange-related diabetes is over a billion dollars. I am willing to guess it is substantially less. The Associated Press estimated it would cost $850 million a year to treat Vietnam veterans with diabetes.

It would be hard to calculate numbers because Agent Orange is not officially recognized as a cause for Agent Orange. What is more troubling is the co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform would focus on cutting funding for veterans with diabetes a manner of reducing the deficit. The savings would be miniscule. Veterans would have to be forced to find more expensive means to treat their diabetes.

Many progressives are focusing on Simpson's callousness toward veterans who have sacrificed for their country. Simpson deserves all the grief he gets from progressives. What struck me is how Simpson's comments exemplify conservatives utter lack of seriousness towards the deficit and health care. Cutting funding to the Veterans Administration is not going to create a surplus or make health care cheaper. In fact, cutting benefits make the military a less desirable career option for young men and women. Especially, in a time of war.