dablog

An Important Message

2010-10-22T13:10:00.000-04:00

Funniest Teabagger Video Ever!

2010-09-10T16:27:00.000-04:00

Funniest Teabagger Ever! You must watch!

Obama Strongly Hints At Warren Nomination To Head Consumer Bureau

2010-09-10T14:09:00.001-04:00

A month ago, after rumors surfaced that he was not going to pick Elizabeth Warren, I sent the president a letter urging him to pick her. I don't normally send letters to the prez but I wanted him to know how important this issue was to me. I've watched a lot of compromises and agreed with most of them but this was one area where we need to get the right person for the right job. And that clearly is Ms. Warren.

I wouldn't say my support would completely erode for Obama if he does not pick her but my enthusiasm for him and his agenda would be lessened quite a bit. To my surprise after watching the news conference today, I saw him strongly suggest that he will pick her. Let's hope my reading of him is correct. I think it will go a long way towards motivating people in November and carrying over much needed good will into the last two years of is first term.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

We Can't Yield -- Not Now, Not Ever

2010-08-22T10:59:00.001-04:00

I thought about that too. He's certainly not the head of the tea party. But you know what? That guilt by proximity or guilt by association is standard operating procedure for the tea party and the Republicans in general. 3/4's of the issues those parties bring against the dems are baseless and the other 1/4 are circumstantial. She's just doing to them what they do day in and day out on Fox Noise and loser internet sites like Brietbart's and WND.

I think it's refreshing that instead of being politically correct and saying, "well we all share a little blame about this, yeah fox did it but the others followed", she was clear. Brietbart on purpose lied and started this controversy and Fox on purpose lied and spread it. They were responsible.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

WorldNetDaily Rewards Liars

2010-08-20T21:46:00.001-04:00

One of the very worst websites, of the "higher read" sites. WND has an exposed liar writing post after post, day after day, and the msm can pick up one of these "news stories" and run with it. After FOX runs with it, then CNN, MSNBC, and it becomes a story. Even though 98% false. Certainly very little fact checking and surely no calling out as to who's lying and who is telling the truth. That is the reason that today, a few months less than two years into Obamas presidency, 18% of Americans believe him a muslim. Oh wait, also not born here, ah, the list goes on and on.

There are no rules for the citizen reporters on the internet and as a result of that, the main stream media has loosened it's rules so that it no longer looks like anything that it was 20 years ago. What to do?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

'Professional Left' Saga Says More About Media Than Obama

2010-08-19T18:26:00.001-04:00

I don't agree. I think Obama has governed more or less how he campaigned. I don't recall him ever proclaiming to be way on the left. My impression was that he was a left of center pragmatist and I think that's how he has tried to govern. Am I happy with a lot of what he's done? Absolutely not. Would I vote for him again? Absolutely. I guess I believe in 1. a learning curve for administrations, and they are adapting. 2. politics ain't easy.

Appointing Elizabeth Warren and getting rid of Summers and Geitner would be good choices to improve his administration.

Who would govern most from the left? Bill, Hillary, or Barack?

When I look at where this country was when he took over, I think he's made too many compromises but he has had to to get anything done. He's still got a lot of work though.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Reflections on 24 Hour Restaurant Battle

2010-08-05T13:56:00.001-04:00

It is not "maybe" possible to open a restaurant in 24 hours, it is impossible. Chef Conant knows that. Restaurants are one of the hardest business' to manage and earn a profit from. The best restaurants make 5 - 10% as their bottom line. (very small margin for error) So before you really think about salt shakers and place settings you need to think about a business plan. Food cost, labor cost, rent, other fixed costs are most important. You need to pay yourself. Oh yeah, you better know how you will attract enough customers each day to keep the $$ coming. I think it may be possible to do it in maybe a month, but better yet, you need about 4-6. The show is still fun though and is realistic in the trials, tribulations, and successes!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Is it Un-American to criticize Israel?

2010-06-07T21:03:00.000-04:00

A well written post that gives both sides to the story. The Jewish/Palestinian struggle is always so unclear for me. One side says "Yeah, but you have all these countries surrounding us, calling for our destruction. We're just trying to protect ourselves. Plus we're a democracy and the United States closest ally." Then another side says "They've cut off shipments of all but the most basic of goods, it's like apartide." Then the other side says "But they throw rocks at our people just trying to help them. Sometimes they are supplied with smuggled guns and shoot us and even shoot bombs into the mainland." Then the other side says "But the Israeli military comes down on us by a factor of 10x's whatever we do." Then there are the terrorists who go into restaurants and blow up innocents. And on and on, AND ON AND ON AND ON...................Speaking as a naive interested party, when is it going to end? Will it last forever? Who's side is at fault, ney, who's side is more at fault?
And each time the one side makes one of these claims I think, yeah that's right, the other side is bad. Then the other side makes another claim and I think, no, they are really right and the first claim was wrong. That doesn't even get into the fact that as a country we are required to be Israels biggest defender no matter what. Why? It's obvious that protecting our strongest ally gets us nothing but problem after problem after problem. But I bet I'm not quite right in that thinking either? Click on the link.

Paul
Jay: In Defense of Helen Thomas -- On Apologizing to Apologists : "At any
rate, we all know what's going on here. The hyper-pro-Israel lobby, in both
parties, hasn't much liked the fact that Helen Thomas dares to speak up and
question that most sacred of topics, and right from the front row of the White
House Press Gallery. Heck, she had the gall to ask President Obama about
Israel's 'secret' nuclear weapons. She even asked the current White House
spokesman why the US had not condemned the Israeli attacks on the aid flotilla.
No wonder they want her the hell out."

Sarah Palin: NBC Broke Promise To Me, Example Of 'Lamestream' Media

2010-06-02T14:13:00.001-04:00

If I'm having a bad day or just feeling a little down, I always know where to go to pick me up! The interenet with it's latest reporting on Sister Sarah's rumblings and ruminations from Wasilla. Just to click this link and see her shiny, smiling face warms my heart. I have written about her over and over again on my blog about her spirit, her elan, her looks...her brain! One has to be impressed with the wealth of information that she has kind of stuck up there in her mind (and also on her palms).

So, the next time you read or hear her talking about Barack Obama, the constitution, states rights, or even her next door neighbor, Mr. McGinniss, remember that you are witnessing something very special, the Republicans and right-wing media's dumbing down of America over the last 20 years. For that, Palin is the poster child. So I sigh, make a little smile, and rejoice in the fact that I still have a free mind, unfettered by the wackos out there, and know that what's right for Sister Sarah and her ilk, are not right for me.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

2010-05-24T17:43:00.000-04:00

Come on teabaggers, let's rally around our candidate Mr. D'Annunzio. Sarah Palin, Ayn-Rand Paul? Where are you?
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "North Carolina Republicans 'have escalated an unprecedented campaign against one of their own congressional candidates,' with the party chairman calling Tim D'Annunzio (R) 'unfit for public office at any level,' according to the Charlotte Observer.

Newly-surfaced court documents portray D'Annunzio as 'a self-described religious zealot' who once called the federal government the Antichrist and told his ex-wife that he'd found the Ark of the Covenant.

D'Annunzio finished first in the May 4 primary and faces a June 22 runoff against Harold Johnson (R) in the state's 8th congressional district. The winner faces off against Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC)."

Massachusetts Voters Take Over Sen. Scott Brown's Office

2010-05-17T19:11:00.001-04:00

To be a successful Republican means that one cannot embrace or even shake hands with a Democrat. Just ask Charlie Crist or Bob Bennett. Or, perish the thought, work with the Democrats on anything. Just ask Lyndsy Graham or Arlen Specter. To be a successful Republican means you must blindly follow the incompetent Republican leaders lock, stock, and barrell.

I know my rhetoric sounds harsh, but is it not true? To be a successful Republican your sole goal in your position as a lawmaker is not to better the people in passing meaningful laws but to crush any and all Democrats by lies, confusion, and demonization.

"We want our country back from that big scary black man in the White House." The Republican "come to Jesus moment?" January 21st of last year. To be a successful Republican you must try and de-legitimize any and all Democratic election victories.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Poor Geico Voiceover Actor?

2010-05-17T09:21:00.000-04:00

I just felt the need to share this very well done piece of satire from the Geico actor that was fired for leaving a nasty phone message to nasty corporate lobbyist pigs. Please enjoy!

Utah Senate 2010: Election BREAKING News

2010-05-07T17:03:00.001-04:00

Ever since the start of the Clinton administration the Republican party has become unhinged with their attacks on Democrats and anyone who does not share their ideology at every level. No room for compromise. Today, the party of no, with the advent of the teabaggers, whom they warmly embrace, and their flirting on the fringes of racism, are becoming marginalized as kooks. "I want my country back from the scary black man in the White House!" They're letting this RINO thing get to their heads and kicking out anyone who has ever shaken hands with a Democrat. In the end I think it's going to hurt them, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of folks.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why the Dodd Financial Services Bill Is Bad... For Democrats

2010-05-02T12:07:00.003-04:00

To Frank Luntz, the wordsmith of all things Republican:
I guess after what we've been through regarding healthcare reform I kind of resent the Huffington Post for giving you a forum to express your made-up views.
There's so much wrong with your post that I don't know where to begin. The fact that you use the term "Obamacare" is insulting to me. You and your cohorts tried, and succeeded in demonizing and lying about healthcare reform from day one to today. Kind of like George Bush saying Saddam was responsible for 9/11, if Bush said it enough, people believed it.
To address just one point, yes I think the people are smart enough to choose the bank which offers the best terms in checking accounts. Following you silly logic we should never be able to put any costs on any corporation because they will pass on those costs. Of course they will! And we will choose whom to do biz with. I guess putting money into the FDIC as banks are required to do is a tax on consumers also? Get off yourself.
So you have no credibility in telling the truth, or your truth, about the financial reform bill. As I said, even before the debate began Republicans were spreading your lies day after day.
I understand your're in the word business but I don't understand why you have to be so dishonest and nasty about it, while still maintaining that veneer of niceness and "I'm just doing my job guys." - I don't think so.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

A Party unsure of it's Identity

2010-04-29T23:39:00.001-04:00

Teabagg-er

For the past year or so I have been commenting and posting on the local newspaper online edition, The Daily Journal website. It has a share of people of all political stripes - conservative, liberal, moderate, libertarian. By "a share" I mean, among regular commenters and posters, there are a handful of liberal leaning people, a handful of moderate people, and the rest are conservative or libertarian or in the last year, a handful have started to identify themselves as "teaparty people."

Teabagg-er

At the very beginning the people called themselves "teabagg-ers" (I even heard it on Fox) until they heard about the sex act "teabagg-ing" and what a "teabagg-er" really did. They then decided to just go by the name of tea party so as not to remind people of the sex act. Fair enough but they were probably missing out on a unique branding opportunity!

From what I gather the tea partyers were upset about the way things were going in this country. They were upset with the incredible debt that George Bush gave us and they were upset with the deficit that Barack Obama was piling on. They really didn't like the stimulus plan that the Obama administration passed to soften the blow of what the Republican Fed Chairman and the Republican Treasury Secretary labeled as possibly the worst economic downturn since the great depression. Indeed, they indicated that if wall street was not bailed out and money was not inserted in our economy, it was possible that we could have another great depression.

Teabagg-er

So, as well as the stimulus plan, the tea partyers were really not happy about the bailout of wall street, or the TARP plan as it was known. Turns out, the ONLY people in the country that were happy about the TARP plan were the people on wall street who took billions from tax payers and got paid billions in bonuses. As an aside to this story, it turns out that Wells Fargo will likely pay zero income taxes on enormous profits made last year due to tax breaks because they bought another bank that lost. On this we can all agree, it was corporate welfare, and should be stopped. (Except Glenn Beck who for some unknown reason has said that it really doesn't matter if you taxed all the corporations because it wouldn't help our debt out.)

Scary pic of a scary person from Oakcrest, Michele Malkin

Not racist

Not vile

Obama = Hitler, Chicago Rally

Recent polls have shown tea partiers to be higher educated than average, have more money than average, be male, older, and 95+% white. (Not that there's anything wrong with that of course!) They have also shown that people who call themselves tea partiers are split 50-50 in preference as to what is the most important aspect of their movement. As I have outlined already, half are concerned with fiscal restraint and out of control government spending, the other half think that social issues are the most important thing. I like to think of it this way. Half think Ron Paul is the guy to turn this country around, the other half think Sarah Palin is the new messiah. Remember a couple of months ago she was the keynote speaker at a convention for a party which she now supports, for a cool 100+k. Not bad work for a half-term governor who was forced to quit her job because as governor she could not accept speaking fees and make the millions that she now makes. Remember, she and Todd were not wealthy until this year. But I digress! I've seen several of the tea partiers say "I just want my country back." I guess by saying that they mean they want their country back from Barack Obama. You know, the guy we elected president in this country last. The guy who got a plurality of 53% of the vote, much larger than President Bush got, the guy who just happens to be black. Wait um, did I say "black?" Well I certainly don't want to insert race into this, do I? I don't mean to say that many of these fine folks "come to Jesus moment" was January 21st, the day after President Obama was elected. I JUST WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!
A fellow commenter (name withheld), who has at times either identified with the tea partiers, or was one, but would certainly admit to having a strong interest in the group, has said he has attended several rallies. He has stated that he has not seen the rampant racism, vileness, and general un-hingedness that some of these pics show, and I certainly believe him. But I would hope he would admit that it's probably not too hard to find these wing-nuts at many rallies. I know I didn't have too much trouble.
While I would agree that there are many honest people protesting for our country to be fiscally responsible, and smart minds can disagree, there are certainly a percentage of nuts with whom's free speech I am offended. I do however, defend their right to say it. I wonder what many of these conservatives would say to the honest people who protested the Vietnam War so many years ago. If I remember, they said "If you don't like America, leave it!" Could someone today say "Right back at you!" It was free speech then, and it's the same today.
This finally brings me around to the crux of my argument. I tried making a comment today on The Daily Journal online about someone else's description of the tea partiers. I reserve the right to call them by the name that they started themselves, teabagg-ers. I have called them that in the past on the website. Today, when I hit the publish my comment button, the Daily Journal came back with a message stating that my comment could not be accepted because it included a word that was troublesome, or something to that effect, anyway. The word? Teabagg-er. What this means is that one of the good commenters complained to The Daily Journal that when people call them that name, it hurts their feelings, the Daily Journal agreed, and banned it's use, along with other profanity.
So, you're allowed to call other commenters names (happens every day), put up vile pics and descriptions of our country and officials, but we the people in this backwoods part of New Jersey are not allowed to call you by your name. Free speech? No. That's censorship and that's wrong.

Rendell: Democratic Party Is Soulless, 'Cowering Behind The Shower Curtains'

2010-04-21T12:46:00.001-04:00

Representative Sestak whom I really admire, made a HUGE MISTAKE in entering this senate race. It was almost like, once the rumors were out there, in the end, he had to run. For the democratic party politically, this makes no sense whatsoever. Now we risk losing his seat in the house and more importantly, a really good congressman.

It puts people in the awkward position of rewarding Specter (he has served the state well) and hurting Sestak which no one wants to do. Again, wrong move. Rendell is right though about the dems need to stand together and talk about the successes of Obama, Pelosi, Reid, etal. Keep on pushing the good bills through. Pretty soon people will see that we're actually achieving something.

Ever notice that no matter what, the repubs ALWAYS stick together? And then shove it in your face on teevee? We should try it for a change.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Fair & Balanced = Unhinged

2010-04-07T16:20:00.000-04:00

In the 60's it was Johnson against Goldwater running the mushroom cloud ad. Today, it's FOX News vs our President. Times have changed, haven't they?

Credit to TPM for the utube video.

Drink More Tap Water!

2010-03-22T11:20:00.000-04:00

Let's Celebrate World Water Day!
Consider:
• Bottled water is subject to fewer health regulations than tap water. In 2006, Fiji Water ran ads bragging that their product doesn't come from Cleveland, only to have tests show a glass of Fiji water is lower quality than Cleveland tap. Oops!
• Up to 40 percent of bottled water is filtered tap water. In other words, if you're concerned about what's in your tap water, just cut out the middleman and buy a home water filter.
• Each year, according to the Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick, making the plastic water bottles used in the U.S. takes enough oil and energy to fuel a million cars. And that doesn't even include the fuel required to ship, fly or truck water across continents and state lines.
• Three-fourths of the half-a-billion plastic water bottles sold in the U.S. every week go to the landfill or to incinerators. It costs our cities more than $70 million to landfill water bottles alone each year, according to Corporate Accountability International.

Read more fun facts, watch a video, and the rest of the story here.

Are House Democrats Avoiding an Obama Endorsement Due to Health Care?

2010-03-19T17:26:00.001-04:00

Thanks for being a sane poster here:) Myself, being of average intellect and mind, know only what I read from different sources at different times re hcr. I have read conservative, moderate, liberal, and progressive points of view. I've come to believe that the bill is flawed in many ways. If I were the King I would choose single payer medicare for all ala Weiner/Kucinich/Sanders. But ALL 3 of those guys are voting for the bill! I do trust their judgement although granted, even they are big-time politicians.

Given the way the Senate has performed this year, I don't believe we will ever get any better start. I also hate the corporate welfare aspect.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

While We're At It

2010-03-18T14:07:00.000-04:00

As Larry David/George Costanza would say "Pre-ty, Pre-ty Good."
0:01 Two and a Half Men

0:22 The Simpsons

0:36 O.C

1:00 Naruto

1:11 Family Guy

1:41 Married with Children

1:57 Cheers

2:16 That 70's Show

2:41 Big Love

2:58 Freaks and Geeks

3:18 Malcolm in the Middle

3:35 X-Files

3:55 Firefly

4:09 The Office

4:24 The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

4:44 Scrubs

4:54 True Blood

5:27 Charles in Charge

5:38 The Big Bang Theory

5:55 How I Met Your Mother

6:05 Mission Impossible

6:14 Friends

Go Warren Buffett!

2010-03-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

New Geico Commercial

Miracle Baby

2010-03-16T02:36:00.000-04:00

The newborn male Asian elephant, nicknamed 'Mr Shuffles' by staff, shelters under his mother 'Porntip' during his first public appearance at Taronga Zoo in Sydney on March 14, 2010. The baby elephant was believed to have died during labor but was born alive on March 10, amazing its keepers and defying expert opinion that such an outcome would take a miracle. By Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images.
God's Blessings!

Roger Ailes, Fox, & Health Care Reform

2010-03-13T01:29:00.000-05:00

Hi to everyone and anyone. I haven't felt much like blogging lately but came across an important piece on the state of the news media's coverage of health care reform.

"One question has tugged at my professional conscience throughout the year-long congressional debate over health-care reform, and it has nothing to do with the public option, portability or medical malpractice. It is this: Why haven't America's old-school news organizations blown the whistle on Roger Ailes, chief of Fox News, for using the network to conduct a propaganda campaign against the Obama administration -- a campaign without precedent in our modern political history?
Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."
Fox repeats this as gospel. But as a matter of historical context, usually in short supply on Fox News, this assertion ranks somewhere between debatable and untrue."

Read the story by Howell Raines at The Washington Post.

Thought of the Day

2010-01-29T11:57:00.000-05:00

Bob Burnett: The Conservative War on Democracy: The Puppet Supreme Court: "'In every major case since he became the nation's seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts [and his conservative allies] has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff.'"

A Blogger's Wish?

2010-01-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

My Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas for this crafter of blogs,

And what needed a break were my mind's gears and cogs.

I'd spent the year banging at these keys with delight;

Sometimes laughs I'd elicit; sometimes ire I'd incite.

But I wanted to take some time off for a rest.

I wanted to start the New Year at my best.

Remote in my hand, 'fore my TV I plopped,

With my martini chilled and popcorn freshly popped.

I wanted a movie - I didn't want news.

A break from debate was what I could use.

When what to my wondering ears did I hear?

Not my home theater's speakers, but something quite weird.

It sounded like hooves tearing up my front grass.

In a fluster, I almost tipped over my glass.

Then suddenly helping himself to my couch

Was dear old St. Nick. What the heck's that about?

"Hey, Santy Claus," I said with a smirk,

"I don't mean to pry - why aren't you at work?"

"Hello, little boy," he said to this man.

"I'm here to bestow just one gift, if I can."

"I made you a present; it took but a wink:

The chance to make everyone think like you think."

"Every piece that you write, every column you post,

Will meet with agreement from East to West Coast."

I wasn't sure how my response should begin.

I said, "Are you kidding?" I sniffed at my gin.

"Your drink's not been spiked," Santa went on to say.

"And you haven't had too much...not yet, anyway."

I said, "I thought miracles were what's-His-name's game;

The one whose day of celebration's the same."

Santa said, "Sure. He's got miracle clout.

But every so often I like to stretch out."

"So I'm here to tell you dissent won't exist;

Not one single misspelled retort will be missed."

"Put pencil to paper, boy; soon you will see

That with all of your words the whole world will agree."

The offer was tempting as it laid there unfurled.

I think I'm right - why not the world?

But I just looked at Santa, and all I could ask:

"What good is opinion not taken to task?"

We must all offer comment, we must all criticize.

We must cross uncrossed T's and dot dotless I's.

We should stand and defend that in which we believe;

To do anything less would be simply naive.

"I thank you, but no," I said to Old Claus.

"And destroy that gift now, with great haste and no pause."

"Not one single man should have such verbal might;

And all should be ready for an opining fight."

"Are you sure that you're sure?" Santa asked with a grin.

"You know that this offer will not come again."

But I just said, "Hey, while it's tempting, for sure,

Life without debate would become quite a bore."

Then Santa flew off in his red hat and coat.

So I fired up the PC and ditched the remote.

"I take issue with something..." I started to write.

Merry Key-Banging to all, and to all a good night.

"My Night Before Christmas" poem reposted with permission from the blog I Say, Provoking Thought By Banging Keys. 2008 MICHAELNAZSAYS. Michael is a wonderful writer whom I had the good fortune of meeting last month. He writes like a writer, with intelligent, thought-provoking prose. I would strongly suggest my viewers wanting to read a myriad of topics and expand their minds to read his excellent blog.

To all who share January 7th as Christmas in the Old Greek Russian Orthodox calendar, my thoughts and prayers are with you tonight for a joyful and soulful and peaceful Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year 2010!

2009-12-31T10:22:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year 2010 to Readers, Friends, and Family! Through 157 blog posts dablog has been a learning experience and an adventure for me. Here's hoping that you and yours will experience joy, enlightenment, sereneness, and love in the coming year. From me to all of you, Cheers!

Just for Fun

2009-12-28T15:38:00.001-05:00

Marc Cooper, director of Annenberg Digital News and lecturer at the USC Annenberg School, is an expert on political journalism and new media. He picks his Top 10 Political Stories of the Decade.
1. The unconventional election process of 2000. The drawn-out match between George W. Bush and Al Gore revealed an antiquated and unreliable electoral system.
2. The attack on the Twin Towers, September 11, 2001. It didn’t change the world as we knew it, but it reshaped global politics.
3. The invasion of Afghanistan, 2001. We are still dealing with its consequences almost nine years later.
4. The invasion of Iraq, 2003. The first purely “preemptive war” in recent American history, based on deliberately exaggerated — if not nonexistent — evidence.
5. The introduction of torture techniques as official American policy. Perhaps no single policy has so besmirched the global image of the United States.
6. The unprecedented expansion of executive power. The Bush-Cheney administration offered little regard for constitutional norms in granting itself extra-judicial powers.
7. Hurricane Katrina. It not only devastated New Orleans, but also washed away a two-decade-old governing conservative consensus, by revealing the gross ineptitude of the heirs of Reaganism.
8. The election of Barack Obama. The election of an African American as president was, in itself, historic. The election also heralded a profound demographic shift in the electorate, with implications of a long-lasting political realignment.
9. The global financial crisis of 2008-2009. If the election of Obama signaled the end of the Reagan Era in politics, the crash of 2008 equally represented the crisis of the free market economic consensus. The conventional wisdom of the previous 30 years evaporated along with Lehman Bros.
10. The media revolution. The death rattle of legacy media and the emergence of new social media opened the doors for a mass democratization of information production.

All great political stories, but I disagree with his placement of the media revolution at #10. I think the pure propaganda spreading policies of the Fox Channels calling themselves a news organization has done much damage to the psyche of our culture in a way we have not seen. I wonder what Germany might have been like during the rise of Hitler and his manipulation of the media. The masses have been indoctrinated to believe anything and verify nothing. Reporting standards have been lowered to such an extent that I wonder if it ever possible to regain the integrity of say, Walter Cronkite. All under the guise of "fair and balanced." Right under our noses where standards were eroded day after day. Other media and opinionists on both sides have had an effect on our society but none has come close to the money and the power of the 24/7 behemoth that is Fox News.

At times I see an America that I don't recognize and long for the media of my youth.

What stories do you think should be added that were not covered here, or a story covered here that should not be?

Does this paragraph bother you 2?

2009-12-20T20:14:00.000-05:00

It does me.
"The courtship period is over. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a key Republican moderate Democrats have been courting for months, has announced she will oppose and filibuster health-care reform. Snowe was the only Republican to vote for the reform in the Finance Committee, but cited the new “artificial and arbitrary deadline of completing the bill before Christmas” as a dealbreaker. “That is shortchanging the process on this monumental and trans-generational effort,' Snowe said in a statement. With Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) now signed on as the 60th vote for the measure, Snowe’s decision isn’t catastrophic for Democrats. If the bill passes, it looks like it will be without a single Republican vote."
Read the story at TPM

Does this paragraph bother you?

2009-12-20T20:09:00.000-05:00

It does me.
"At least 166 former congressional staffers now working as health-industry lobbyists got their old bosses to give their new bosses big breaks in the pending health-care reform legislation, according to a new report. For example, David Nexon, a former aide to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), amassed 14 lobbyists with similar résumés to attack a tax in the bill aimed at one of his clients, a medical-device trade association. They succeeded in cutting the $40 billion tax in half in the current legislation, according to a report by Northwestern University’s Medill News Service, the Center for Responsive Politics, and the Tribune Newspapers' Washington Bureau. In addition to the former aides, at least 13 former lawmakers are registered to represent a total of 338 health-care clients since the beginning of last year. Since then, those clients spent $635 million lobbying."
Read the story at The Chicago Tribune.

Rantings of a Progressive?

2009-12-19T02:48:00.002-05:00

Taylor Marsh: No Thrill Up Dylan Ratigan's Leg: "How can any politician, let alone a Democrat, defend the practice of forcing the American people to buy a product from an industry that enjoys a monopoly, with individual choice obliterated by a political party who has always professed to have the people's back?"
"This is a free country last time I looked. Democrats have absolutely no right and no moral authority to tell me or anyone else they must buy anything, least of all inside a rigged market that sends me further into debt or maybe worse. My inner libertarian is on fire, and I'm a die hard liberal. If that isn't a warning sign for the White House nothing is."

Regarding the Latest Sell-Out Plan on Health Care Reform

2009-12-16T17:49:00.001-05:00

One of those silly factoids making it's way around the net, which I don't think I agree with, though too important not to point out. From Ezra Klein:
"If I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier to compare plans and access consumer ratings, and generally worked more like companies in a competitive market rather than companies in a non-functional market, I would take that deal. And if you told me that the price of that deal was that insurers would move from being the 86th most profitable industry to being the 53rd most profitable industry, I would still take that deal. And that may be the exact deal we're getting. The profit motive is not, in and of itself, a bad thing."

Bring Back Glass-Steagall!

2009-12-16T14:33:00.001-05:00

Perhaps I was wrong about John McCain going the way of the nit-wits. Seperating banking and investment, as I've previously advocated, is a good start in getting Wall Street back to reality. Investment -Banker? An oxymoron. Probably won't fly with all the money floating around Washington, but here's props to McCain and Cantwell.
At a 10 AM press conference this morning, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) will introduce the Banking Integrity Act to reinstate the separation between banking and investment activities that existed from 1933 until it was repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. The idea is to reduce risk of large financial institutions by separating investment activities from other banking. The problem with that is that it would put U.S. banks at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign competitors, so alternatives should be considered. Looking back on it, Gramm-Leach-Bliley was a key mistake that led directly to the 2008 financial crisis. However, the Senate seems unlikely to pass any financial reforms before the 2010 election. Allowing this financial crisis to pass without rewriting of the rules to prevent it from happening again would be a crime.
Just a further thought...Why is McCain, whose chief financial advisor was Phil Gramm, going against Gramm-Leach-Bliley? Me thinks more to come.

Congress, Time to Declare War?

2009-12-15T23:48:00.001-05:00

Growing up I was taught that Congress had the ultimate responsibility and power to declare the United States at war. I found later that I was wrong, in that through numerous conflicts and "wars", Congress has not declared war, a single time in my lifetime. I wondered how Presidents could embrace such power and Congress could give up such power. Regardless of whether the president, the people, or I supported the war, Congress, I was taught was the final arbeiter on whether we were officially "at war." I still believe that congress should debate with much deference to the commander in chief, whether we are at war. Cowards and enabelers that they are, congress will probably decide to abrogate their responsibility and leave it to the president once again.
You go Kucinich, Grayson, Paul, et al!
Bipartisan House Group Pushing For Enforcement Of War Powers Act: "If a war is being waged without a declaration, the War Powers Act allows any representative to introduce a joint resolution forcing the House Committee on Foreign Relations to vote on that resolution within 15 days; Kucinich is hoping to force such a vote. The resolution would then be sent back to the House floor.
'Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States makes it Congress' responsibility to determine whether or not we go to war or stay at war. Consistent with Article 1, Section 8, the privileged resolutions will invoke the War Powers Resolution of 1973. I ask for your support of these resolutions, which will be introduced in the House in January,' Kucinich wrote to his colleagues last week.
Grayson and six other Democrats have signed on to his resolution, including Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Eric Massa (D-N.Y.).
The five Republicans include Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas), Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Ed Whitefield (R-Ky.) and Timothy Johnson (R-Ill.)."

Something Has to Give

2009-12-15T00:51:00.000-05:00

Matthew Yglesias opines that America has become ungovernable. But has it always been this way?
Matthew Yglesias » Ungovernable America: "We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority’s governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking. Or you can have a system in which a defeated minority rejects the majority’s governing agenda out of hand, seeks opening for attack, and hopes that failure on the part of the majority will bring them to power. But right now we have both simultaneously. It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure. It’s insane, and it needs to be changed."

Good Point Mr. Linkins

2009-12-15T00:02:00.002-05:00

Jason Linkins points out once again the hypocrisy on both sides that if a Senator wants to get serious about the debt, all he has to do is make his point, and propose a solution. But doing so might jeopardize his re-election next time. Good call. Cowards.

Eat The Press: "Naturally, the only thing that will save us is a bipartisan
effort to gut Social Security and Medicare, and the Post's editors tout the 'new
version' of the 'fiscal task force' floated by Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and
Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to do it. Support for such a task force comes from a group
of senators, any of whom could propose their own deficit reduction measures
right now, if it weren't for the fact that signing their name to such a choice
might put their seat in jeopardy. The main goal of this task force is to shield
such lawmakers from responsibility."

Can you imagine Judd Gregg was to become part of the Obama administration? Wow.

Dick the Dick: Obama's a Traitor

2009-12-14T19:10:00.001-05:00

Marty Kaplan: Barack Obama Is a Traitor: "Or maybe there's a double standard. A man who manipulated intelligence to justify a misbegotten war; who authorized torture; who ordered illegal wiretapping of Americans; who outed and endangered a covert CIA agent in order to punish a whistleblower; who directed billions in no-bid contracts to the company he ran and retains a substantial financial interest in: maybe the media were tougher on a Democratic president who was impeached for lying about fellatio than they ever were on a de facto Republican president who should arguably have been impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors."
Thank God we live in a country where anyone can basically say anything they want to say about the President, Members of Congress, or Just Ordinary Folk, if you believe it to be true. OK OK - Scumbag, Piece of Shit, Liar, Non-lover of the Constitutuion, America, American Freedoms, Piss-Ant, Chicken-Hawk, Disgrace...OK OK I'll stop now that my first amendement rights are almost used up.
Oh wait, Oh wait, I almost forgot his nepotism hired daughter Lizzie...nah, not enough toilet paper to wipe...well, better stop there, thinking about her first amendement rights, and all.

In Stevie Williams Own Words

2009-12-14T18:55:00.000-05:00

Tiger'll be the last guy I caddie for.

Taking Flip-Flopping To a New Level

2009-12-14T17:39:00.004-05:00

"It’s not entirely clear that Lieberman was offering a full-throated current endorsement of the proposal, but his tone is clearly positive and approving. It’s yet another sign, as if you needed one, that Lieberman’s current opposition to the Senate proposal doesn’t appear to have any roots in a genuine policy disagreement." - Greg Sargent's Blog-The Plum Line. Video taken from an interview with a newspaper in his homestate of Connecticut.

What is clear is what he said yesterday: "Lieberman punctuated the discussion by telling the majority leader directly that he will vote against the bill if the Medicare buy-in and public option provisions remain in it. Roll Call reports that Lieberman said he would also support a Republican filibuster of legislation that included these provisions.
RECAP: 1. Three months ago, Senator Lieberman offered what I characterize as strong support for a Medicare buy in-for folks 50-55. 2. Yesterday, he said in no uncertain terms that he will filibuster just such a bill if it contains a medicare buy-in and a public option. 3. There is no public option in the current bill.

On third thought: Now, the counter-argument is that Lieberman may well come up with a reason to back away from that bill as well. Given his obvious bad-faith negotiation, that's certainly a danger. But Olympia Snowe is not negotiating in bad faith, and she, unlike Lieberman, actually seems to care about health care reform. So even if you revert to something like the Senate Finance bill and Lieberman tries to stab you in the back, you can still pick up Snowe. (A fact that itself reduces the chance that Lieberman will attempt a second act of sabotage -- why try to knife health care reform if you can't kill it?)

Finally, the defining post by Lee Siegel as to who Joe Lieberman really is, and why he does what he does.
"I grew up surrounded by non-religious Jews who were guided by the principle of rachmones, meaning “compassion.” They were guided by feeling, too, but it was not the absolute certitude of fundamentalist feeling. Rather, it was the feeling that life changes fast, and that people are vulnerable. They were gentle and ironic people. They liked this Yiddish saying: “God loves the poor, but helps the rich.” They probably lost more than they won in life, but they never fooled themselves into thinking that they were doing good when they were merely doing well."

Lieberman Not Comfortable in His Own Skin

2009-12-14T16:38:00.000-05:00

My prediction: Lieberman: "I never left the party, the party left me."

"Since, really, 2006, Lieberman has felt alienated from his caucus, and he's grown more conservative. He does not care about liberals, who tried to drum him out of office in 2006; he seems to enjoy poking them in the eye. He's not likely to run for office again, so he's not terribly worried about loud protests. His contempt for liberals coincides with his new conservative friends, aides, colleagues, donors. (He was never a fiscal liberal to begin with, but his fiscal conservatism seems to have ripened lately.)
On health care reform:
"Lieberman blessed the Gang of Ten deal privately before those talks were completed, then reversed himself as soon as it became evident that the left saw a silver lining in the consolation prize of a Medicare buy-in proposal."
"There is the explanation that Lieberman is an unusually talented egoist; certainly obstreperous for the sake of seeming obstreperous. But if this impulse of Lieberman's governed his policy decisions, then he would certainly want to be seen as health care's savior, and not be content with being seen as its destroyer. Lieberman has designed his public campaign as a way to streeeetch out the debate as much as possible, and just as Democrats seem to be on the verge of reaching him, like a quantum particle, he appears instantly at a completely different location, rendering useless at least a week of hard soldering by the Democrats."
Further, "In 2000 after Al Gore conceded the presidential election, Joe Lieberman was given the chance to use his new prestige in our politics to take his place among the great senators. In a shocking and kind of tragic way, Lieberman has decided that he will leave the senate as a toad; a man indifferent to his actions and driven by anger and petty politics. And is it worth it for him? Let's see: Lieberman gets to stymie his own party on a much needed social reform that he himself has supported throughout his career and in exchange he gets....to be hated? a ruined legacy? Joe Lieberman is the very picture of politics without principle. He is precisely what this country must rise above in order to move on to a brighter day."
Is John McCain soon behind?
Why Lieberman Hates The Health Care Bill - The Atlantic Politics Channel

Something to Smile About

2009-12-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

With all the political fighting and general feeling of malaise in this country, here's one that really warmed my heart. Required viewing!

Thanks to Ezra Klein.

George H.W. Bush On Joe Wilson: 'How Low Have We Gotten Here?'

2009-12-14T13:57:00.001-05:00

You are so right. I'd also like to point out that George HW Bush would not be conservative enough to get elected today, just ask any conservative. Their party has been taken over to the point that they campaign against other repubs for not being conservative enough as in NY and they actually encourage the antics of yahoo back-benchers like Joe Wilson AND encourage good conservative repubs to donate much money to his childish outbursts. They really are messed up. They are like a deep-tooth abcess.
About George Bush
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Don't Cheat on your wife in the Live Free or Die State!

2009-12-13T21:33:00.000-05:00

The State of New Hampshire whose motto is "Live Free or Die" still has a 200 year old law on the books making adultery a crime. Perhaps things are changing. "CONCORD, N.H. — The original punishments – including standing on the gallows for an hour with a noose around the neck – have been softened to a $1,200 fine, yet some lawmakers think it's time for the 200-year-old crime of adultery to come off New Hampshire's books. Convicted adulterers years ago faced standing on the gallows, up to 39 lashes, a year in jail or a fine of 100 pounds. The punishment has been relaxed to a misdemeanor and a fine of up to $1,200 – with no jail time."
""We shouldn't be regulating people's sex lives and their love lives," state Rep. Timothy Horrigan said. "This is one area the state government should stay out of people's bedrooms." ""Who we love and how we love is not something, an area the state has much business meddling in," he said."
New Hampshire is a rich and vibrant state whose natural beauties can hold it's own with most. I have visited there often and remember driving down the Kangamangus Highway to view the most beautiful fall foliage display on the East Coast. Also Mt. Washington where you can drive a car all the way to the top and holds the distinction of being the windiest place in the US. And the quaint fishing villages aroud Portsmouth, between Massachusetts and Maine.
Its citizens like to think of themselves as independent with open minds. I agree. If the law as on the books today were strictly enforced, I fear there might not be enough legislators because of it, to change the it. Welcome to 2009!

Paying for War; Then and Now

2009-12-12T13:26:00.004-05:00

Until recently, there's been no serious call to pay for the two wars that President Bush started by raising taxes, and not raising the defecit. In fact, instead of raising taxes, President Bush cut taxes by $1.5 trillion in 2001 & 2003. There are cases to be made on both sides of this point including the fact that during WWII taxes were rediculously high, they paid for only 40% of the war, and the defecit was 30% of GDP. Now it's closer to 8%. Today there's very little talk of sacrifice for the war. When you look at what Americans had to put up with back then, in terms of taxes and sacrifice, it makes you wonder why we have so little a sense of individual involement and responsibility. A different perpsective on funding the wars and sacrifice of our nation can be found here.
"The top marginal tax rate in 1941 was 81 percent on incomes greater than $5 million (about $72 million in today's dollars). In 1942 and '43, it was 88 percent on $200,000 per year ($2.6 million today). In '44 and '45, it was 94 percent on $200,000 ($2.3 million today). The Greatest Generation did more than just save pennies to buy war bonds... most everyone paid more in taxes and some 40 million people paid taxes for the first time."
"I love the right's worship of "The Greatest Generation," which of course earned its reputation for sacrifice under America's only three term president, who governed the economy in ways that even most liberals would today find shocking, shipped a generation of American men overseas to fight and die using a conscription policy that no politician would dream of suggesting for our pampered culture, rationed consumer goods including food (can you imagine how Americans would react to a ration on sugar today?), told Americans to go outside and plant vegetables in their yards (and then eat them!), and yes, saved America from the Great Depression and the world from Hitler. The Greatest Generation did indeed earn the respect of those of us who follow, but let's not forget that they were lucky enough to have leadership that made the sacrifice mean something profound."
Pampered indeed.

Peter Beinart on The Peace Prize Speech

2009-12-12T12:53:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine often questions my support for fair trials for terrorists, lack of support for torture, and my pondering the thought that the Iraq war made us safer or that the Iraqi's are even better off now than under Hussein. He pushes me to believe that America's moral superiority has always been right, through-out our history of conflicts. It comes to mind that he questions my love for my country if I even try to see the other side.

Peter Beinart breaks with Bush's call for a new world order. "Harry Truman, who George W. Bush often praised but never understood, once said that “We all have to recognize—not matter how great our strength—that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.” To Bush and Cheney and Palin, the sentiment is offensive. Why should America not do as it pleases? After all, since our power stems from our virtue, the more unrestrained we are, the more good we will do."
"But Barack Obama, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Thursday morning, showed that he understands just what Truman meant. Because he understands, in a way Cheney and Palin never will, that true moral universalism requires recognizing that Americans are just as capable of evil as anyone else. And that means recognizing that we are in just as much need of restraint. For Obama and Truman, the paradox of American exceptionalism is that only by recognizing that we are not inherently better than anyone else, and thus must bind our power within a framework of law, can we distinguish ourselves from the predatory powers of the past."

Further Discussion on Health Care Reform

2009-12-12T11:59:00.000-05:00

One of my readers, Sheila brings up the point that she would like to move forward; But...

If the expansion of Medicare & Medicaid are coupled with those programs being fully funded, then I believe this is a good way to cover the uninsured. I'm concerned about the plans to cut Medicare. I don't think the elimination of fraud will be enough to balance the Medicare budget--besides, we ought to be striving to root out fraud all the time. I've been thinking about the health insurance woes I dealt with on a daily basis. I do not want "reform" which leaves America in the same situation. There isn't any way we can cover millions more people in Medicare while cutting its funding. That means we will continue to have the same types of restrictions on coverage which exist now, only with a higher price tag.

My reply:

I also worry about the cuts in medicare and fighting fraud just isn't enough. I don't want reform without it moving us forward to covering all, being less restrictive, and fiscally responsible. Check out my previous post here on my thoughts on medicare. In it I point out the difficulty Congress has historically had in making any changes, even ones that everybody agrees are good.
I think health care reform is more than a single bill that nobody is really going to love. I think it's a process to take us from the dark ages in providing health care and it's costs, into the 50's. It's not about our doctors and hospitals being the best in the world, no one can deny that. It's just about how the system will bankrupt many people and the government in the next 20 years if nothing is done.
So, it has to be evolving. If we get a bill this year, maybe next year we tweek it in some way. Add a provision where it is needed, remove a regulation where it is not. Kind of like "Best Practices" so that maybe in 10 years our system will at least be in the here and now and not the dark ages. If we get a bill, it may gradually force our elected officials to work together to make it even better.

Pelosi Backs Off Public Option

2009-12-11T02:53:00.002-05:00

Says Leo Mauler "From the start I expected a public option to be "expansion of Medicaid and Medicare to cover the uninsured", not the joke sold to us as a "public option" in the health care reform bill.
I was a little confused about the plan being sold to us as a "public" option, since it appeared to be *identical* to the private insurance plans, only more expensive than the private insurance plans. Then they stripped it down even more, making it even worse than private insurance.
Personally I think it might have been a stroke of genius on the part of the Democrats to fight for a "public option" which had no resemblance to what was actually needed (expansion of Medicaid and Medicare), then admit "defeat" on their pseudo "public option" so that the Republicans wouldn't be able to see, under their puffed out chests and upturned noses, the Democrats expand Medicaid and Medicare to cover the uninsured.
Invent a strawman that Republicans opposed, convince the Republicans that what they really didn't want was the strawman, and then bail on the strawman to get the real program which was needed in the first place. Its really all you can do to defeat a political party which puts "winning over the Democrats" well above "the best interests of the country."

I think you make a really - good - point. I like your game plan and subterfuge!
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Antarctic Ocean

2009-12-10T17:49:00.000-05:00

The coldest, windiest place on Earth, the antarctic ocean holds 60% of the fresh water on the planet. Recent expeditions to the Weddell Sea produced more than 700 new species, including giant carnivorous sponges.

On the Lighter Side

2009-12-10T00:01:00.001-05:00

Rachel Maddow On "Jimmy Fallon": Knocks Palin, Jokes About Sex With Tiger, Makes Cocktails (VIDEO): "Maddow and Fallon also talked about Tiger Woods, which Maddow has avoided discussing on her show because she only likes to cover sex scandals when she thinks they reveal hypocrisy. EXACTLY
'Tiger Woods never said, 'Buy Nike, I'm faithful to my wife,'' Maddow said. 'He never made claims to be the superior moral being. So I have a hard time thinking we should cover it.'
She later joked that she had slept with Tiger Woods herself.
'I think it's going to hurt his reputation when everybody finds out about me,' she joked."
If she's sleeping with Tiger now, he really has a problem!

Viggo's Take on Sarah Palin - Page 1 - The Daily Beast

2009-12-08T23:49:00.001-05:00

Viggo's Take on Sarah Palin - Page 1 - The Daily Beast: "“I think it would be unwise to dismiss her because she is foolish and misinformed,” the ruggedly handsome movie hero told me. “People say there’s no way she will hold any significant office, in Congress, or as president. Don’t be so sure. I notice she’s starting to sound relatively eloquent in that superficial way she has: ‘We gotta cut taxes and we can’t keep penalizing small business’—that same old litany. She’s not saying anything significant but she’s stringing the words together and she’s not just saying, ‘Aw shucks, I just killed a moose in Alaska.’ She’s stringing the words together as well as George W. Bush did in the beginning.” The actor elaborated: “George W. Bush got the knack of sounding a certain way. They realized they couldn’t make him sound like somebody who actually read books and cared about how he sounded—even though he had the benefits of the best possible education. It just wasn’t interesting to him to sound like he made sense and to speak English anywhere near well. But what they did, very cleverly, is say, OK, he’s just like us. He makes mistakes when he says stuff; he’s a regular guy. And I can see the same thing happening with Palin. So do not underestimate her ability. She’s not going away.”" An actor about an actress, what a concept.

Christopher Hitchens adds further"Hitchens: Don't be too hard on her. She didn't write that piece and she probably hasn't read it. I doubt she could either read or write it. Everything she does is for effect, she's, and is always deniable. She could switch back in a minute. At the moment she thinks her tea party crowd wants to hear this kind of thing so she'll say that. She's been out to say, 'well, I don't know but I think the President ought to produce his birth certificate. I'm not saying it isn't a good question. Then later, cause she's got to go to the Gridiron dinner in Washington, and learn how to use a knife and fork and be taught by Fred Malek. She takes it back. She's a disgraceful opportunist and a real moral coward. "

Too Many Stars

2009-12-08T23:16:00.000-05:00

HubbleSite - Wallpaper: Gravitational Lensing in Galaxy Cluster Abell 1689: "Abell 1689 is one of the most massive galaxy clusters known. The gravity of its trillion stars, plus dark matter, acts like a 2-million-light-year-wide 'lens' in space. The gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of galaxies far behind it." Pretty cool!

Sully Part II

2009-12-08T23:07:00.000-05:00

Why does he make sense to me?

At What Price, At What Point, Do Athletes Give Up Their Right to Privacy?

2009-12-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

Wm. David Cornwell, Sr.: Enough Of Tiger: It's Time for the Media to Answer Some Questions: "We have created a new class of Americans our country called 'Athletes.' For example, the focus on drug and steroid testing in sports is absurd when you consider that professional athletes are tested more than Supreme Court Justices, Members of Congress, the President of the United States, and other elected officials. Additionally, despite the disproportionately high incidents of substance abuse among health care practitioners and the undeniable potential risks to their patients, there are no uniform workplace testing programs for health care practitioners that are similar to the testing programs in sports. What is it about possessing the elite athletic prowess that justifies treating a man or woman differently from others whose impact on our lives are potentially much more profound?" What is the turning point in the nexus between earnings and the right to have a private life? I am sure that Tiger and many other men and women who are paid to play sports would like to know the answer so they can balance their financial demands with their desire to be human.

The media does a good job of getting answers to the questions it wants to ask. How about they spend some time answering the ones I have asked?

Remembering John Lennon, 29 Years Later

2009-12-08T22:19:00.002-05:00

Thanks Joe, I also don't agree with you much of the time but this post moved me; your best ever.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

2009-12-08T03:19:00.000-05:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "Tea Party More Popular Than Republican Party
A new Rasmussen Reports survey asked respondents to assume that the 'Tea Party movement' was organized as an actual political party.

In a three-way generic ballot test, Democrats lead with 36%, followed the Tea Party at 23% and Republicans at 18%.

Among independent voters, the Tea Party comes out on top with 33%, followed by 30% undecided, 25% for the Democrats and just 12% for the Republican."

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

2009-12-08T03:18:00.000-05:00

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: "Gay Marriage Battle Begins in New Jersey
The gay marriage debate moves to New Jersey, CNN reports, with the state's Senate Judiciary Committee debating the bill today.

The timing is important since Gov.-elect Chris Christie (R), 'who takes office next month, says he would veto the bill.' However, Gov. Jon Corzine (D) 'says he would sign the bill if it reaches his desk before he leaves office.'"

Who Do You Trust, and Why?

2009-12-08T02:33:00.002-05:00

When publishing a blog you have to decide whom to trust. You talk to people, read newspaper stories, read other blogs, and form your own ideas from that. We all have people that we point others to that we believe epitomize our own beliefs and further lead to a level of integrity and gravitas that friends can understand. Over the years I have turned to Andrew Sullivan for reasonable, intellectual, and balanced opinion. Therefore I fall on his side to trust his insights regarding Palin. His money quote today:

"This really isn't about Palin. Or about Johnston. It's about our democracy's apparent lack of interest any more in what is true and what is false. It's about the mainstream media's willful decision not to tackle a story that was integral to a major candidate's core integrity; it's about the Republican party elite's cynicism and condescension to millions of voters; it's about the decision of Harper Collins, Adam Bellow and Jonathan Burnham to publish a book so riddled with untruth without even a gesture toward ensuring its accuracy; and it's about the recklessness of John McCain, a man hollowed out by careerism and cynicism, selling out every scruple or principle he may have had to make his way in the modern GOP; and it's about the power of fundamentalist religion to blind everyone to the banal but vital details of secular politics.
In other words, it's about the core reasons this country has gone off the rails these past few years. That matters to the Daily Dish. If it doesn't matter to you, or if you think it involves details that really should not be aired in public, then take your blame to McCain, not me. Because he didn't do his job, I'm doing mine."

So why do I write about Sarah Palin? Because like Sullivan above I think it's more than just an issue of picking a light-weight from Alaska. It's about how one party really has lost its way, how this country is coming apart because of that party, and because it's time to decide rationally, scientifically, and honestly, what is true and what is false.

Falling Trees and Frivolous Lawsuits

2009-12-08T00:56:00.001-05:00

This past July at 8:15AM a man decided to take a walk in Central Park in New York City. After entering the park a branch from a tree fell off the tree and hit him. The man was seriously injured and remains in the hospital to this day recouperating from his injuries. His wife and him are suing the City of New York for negligency. They claim the city should have known the dead branch was going to fall and should have removed it.
My house sits close to the highway in woods that include dozens of Oak, Pine, and Cedar trees. This year was especially tough on the tall trees in my yard and many branches have fallen. This past summer I also fell from a branch knob from one of the trees. The branch didn't hit me on the way down, but I didn't see it while walking, fell, and hit my knees on the sidewalk with lots of messy blood and pain.
As much as I try to keep my yard clear of such fallen branches from the trees I have wondered what would happen if a visitor of mine, or even a pizza delivery man, had an accident similar to mine. I guess the home owners policy would cover it, but what if it didn't? I could be left with a bill for a pretty penny to pay for medical services and pain and suffering.
Should the visitor to Central Park prevail in his lawsuit? Or is it just one of those things that happens; an accident? If he and his wife do prevail in their lawsuit what will happen with parks and open spaces maintained by cities as places of exercise, rest, or relaxation?
In the story in The New York Times, Kerry says

"Certainly this is a tragic case. However, nature happens. Park staff cannot possibly monitor each tree limb on each tree in the entire park every day. If this case wins in court, then the future freedom we experience in parks will be compromised. There will surely be signs everywhere to “enter at your own risk” and perhaps even waivers introduced that visitors must sign before enjoying the nature an open space has to offer. I understand that Mr. Blair-Goldensohn and his family must be devastated and looking for some type of payback for the damage this accident has caused in his life. But sometimes life is unfair, and there is no clear person or entity at fault, and we must live with the hand we are dealt, however bad that hand may be. I don’t think people who sue understand what precedent their case may create and the far-reaching consequences it may have."

Calling Their Bluff on Health Care Reform; A Way Forward

2009-12-07T17:57:00.001-05:00

Last week, kook Senator, Doctor Tom Coburn (R-Okla) and morally corrupt Senator, Adulterer David Vitter (R-La) introduced an amendement that would require all members of congress to enroll in the public-option choice if allowed under the legislation, thinking that no senators would agree to such a thing, thus in effect, killing the inclusion of the public-option in the health care reform bill. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Al Franken (D-Minn.), and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) thinking that if the public option is good enough for the people, it's good enough for them, decided to join them and tried to sign on as co-sponsors of the amendement. Good for them.
Deciding that they didn't want the democratic senators to call their bluff, Coburn and Vitter expanded their amendement to include not only congress, but the president and his staff. Coburn and Vitter will be joined in this more expansive amendment by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.). A Coburn spokesman said that Democrats were encouraged to join the GOP on this amendment.

"Coburn, said that his amendment isn't a gimmick, but rather a serious attempt to mitigate the harms he believes would come about through the existence of a public option. If the president and other political heavyweights are enrolled in it, his thinking goes, they'll make sure it runs well."While I oppose the public option, Republicans and Democrats can agree that we should live under the laws we pass. I can also think of no better way to ensure that the public option is responsive to our citizens than by having the politicians in charge of the system enrolled in the same program. If a low-income, single mom has to wait in line for a life saving treatment, so should our national leaders and their families. Enrolling national leaders in the public option may be the best way to prevent the government from rationing care," Coburn said ."

Good for them as well. If offering an amendement from the party of "no" finally leads to honest debate and compromise, all the better. I encourage all Democratic Senators to support this amendement, debate and compromise honestly with the Republicans, and come up with a bill that all can support. In reality, I have little to no confidence that Republicans would sign on to any bill in any form. In my opinion they are bankrupt of ideas and will not want to alienate the fringe in our society who actually make up the base of their party, who want them to do nothing, by actually doing their jobs and passing legislation. Stay tuned

David Spillane Playing The Uilleann Pipes

2009-12-07T12:16:00.001-05:00

To uplift your soul today! It's interesting to watch how he plays the instrument and what sounds come out. I don't know why but I had always imagined that one would have to blow to get the music. Ling Ling really liked this one. As soon as I started playing it she jumped up on the chair next to mine and stared into the computer screen mesmerized! Thanks to Wild Irish Rose and her post Feeding the instrument addiction.

Conservative Raison D'etre

2009-12-07T07:10:00.000-05:00

Scientists recently took MRI's of self-described people from the left and the right and asked them questions while under the MRI as to their beliefs and how likely they were to question their beliefs. They surmised that right-wing, conservative thinkers are less likely to be open to questioning, or nuance in their beliefs in so far as to what they believe is what they believe. Opposite that, left-wing liberal thinkers were more likely to question their belief systems and more open to nuance. Which is better? Probably both have merits. Surabaya Stew's comment on the Rightwing Nuthouse blog post "Charles Johnson's World" regarding Charles Johnson's post on Little Green Footballs "Why I Parted Ways With The Right".
From Johnson's original post to RWN's blog post to Surabaya Stew's comment; a fascinating study in how some current and former right-wing conservatives are questioning their raison d'etre. Easy reading and way fun! (Read the comments as well)
"Personal criticisms of CJ aside (which don’t help your case), you acknowledge that several of his points may have some merit. Furthermore, the remaining points do have their examples which seem to validate them to a certain degree that fair people can agree to disagree about. Of course fair people can look at the same facts and draw different conclusions, which seems to be the case here, as you have been a political (and ideological) conservative for most of your life, whereas CJ’s life story is quite different. Simply put, is it not possible that somebody of a moderate political persuasion would likely agree with most (if not all) of CJ’s 10 points? We all realize that moderate politics aren’t what Right Wing Nut House is about, so why assume that CJ was ever conservative? By the man’s own admission, LGF had a hands-off policy re: comments for many years, which is now certainly not the case. (Full disclosure: I have been a semi-frequent commentator on LGF for a few months now.)
In my opinion, a large part of the reason CJ is being especially tough on the GOP and the right because he believes nothing short of that will kick reality back into their brains. These fools are hurting all of us with their actions. Need evidence of this?
We have a war in Afghanistan about to be escalated, and Dick Cheney is attacking Obama in hopes of discrediting the entire Af-Pak strategy. The AGW summit is about to start in Copenhagen, and James Inhofe is tagging along in order to trash the global vote in order to satisfy his anti-AWG fantasy. Health Care reform is coming, and all Sarah Palin can do is spout nonsense re: “death panels”, rather than contribute usefully to the debate. Dozens of congressional town hall meetings have been broken up by tea-baggers screaming and shouting, leading the strong possibility that congressmen won’t hold such forums in the future.
Face it Rick, the GOP is acting badly and hurting America right now with. Were they acting the role of an honest opposition, CJ (and millions more Americans) would still be on board with you and other conservatives. When they return to reality, it will be years before moderates (like myself and many of my friends) listen closely to the GOP again. For the sake of our (2-party) democracy, I pray that happens sooner rather than later"

Cutting Free of George Bush's Wars

2009-12-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

After listening to Obama's Tuesday night speech at West Point, former Presidential Candidate and current commentator Patrick J. Buchanan thinks we're coming home.

"Obama was not citing the Eisenhower of Normandy but President Eisenhower, who ended Korea by truce, refused to intervene in Indochina, did nothing to halt Nikita Khrushchev’s crushing of the Hungarian revolution, ordered the British, French and Israelis out of Suez, and presided over eight years of peace and prosperity, while building up America’s might and getting in lots of golf at Burning Tree.

Not a bad president. Not a bad model.
How can we reconcile Obama’s end-times rhetoric about the stakes imperiled with an 18-month surge of just 30,000 troops?
Stanley McChrystal won the argument over troops. But Obama, in his heart, does not want to fight Bush’s “Long War.” He wants to end it. Obama is not LBJ plunging into the big muddy. He is Nixon coming out, while giving an embattled ally a fighting chance to save itself.
In four years, Nixon was out of Vietnam. In 18 months, Obama says we will be out of Iraq with a steadily diminishing presence in Afghanistan.
What we heard Tuesday night was the drum roll of an exit strategy."

Read the story at Taki Magazine.

Eric Burns: If I Still Worked at Fox News...

2009-12-04T20:40:00.000-05:00

Eric Burns: If I Still Worked at Fox News...: "Of course, Beck does not call himself a conservative; he is, rather, a libertarian, which may be defined as a conservative-squared, a person who wants the feds to collect no money in taxes, spend no money on programs, but make available all services that the libertarian deems necessary for his own convenience and safety."
Don't piss off former Fox News Hosts.

Giuliani To Fight Crime In Pre-Olympics Rio

2009-12-04T14:23:00.000-05:00

You're kidding right? Have you ever visited the favellas in Rio? I have, not a pretty picture.

Giuliani To Fight Crime In Pre-Olympics Rio: "RIO DE JANEIRO — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani says Rio de Janeiro can become a safe city before it hosts the 2016 Olympics. And his consulting firm will be paid to offer advice on how to make that happen.
Giuliani visited a slum in Rio on Thursday and praised Rio's efforts to pacify the violence-plagued areas where drug traffickers hold sway.
Rio Governor Sergio Cabral sys that Giuliani's consulting firm will be contracted to give security advice, though details of the deal were not disclosed.
As mayor from 1994 to 2002, Giuliani oversaw a drastic drop in crime in New York, which backers attribute to his tough, zero-tolerance stance."

Aetna Raising Prices and Dropping Coverage

2009-12-04T13:47:00.000-05:00

Profits not high enough for projections in 2009, will raise prices and drop 650K in 2010. Good for them. They're a private company that can do what they want. Sorry to the 650K that won't have health care because of rising costs...I feel your pain. Read the story at Huffpost.

Becoming a Palintologist

2009-12-04T12:18:00.001-05:00

You too, can become a Palintologist! All you have to do is wait in long lines, sometimes the night before in pretty cold weather. You can do all this for a chance to get the inspiring pit-bull, with lipstick to sign your copy of her memoir that you just paid $24.95 for. I say "for a chance" because sometimes the aspiring ~~actress,~~ I mean 2012 presidential candidate doesn't have time to sign all the books for the people that waited in line so long for. Last week at one of her ~~rallys~~ book signings, she decided that she didn't have enough time to finish signing all the books. She got back into her "Sarah Bus" and drove 2 miles back to the airport to board her private jet provided by The Reverend Billy Graham, Jr. at a cost of $600.00 per hour, and left people with "Sarah Signs" chanting "Run, Baby, Run!"
But that didn't deter the people waiting for her in Fayettville, who might be called the foot soldiers for "Sarah's Army." "Hundreds of people formed a line that snaked around the back of the store. They wore camouflage fatigues and suits, work boots and dress loafers, ball caps and cowboy hats and T-shirts that read, "Palintologist." Said 78 year old Bob Rutz, who was first in line "I'm hoping she'll be drafted to run." Me too.
BTW, I love that pic!
Story link

Paying for War

2009-11-30T14:57:00.000-05:00

Bruce Barlett tolls the bell for honesty when accessing the cost of war. He writes "In recent years, Republicans have been characterized by two principal positions: They like starting wars and don't like paying for them. George W. Bush initiated two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but adamantly refused to pay for either of them by cutting non-military spending or raising taxes. Indeed, at his behest, Congress actually cut taxes (during war time) and established a massive new entitlement program, Medicare Part D.

Bush's actions were unprecedented. During every previous major war in American history, presidents demanded sacrifices from rich and poor alike. As Robert Hormats explains in his 2007 book, The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars, "During most of America's wars, parochial desires--such as tax breaks for favored groups or generous spending for influential constituencies--have been sacrificed to the greater good. The president and both parties in Congress have come together … to cut nonessential spending and increase taxes."
He adds, "Bush and his party, which controlled Congress from 2001 to 2006, never asked for sacrifices from anyone except those in our nation's military and their families. I think that's because the Republicans understood, implicitly, that the American people's support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has always been paper thin. Asking them to sacrifice through higher taxes, domestic spending cuts or reinstatement of the draft would surely have led to massive protests akin to those during the Vietnam era or to political defeat in 2004. George W. Bush knew well that when his father raised taxes in 1990 in part to pay for the first Gulf War, it played a major role in his 1992 electoral defeat."
After the break, read about a new approach proposed by Rep. David Obey (D-WI) which is amazingly simplistic and which would force each Congressperson to declare how they would continue to fund the wars in an open way, and not increase the federal defecit by asking for sacrifice from the American people.

A new approach? On Nov. 19, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., introduced H.R. 4130, the "Share the Sacrifice Act of 2010." It would establish a 1% surtax on everyone's federal income tax liability plus an additional percentage on those with a liability over $22,600 (for couples filing jointly), such that revenue from the surtax would pay for the additional cost of fighting the war in Afghanistan.

It's doubtful that this legislation will be enacted. But that's not Obey's purpose. He will probably offer it as an amendment at some point just to have a vote. Republicans in particular will be forced to choose between continuing to fight a war that they started and still strongly support, or raising taxes, which every Republican in Congress would rather drink arsenic than do. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see those who rant daily about Obama's deficits explain why they oppose fiscal responsibility when it comes to supporting our troops.
As has been widely reported, the Obama administration last week, in order to be more transparent about costs, came out with a cost of $500,000 - $1,000,000 per person (troop) per year for fighting in Afghanistan. That means that sending an additional 40,000 troops as General McChrystal has requested will cost the US taxpayer an additional $20-$40 billion per year to the cost of the war. The cost of war is indeed great. Just something to think about.

Thought of the Day

2009-11-30T12:02:00.001-05:00

Regarding the infamous gatechrashers at last week's presidential state dinner at the White House: "In the end, the poet who came to Thanksgiving dinner said it best, as poets often do: 'We have reached the end of shame in our culture.' Whereas the possibility of being publicly humiliated went a long way to check people's bad impulses back in the day, now the more outlandish a person's behavior, the bigger celebrity he or she has the chance of becoming."

Narcissistic scumbags. Their stunt proves that you can be multi-millionaires laden with debt coming out of your ass and still find your picture in the dictionary under morally bankrupt and broke, and socially inept. Cause a few secret service agents who put their life on the line every day to lose their careers, did ya'?

The Case for Big Government

2009-11-30T11:34:00.000-05:00

Jeff Madrick's The Case for Big Government takes a differing view than Ronald Reagan's 1981 assertion that "Government is the the solution to our problem; Government is the problem." The book takes a long look at our governmental economic history. He addresses one of the points we have been debating on this blog, that among rich nations there really haven't been any small governments for nearly a century. For a little perspective read the book review by Richard Parker in the New York Review of Books.
David Kuznet of The New York Times writes "As the political analysts Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril pointed out years ago, Americans tend to be “ideologically conservative and operationally liberal.” Many of the most informative and intellectually challenging sections of this book explore how public investments advanced the American dream of a self-reliant citizenry so effectively that most Americans are unaware of the accomplishments of activist government."

How did the wealthiest nation in history come to believe it is not wealthy?...

"America has no free and high-quality day care or pre-K institutions to nourish and comfort two-worker families.... College has become far more expensive and attendance is now bifurcated by class.... Transportation infrastructure has been notoriously neglected, is decaying, and has not been adequately modernized to meet energy-efficient standards or global competition. America has not responded to a new world of high energy costs and global warming in general. America has a health care system that is simply out of control, providing on balance inadequate quality at very high prices.... The financial system, progressively deregulated since the 1970s, broke free of government oversight entirely in the 1990s and early 2000s and speculation reminiscent of the 1800s was the result with potentially equal levels of damage.... These facts amount to about as conclusive a proof as history ever provides that the ideology applied in this generation has failed."

"The book's largest flaw is that it is not as careful and clear-eyed politically as it is economically. The Case for Big Government usefully takes aim at the ideological consensus that emerged among many academics, journalists, policy advisers, and politicians in both parties. But it devotes little attention to the rise of religious fundamentalism that coincided with America's industrial decline, and how the departure from the Democratic Party by millions of white Southern evangelicals and Northern, mostly Catholic, industrial workers—twin pillars of the New Deal—contributed to the world we face today. In many ways this shift may have been more consequential to the spread of "small government" ideology than the intellectual realignment of academics, journalists, policy advisers, and politicians."

Obama Tightens Federal Lobbyist Rules

2009-11-27T13:05:00.000-05:00

Good news.
Huffington Post's Lobby Blog reports that President Obama's special counsel for ethics and government reform Norm Eisen announced that the administration no longer wanted federally-registered lobbyists appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions.

"These appointees to boards and commissions, which are made by agencies and not the President, advise the federal government on a variety of policy areas. Keeping these advisory boards free of individuals who currently are registered federal lobbyists represents a dramatic change in the way business is done in Washington.
As has been reported, the President has made a commitment to close the revolving door that has in the past allowed lobbyists and others to move to and from full-time federal government service. In furtherance of this commitment, the President issued Executive Order 13490, which bars anyone appointed by the President who has been a federally-registered lobbyist within the past two years from working on particular matters or in the specific areas in which they lobbied or from serving in agencies they had lobbied. The aspiration we are announcing today builds on this commitment. While the letter of the President's Executive Order on Ethics does not apply to federally-registered lobbyists appointed by agency or department heads, the spirit does and we have conveyed that to the agencies who are responsible for these appointments."

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the move "may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama," resulting in "hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists" being ejected from federal advisory panels. Not surprisingly, lobby groups, corporations, and other K Street influencers are up in arms
Sixchair writes ""This action will severely undermine the utility of the advisory committee process," Haha. Bad for you good for US."

I think it's a step in the right direction. One of his campagin promises was to lessen the influence of lobbyists in his administration. He broke that promise with a couple of appointees at the beginning. Some rules and usually following them is better than no rules to ever follow.

Nurse, Can You Save us All?

2009-11-27T12:27:00.000-05:00

Weaken the Filibuster Threshold to 55

2009-11-25T17:22:00.001-05:00

Both parties do it equally? Ah, No.
Grayson Filibuster Petition: Change Threshold To 55: "Since the Democrats regained control of the Senate, Republicans have abused the filibuster rule like never before. Until 1970, no session of Congress had more than ten votes on cloture to end a filibuster. Until 2007, the record was 58. But since Democrats regained control of the Senate, filibusters have skyrocketed. The last session had a new record of 112.

The filibuster does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. If the Founding Fathers had wanted it, they would have included it. Instead, this undemocratic rule allows small-state Senators representing as little as 11 percent of the country to thwart the will of the other 89 percent. In 1975, the Senate reduced the number of votes needed to end a filibuster from 67 to 60. Now, with the Party of No blocking majority rule on virtually everything the country needs, we need to do it again."

Shopping for Coconut

2009-11-25T16:40:00.001-05:00

Shopping for the family Thanksgiving dinner at the local Shop-Rite I went.
Searching for the grated coconut I was.
Along came a lady.
She Acted Kind of Shady.
And all I could do was shake my head.

See, I told you I couldn't write poetry!

True story, I was perusing down the isle looking for coconut when this nice old lady starts talking to herself. She was blabbering something about, Oh, the Humanity, It's tough in here. I looked at her and said, "You know, you're right. There's a lot of people shoving and pushing on this day before, don't feel bad, it's not only you."
She then said "It's all this socialist stuff...we're all turning socialist, you know what I mean?
I said "NO???"

A really sad and silly personal account at the local supermarket. What has the media and right-wing conservatives done to this grand ole' country of ours?

Some Real Financial Reform Gaining Momentum?

2009-11-25T08:59:00.000-05:00

Noam Scheiber at The New Republic writes
Something strange and a little disorienting is happening in the fight to reform Wall Street: It looks like the reformers are actually starting to win.

If you want to learn more about derivatives and how they work, read the article.
Barney Frank just weeks ago, was having to weaken a reform bill tightening the loopholes in the derivatives market because of light political support. Enter Obama appointed Chairman Gary Gensler of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who added support for making Franks "weakened reform bill", stronger. He pointed out that polls show Americans are on the side for strong reform and producing a lesser bill to accomodate a broader range of Congressmen's votes could have consequences at the polls in selected districts.
Scheiber states there is agreement that when the bill comes to the floor of the House in mid-December, a strong version will pass. So now, you think we have a win. Got something done in Congress. But wait, Don't forget the Senate:

"As with most legislation, the real fight now appears to be in the Senate. Throughout much of the summer and fall, the banks approached the House as though they were playing with, well, house money: A big exemption would almost certainly survive the Senate, but a tough bill could be softened up there. That logic may still apply. But the Senate calculus has recently been scrambled. Two weeks ago, Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd unveiled his own regulatory proposal, including a derivatives measure tougher than anything the House has discussed. Even Dodd himself doesn’t expect it to pass whole cloth. “He’s put his ideal bill out there,” says a Banking Committee staffer. But, if nothing else, it shifts the debate’s center of gravity further to the left and makes a tough reform package more likely."

Here's hoping we win one for the good guys (us) this time, over wall street greed.

Preachers That Give Religion a Bad Name

2009-11-24T15:31:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons I have for my distrust and sometimes disgust of some main stream American religions? Too many devil preachers. Those that celebrate the death penalty and hate the taliban and al qaeda, yet act like terrorists themselves. It seems we have always had these kind of nutjobs from the religious preachers burning witches on the stake during the Salem Witch Trials, up to now. But we don't have to like them and they should be exposed for what they are, or are not - spokesmen for Jesus.

Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., issued a press release Nov. 19 calling for an end to "imprecatory prayer" -- words of judgment from the Book of Psalms prayed back to God, directed toward Obama.
Drake attributed his change of heart to "spiritual counsel" of James David Manning, pastor at ATLAH World Missionary Church in New York, contained in a 16 1/2-minute video recorded Nov. 18.

"I have asked men everywhere please do you no harm," Manning said in remarks he addressed to "Barack Hussein the long-legged mack daddy Obama." According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, "mack daddy" is slang for a slick womanizer or conspicuously successful pimp.
"I do not want to see anyone attempt, dream about, think about or ever discuss assassinating you," Manning continued. "It is most important to you and to my savior Jesus that you live, and that you live a long life, but that you live that we might be able to bring you to trial. You see if someone does you harm, and you are not able to be brought to trial, then we lose the opportunity of proving our statements that you are not the president of the United States of America. You are not. You are an illegal alien, a usurper."
Manning preached a series of harsh sermons last year against then-candidate Obama that prompted Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to ask the IRS to investigate him for violating rules governing tax-exempt charities against electioneering. He says he was visited by officials from the Department of Homeland Security after a recent video message in which he advised people who strongly oppose Obama to "be ready to die."
Drake, who was second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006-2007, said he was also questioned in his home by the Secret Service after he said in a Fox News Radio interview June 2 with Alan Colmes that he was praying for Obama to die."

The Southern Baptist Convention, of which Rev. Wiley Drake was a very recent Vice-President is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the US. with over 16 million members and over 42,000 churches.

Story at Associated Baptist Press

Mass Murder? An Epidemic in Today's Society

2009-11-23T23:07:00.000-05:00

A few years ago, maybe 10, I don't know, I was living in Boston when I heard of a school shooting either inside or outside a jewish school where people were killed with a rifle. I think Columbine had already happened. I remember thinking "Wow, our country just goes from one tragedy to another, and nobody seems to blink." The sense of shock was because growing up, we never had stories like this, or if we did, they were years and years apart. Today, it seems as if every other day there is a madman who goes out and kills innocent people for one crazy cause, or another. Nobody does anything about it. Nobody reports the fact that these crimes are henious and unacceptable. The fact is, our society has somehow been led to believe that these crimes are acceptable and just part of living in everyday society.
Lee Seigel has a piece in The Daily Beast:
"No prosperous country not riven by civil conflict has anything like our volume of mass killings. And yet for all of the fascination with mass murder in the media, in Hollywood—and among us—no politician will do more than pay lip service in condemning it. No journalist will crusade against it."
My response? Politicians and journalists are publicity mongering WHORES. I have low regard for the politicians who accept it and even lower regard for the main street media WHOREY WHORES who put all this shit on television for day after day without mentioning that it is wrong. But in general, that is the problem with media, they take no sides in saying what is right and what is wrong, except for dare I say it, Fox News.

Nobody does a damn thing to try to stop it. Conservatives don’t want to make an issue of mass murder because then they would be confronted with the fact that nearly all of the massacres are committed by people using guns. Liberals don’t want to cry out about it because then they would have to address the fact that the violence of our entertainment—TV, movies, videogames, our proliferating apps—makes killing seem like just another strategy for coping with reality.
Our country is sick. It needs health care. How much will the insurance companies charge to cover an entire nation?

A Different Point of View

2009-11-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

Roger Pilon

Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute :

"As Winston Churchill understood, democracy is messy (and, as in his case, sometimes ungrateful). Glenn Beck is no William F. Buckley Jr. But then, "Joe the Plumber" probably never read National Review, which like most other journals of "high opinion" was never self-sustaining. Liberals today, their noses in the air Obama style, look across America from the vantage of the famous New Yorker cover and see pitchfork brigades, forgetting that those who fill the brigades generally love America, which is more than can be said of some of the baggage that has surrounded Obama.
There is a problem in the Republican Party, to be sure. Nominally the party of limited constitutional government, it recently gave us two presidents from the same family -- one standing for a "kinder and gentler" government, the other for "compassionate conservatism" -- plus a career Senate nominee for president, none of whom ever really understood the party's core principles, much less nourished them as they must be nourished from generation to generation. As a result, the party has been hollowed out intellectually and spiritually, and into that vacuum, which nature abhors, has poured an assortment of people, most from outside the party.
The struggle in democracies between intellectual rigor and populism is as old as that between Socrates and the sophists. We all know the dangers of populist demagoguery. But there is also great danger in rule by élites, which are hardly immune from demagogy and outright fraud (witness the "accounting" in the current healthcare debate). Achieving that balance is often difficult and messy. But I for one am encouraged by this populist movement to reform the Republican Party. I know, for example, that at the Orlando rally The New York Times referenced this past Saturday, people passed out copies of the Cato Institute's pocket Constitution, which includes the Declaration of Independence and my preface relating the two documents with respect to their underlying principles. The people who attended the April 15 tea parties and the September 12 march on Washington were ordinary Americans who understand that something is fundamentally wrong, constitutionally, with the direction the country has taken over the past two decades, at least. They see the Republican Party, in our two-party system, as the more likely institution for changing that, but not as the party is presently constituted. Still, there are people within the party who give hope and are ready to take over. Populists working outside the party, together with those of us who do "politics" (broadly understood) for a living, may just be the spark that enables that to happen."

Religious Leaders Warn of Civil Disobedience

2009-11-21T15:09:00.000-05:00

Fine, as well they should stand against what they feel is wrong. But will they be consistent and decry and protest the ultimate anti-life act - the death penalty?

"Signers of the Declaration pledge to "...not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act,” nor will signers “bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships” or “treat them as marriages.” The list of backers reads like a who’s who of the pro-life movement, and the document essentially argues that supporters of the movement deserve conscience rights."

Read the Newsweek story.

Science in Pictures

2009-11-21T13:47:00.000-05:00

Outerword Beauty!

Photo 1. Cartwheel Galaxy
Photo 2. A Galaxy Quintet
Photo 3. Arp 118
Photo 4. ESO 593-B

Photos courtsey of NASA

Cut Off Congressional Cheats

2009-11-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

William Jefferson, Democratic Congressman from Louisiana, was found with $85,000 cold-hard cash in his freezer. In an August trial the government charged him with bribery, and was found guilty by a jury of his peers. On November 13th he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, the longest stint ever for a Congressman who committed this crime. The court also ordered him to repay the $470,000 he was estimated to have received in bribe money. I'm glad he got the sentence and repay that he got, although I think that our elected officials should be held to a higher standard by fact that they control so much of taxpayers money, and that maybe he should have another 5 years tacked on to his sentence just for good measure.
What is appalling is that under the rules Mr. Jefferson will still be allowed to collect his congressional pension and benefits, estimated to be about $60,000, after having served. I suspect that these kinds of rules apply not only to national offices but to state and local governments as well. It is shocking to think that we should continue to pay retirement for people who have violated the public trust, at any level. It's just another example of wasteful government spending.
How hard would it be to change the laws to say that once convicted of a certain crime, our leaders should forfeit any further compensation? What lawmakers would vote against a change in these rules? A few, I suspect, for reasons that I cannot imagine. I say, commit the crime, do the time, but don't expect anything more.

Sullivan Deconstructing Sarah

2009-11-19T17:43:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan on Palin's Going Rogue:
"In this, the book is emblematic of late degenerate Republicanism, which is based not on actual policies, but on slogans now so exhausted by over-use they retain no real meaning: free enterprise is great, God loves us all, America is fabulous, foreigners are suspect, we need to be tough, we can't dither, we must always cut taxes, government is bad, liberals are socialists, the media hates you, etc etc."
Yeah, that sounds about right.

Russell Bishop: What Do You Want Out Of Life, Really?

2009-11-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

Russell Bishop writes - "One day, on a protest line, I wound up getting hit by a tear gas canister. As I picked it up and started to throw it back, I suddenly, and inexplicably, found myself looking back at myself, as though I were a spectator to my own activity. And then I heard myself screaming, 'why don't you a**holes love us?'
At that moment, life began changing in profound and meaningful ways. As wave after wave of awareness broke over me, I saw the contradiction of my life to that point: my message was love and peace, and my strategy was to yell, scream and throw things."

I think it would do us all good to reconsider what we really want out of life and what we truly care about, and the means by which we will use to get to that point. Lead by example and follow your TRUE convictions. Here's hoping we all have that moment of clarity and self-awareness that Russell did.

Poem of the Day

2009-11-16T11:17:00.000-05:00

John Lundberg: Newsweek Ed's Poem Skewers Lou Dobbs:
"So wily Lou has picked the locks
That kept him in his padded box
And tiptoed off, in just his socks.
Or should we say, weighed anchor?

So now we wonder where he docks
To whom he'll lead his rabid flocks:
The Pop that loves his famous Vox
And adores his rancor.

A network just for frat-boy jocks?
Where aliens are put in stocks
And viewers pelt them with big rocks
Before each half-time show?

Could it be UPN, or Cox?
They'd have to open up Fort Knox
We know Lou's crazy, like a Fox.
I'd really love to know."

A Party on the Verge of Destruction

2009-11-14T02:06:00.000-05:00

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. After supporting a conservative third party candidate and helping the Democrats elect the first Congressman from the 23rd District in over 100 years in NY, they're at it again. As a Republican, if you talk to, much less work with the Democrats, your seat may be ripe for a hostile take-over from the right.
Conservative Bob Bennett from Utah is the latest Senator to get the treatment from the ultra-conservatives in his party. The Club for Growth, cites Bennett's extended time in Washington and criticize his willingness to work with Democrats on issues such as healthcare reform and the Wall Street rescue approved amid last year's financial crisis (as their reason for wanting him out).
"One side feels the Republican Party has lost its way and sacrificed its basic principles," said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "The other thinks the party has moved too far right and become inflexible and intolerant."
I think they may implode on each other. Which side will win, and which will lose? Don't know. Right now, moneys on the ultra conservs.
But like I said, It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

Shame on MSNBC

2009-11-13T20:07:00.000-05:00

Ashleigh Banfield is joining ABC after waiting months for MSNBC to let her out. Read the story.
"I'm a journalist and I like to be able to tell the story as I see it, and I hate it when someone tells me I'm one-sided. It's the worst I can hear. Fox has taken so many viewers away from CNN and MSNBC because of their agenda and because of their targeting the market of cable news viewership, that I'm afraid there's not a really big place in cable for news. Cable is for entertainment, as it's turning out, but not news.

I'm hoping that I will have a future in news in cable, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big hires on other networks, right wing hires to chase after this effect, and you can already see that flag waving in the corners of those cable news stations where they have exciting American music to go along with their war coverage."

My Reply to a Dear Reader

2009-11-13T18:52:00.001-05:00

Sorry to say, I think many good, regular Americans have been hood-winked by the right. I'm not debating the tea baggers here. I cannot imagine the outrage that middle-class Americans have over the health care issue, yet continue to think it's OK for the health care industry to get rich on their dime, denying people coverage, refusing treatment (real day death squads), and basically in my judgement, just shafting the middle class. You guys hear Glenn Beck talk about taxes, blah, blah, blah, and say "Yeah, I don't want my taxes to go for socialized medicine", yet still think it's OK for corporations to shaft you.

It's really evident in the banking/insurance crisis. WHERES THE OUTRAGE? Why don't the tea baggers protest bankers and insurance companies that are propped up with favorable laws and tax breaks? They don't, because they don't know, or don't understand. What they have done is no less than welfare for the banks. You want to cut welfare rolls? Start with the corportations that pay ZERO, NO, NADA TAXES. Where's the outrage?
It's all backwards. There should be an uprising in this country so strong that every middle-class American could support against what has happened to our money, yet nobody even thinks of this because we are led to believe that socialists like President Obama want to take their/our money to pay for health care for the poor. It's astounding. Remember the French Revolution. "Off with their heads", that is the kind of outrage that I think we should be going through.

The middle class is totally manipulated by the media. I don't mean just Fox, but the main stream media as well. About ten years back there was a book called "What's the matter with Kansas" in which the authors chronicled the middle-class and poor people of Kansas voting AGAINST their self interests time and again because of the religious right and the media.

These are things I truly believe.

I would urge anyone to read the book and consider what has happened in the last 30 years in this country.

Don't call me socialist. Don't call me unpatriotic because I don't support an idiot President's war, and don't call me unAmerican, because I love my country, and the constitution as much or more as anybody.

Kids Acting Like Adults?

2009-11-13T18:20:00.000-05:00

Eric Cartman channeling Glenn Beck. Funny! Funny!

Senator Dorgan Got It Right; Did We Listen?

2009-11-13T18:13:00.000-05:00

Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) is a smart senator. Ten years ago he predicted that making changes in the law to allow banks, insurance companies, and other financial instututions to compete with each other and play in the other's fields, would be a problem. At that time, he said he was afraid that in ten years time we would come to regret this (the changes in the law). Boy was he right.
Today, look at AIG, Goldman Sachs, and the large financial institutions that got us into what some call "the worst recession since the depression", by blurring the line between banking, selling stocks and derivatives, and insurance. Every grade-school child knows today's economy is a mess.
What's disturbing is that almost a year after the bail-out of these "too big to fail" corporations, the public has no confidence in what we did, not sure anything's working, and many think we should have just let those mega-corporations fail. What's more, is that Senator Dorgan, one year ago this month, correctly questioned whether spending all that tax payer money was the right thing to do.
Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it. - Winston Churchill
I think we should listen to him next time.

Tea Baggers to Graham: Don't Talk to Dems

2009-11-12T11:41:00.000-05:00

On Monday, the Charleston County Republican Party’s executive committee “took the unusual step” of officially censuring Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The local GOP committee admonished Graham for stepping across party lines to work with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on a bipartisan clean energy bill and other pieces of legislation. The censure stated that Graham’s “bipartisanship continues to weaken the Republican brand and tarnish the ideals of freedom.”

For those who say the democrats don't work with republicans, remember the line above from South Carolina, but I believe from many, many in the Republican party in general:
BIPARTISANSHIP (with Democrats) continues to weaken the Republican brand and TARNISH THE IDEALS OF FREEDOM!
This is typical of one party saying that no matter what the other party says, no matter what the other does, we will not talk to you, we will not work with you ON ANYTHING! You hurt our brand.
The piece goes on further to say:
"Will Graham be able to stand up to the angry backlash being cultivated by far right voices and entrenched corporations interests? At a Graham town hall in Greenville last month, activist Harry Kimball of “RINO HUNT” protested by constructing a display that portrayed Graham, as well as other GOP moderates, being flushed down a toilet:KIMBALL: This is for every RINO who has failed to represent us. [...] [the toilet represents] flushing them, flushing them."
Lindsey Graham is a conservative Senator from South Carolina with a little conscience, who sometimes works with the other side to get things done. It cracks me up when they call him a RINO. He has proven his political hackery solidarity with his party. Remember, Graham was the lead Republican lawyer representing their side in the Senate in trying to bring the last Democratic President down in the impeachment hearings of President Clinton.

One readers comment on that piece: So now GRAHAM isn’t ‘Pure’ enough? Dear Lord. Is that Hell I hear freezing over? These people are truly insane. But hey, if they want to eat their own, who I’m I to stop them?

Please read the piece at Think Progress.

I believe the American people are best served by a robust, honest debate between two (or more) strong political parties.

Patriots vs Colts Sunday Night

2009-11-11T12:29:00.000-05:00

According to ESPN, the Colts have been great in down-field, passing plays. If you take away the Pat's victory against the Titans, their down field passing plays are not up to par. The solution? Run Randy Moss down-field freeing up Tom Brady to make a lot of quick short 10 yard pick-ups. (But isn't that they have already been doing?)
According to a poll "Who will win the Colts/Pats game this Sunday?", 30,000 on-line voters rated it a statistical dead-heat at 50%-50%.
It's gonna be a heck of a game. My prediction? Pats over Colts 27-23.
Oh yeah, here's one more thing the Pats need to do, borrowing a pic from a 9-9-04 game featuring Willie McGinest over Peyton Manning. Sack the quarterback!

Time to Re-Think the Drug Battle

2009-11-11T11:17:00.000-05:00

As a follow-up to my previous post regarding the legalization of marijuana, Johann Hari at the Huffington Post makes the best case I have ever read since my advocation for the legalization of drugs back in 1988; Face the Facts--And End the War on Drugs.
He points out that the drug war hands one of our biggest industries to armed criminal gangs; that under prohibition, drug use becomes more hardcore, and that the drug war doesn't reduce drug use.
His bottom line:

"So the drug war doesn’t achieve its goal of reducing addiction. All it does achieve is horrific gang violence – and in some cases the cartels gut whole countries like Mexico and Afghanistan. It does unwittingly press people into using harder and more dangerous drugs. And it does waste tens of billions of dollars that could really reduce drug addiction, by spending it on treatment for addicts.

The prohibitionists are therefore left a contradiction between their message and the facts. They can either change their message, or try to suppress the facts. Last week, the British government made its choice. But how long will this be tenable for them or the wider world? The prohibitionists are – from the best intentions and the highest motives – unleashing a catastrophe. Human beings have been finding ways to get stoned or high since we lived in caves. In our attempt to end this natural impulse, we have created a problem worse than drug use itself.
There is another way. Imagine a country with no drug dealers killing to protect their patch or terrorizing whole estates. Imagine a country where burglary fell by 60 percent. Imagine an America where we spent all these billions treating addicts as ill people who need our help, not hunting them down as criminals who need punishment. We can be that country. We just have to come down from chasing the dragon of a drug-free world – and start looking soberly at the facts."

Strongly recommended reading for anyone interested in the subject.

Why Members of Congress Won't Read the Health Care Bill or any other Bill

2009-11-09T02:39:00.000-05:00

For those of you who wonder why members of congress don't read bills before they vote on them, and the way they are written. An interesting post from Bruce Barlett,noted conservative economist who served Ronald Reagan, GHW Bush, and consulted with the Bush II White House on "Why Reading the Health Care Bill is a Waste." (Click the link)

"...Reading an actual bill is a completely useless exercise for the vast majority of members of Congress and staff."

Legalize Weed? Breckenridge, CO Legalizes Marijuana

2009-11-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

I'm a little late on this one, but better late than never. I admit it, I think we should legalize pot. I think if you want to smoke the dried, ground up buds of this weed, you should have the right. If, after a hard day's work you decide that marijuana, not a martini is right for you, then go for it. Like alcohol and tobacco, it should be manufactured, taxed, and regulated. I think you should be able to buy it in a store similar to today's liquor or state stores. Although people should be allowed to grow a few plants of their own, I think with legalization, most people would buy their weed in stores through a trusted purveyor where quality control, tHc level, even price, were known quantities.
When taking any drug, you should know you are making a choice. Is it ever a good thing to introduce into your body a foreign substance that changes it phisiologically just for the reason of a heightened, or lowered sense of awareness? I think not. Is it a good thing that every once in a while you kick up your feet, socialize with friends, and smoke a joint? I think so.

Like alcohol and tobacco, there are risks. Pot is a stimulant. It makes your heart beat a little faster, raises blood pressure, squeezes the arteries a little, and the smoke can cause emphysema and other lung problems.
There is also the question of the cost of the war on drugs, and putting people in jail for possesion.

"Marijuana arrests in the United States doubled between 1991 and 1995. In 1995, more than one-half-million people were arrested for marijuana offenses. Eighty-six percent of them were arrested for marijuana possession. Tens of thousands of people are now in prison or marijuana offenses. An even greater number are punished with probation, fines, and civil sanctions, including having their property seized, their driver's license revoked, and their employment terminated. Despite these civil and criminal sanctions, marijuana continues to be readily available and widely used."

So, it takes it's toll on society. Suffice it to say that if sold and taxed as we do cigarettes today, societal costs for something that many people engage in, would come down.
Lots more to say about the subject but as this is a blogpost and not an essay, best left to comments and answers. The following story is what sparked my posting about my long-held views on marijuana. Also, not to muddle the waters, I decided not to address the issue of medical marijuana.
For my libertarian readers, I believe that the decision to smoke pot in the first place is an individual choice, and secondly a states right issue. We probably agree on this one!

By the way, Breckenridge voters passed their amendement with a 72% majority of city voters!

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Voters in this Rocky Mountain resort town will decide next week whether to legalize pot for all adults at a time when the movement to allow medical marijuana is gaining steam around the country.
A measure before Breckenridge voters in Tuesday's municipal election would legalize possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana along with bongs, pipes and other pot paraphernalia. Supporters of the measure say it would inch the whole state closer to full legalization.
Other cities around the country have taken similar action in recent years, including a measure in Denver that decriminalized possession.
Local ordinances to allow some recreational marijuana use have passed in Seattle, San Francisco and other cities, though in all those places the law is considered symbolic because it conflicts with state and federal laws. Alaska allows possession of up to 4 ounces of marijuana in one's home, and advocates in California want to ask voters in next year's election to legalize pot.
Links:
Breckenridge Pushes to Legalize Marijuana
Myths and Facts About Marijuana
Marijuana Causes

Further Thoughts on Medicare

2009-11-05T16:19:00.000-05:00

From way back when, I proposed a "medicare for all" type program for health care reform. Many people have said that medicare spends too much money and the government-run agency is in the red. How could I possibly advocate adding to the deficit and rewarding the bureacracy and high costs that medicare pays for services? I often reply that private insurance costs and profits total about 30% and that medicare with all it's administrative costs total about 6-7%.

I read an article today entitled Congress often blocks Medicare changes that would cut costs McClatchy:
In it, they point out that it is often congress and the health care industry itself that seems to be averse to any money-saving ideas.

"Consider the case of a 1990s pilot project that earned the support of a president, several key legislators and successive Medicare leaders from BOTH PARTIES. A five-year test showed that lumping together payments for doctors and hospitals for some heart surgeries encouraged them to be more efficient and reduced Medicare's cost by 10 percent. The project ran into relentless opposition from doctors and hospitals, however. The result: Congress has never approved the change for widespread Medicare use, and Medicare continues to study the issue."

Medicare has conducted hundreds of tests, called pilots or demonstration projects, since the mid-1970s, but it can't apply them to the entire system without congressional approval. Lawmakers have made other important changes to Medicare, but pilot projects rarely have been the catalyst.

Still, in the overhaul legislation that's working its way through Congress, lawmakers have added provisions that they hope can improve the odds for implementing successful demonstrations. One measure seeks to circumvent the difficulties of getting congressional approval for changes. It would give the secretary of health and human services the authority to expand demonstrations that work; Congress' permission wouldn't be needed.

Another would create an "innovation center" that would allow Medicare to pursue promising ideas more quickly. Yet another would set up an independent commission to recommend savings that would be implemented if Congress didn't act.

In 1997, Congress instructed Medicare to test a plan under which suppliers of durable medical equipment — oxygen tanks, diabetes supplies and wheelchairs — would submit bids. Medicare would use the bids to generate a range of prices that it would pay and would require suppliers who wished to sell to its patients to meet those prices. After the demonstration showed a 20 percent savings, legislators in 2003 ordered Medicare officials to expand the program.

However, by 2008, medical supply companies, worried that they'd lose money, pressured lawmakers to reconsider details of the program. Congress came to share the suppliers' view that the bidding process was unfair to smaller companies and delayed the project until 2011.

Why wouldn't it make sense for companies that supply durable goods to which medicare often overpays, to bid on the process to lower our costs? Why did President Bush refuse to allow us to negotiate with drug companies participating in the huge expansion of medicare part D that he signed? Why would he not allow cheaper drugs from Canada to be imported?

These are all questions that must be asked. The President, Congress, and medical service suppliers must be part of the solution, not the problem. Please don't say "That will never happen." I say, if a politician isn't on board, vote him out, Democrat or Republican. If the medical suppliers won't negotiate, don't negotiate with them.

A Word on Health Care Costs

2009-11-04T09:50:00.001-05:00

House Minority leader Boehner recently was quoted "Health care reform is not affordable...what this is going to do is bankrupt America." Aaron E. Carroll gives these costs a little perspective:

All of the healthcare reform bills coming through congress have been scored to be either revenue neutral or deficit reducing according to the non-partisan CBO.
All of the bills come in at about $900 billion over the next decade, or about $90 billion a year.
Tax cuts signed into law in 2001 & 2003 by George Bush came in at $1.35 trillion over 8 years, or about $169 billion per year.
When the Republicans passed Medicare Part D (which was never, ever considered deficit reducing), I don’t remember hearing many concerns from them about the cost. And now, since the Republican party has become the “protectors of Medicare” and has positioned itself never to allow any cuts to Medicare, that could bankrupt America.
Last month President Obama signed a defense appropriations bill for $680 billion for one year which DOES NOT include the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Talk about bankrupting us.
We spent about 1.5 trillion on health care through various taxes and tax-breaks in 2008. That kind of spending WILL eventually bankrupt us.

Opponents of health care reform say it's going to break the bank. Health care reform won't break the bank. But by doing nothing in favor of the status quo today, health care SPENDING might do just that, tomorrow.

Health Care in Your Country

2009-11-02T04:12:00.000-05:00

There was a sign on the house across the street that read "bank foreclosure auction, bid now." I asked my Mother what that was all about. She said "I think the wife got really sick and they (husband & wife) couldn't pay her bills. It was very matter-of-factly and so I asked, "Didn't they have insurance?", her reply "yeah, I guess, just not enough."
This is a true story from literally across the street from where I was raised in a middle class town in New Jersey. It is by no means an impoverished or blighted section of town. Just regular. My Mother said those words so matter of factly that I shook. How is it that we, as an American people accept that our neighbors who we have known for 40 years LOSE THEIR HOMES because they cannot afford health care in this, the richest country in the world?
One other story. My neighbor, became ill one week ago having trouble breathing with his heart rate racing. His wife called the ambulance for help, and they stopped in front of our house, three doors down, after leaving his, before taking him to the hospital and worked on him for 15 minutes in front of our house, for fear that he would die before he got to the hospital. They got him stabilized and took him. I asked his wife later what happened. She said "Oh, they gave him a pacemaker/defibrilator, really the Cadillac of them all, and put it in his chest to make him better. I said "Oh that's great, Medicare really took care of him." She went on with some nonsense about AARP stop gap coverage and it was not medicare that paid for his heath care. She didn't realize that it was a government run health care plan that saved her husbands life.
Just so happens that I need that same "Cadillac pacemaker/defibrilator put into my chest because of an irregular heartbeat and weak heart but they won't do it because I am not 65 years old and eligible for medicare and not quite dying enough for medicaide. I lost my health insurance a year a half ago because my premiums skyrocketed in 7 years from $300 to $1000 per month and I could not afford the premiums. He is 70 something, I am 40 something.
Is that personal enough for you? Any wise words to to the contrary?

Kevin Langley for Maurice River Township Committee

2009-10-29T14:39:00.001-04:00

Congratulations Kevin!

Well Fought, Well Run, and Well Done!

Vote Totals

Kevin Langley 464, Glenn Ewan 374, Penny Wells 243

I am writing this post in support of Kevin Langley for Township Committee in Maurice River Township. Politically speaking, I am a strong progressive, while Kevin is as staunch a conservative Republican, with an "old-right" bent as I have known. So why am I supporting his candidacy? The decision was easy. I've known Kevin for 10 years. During that time I have known him to be of true character and strength with a first rate intelligence. Spending time with him you learn his passion for politics and his desire to make things better for our community. A day doesn't go by that he's not coming up with a way to make things better for the working men and women who live here. In a nutshell, the reason that I support him is to improve and, more importanly, preserve, the high quality of life that we enjoy here.

Kevin's love and knowledge of history is second to none. He enjoys debating my liberal ideas about local government and pointing out how he might do it better if given the chance. In other words, he has a vision of what he wants this community to look like and how he wants us to get there. I haven't heard the other candidates express that. Let's give Kevin that chance.

One of his opponents appears to have tried to muddy the waters concerning Kevin's qualifications and earned place on the Republican ticket with innuendo about who backs whom; and yes a little smokey backroom local politics have played a part in this election. But know this, Kevin is as qualified as either opponent and he won the Republican primary with more votes than his third party opponent. The bottom line is the facts are the facts, Kevin is the duly elected Republican Primary Candidate running in this election.

I know he is running to make a difference. I know he is running to make Maurice River Township a better place to live through lowering taxes not just for the rich, but for everybody. I trust him to represent me on the left as much as he would someone on the right, and to give every issue before him as township committeeman, a thorough review before making a decision.

Vote for Kevin Langley for Township Committee.

A Bit of Comedy to Brighten Your Day!

2009-10-28T13:48:00.000-04:00

You don't want Levi as your enemy!

Passing health care reform...and more with our super-majority

2009-10-27T14:30:00.000-04:00

What if we passed a bill with the 60 non filibuster vote? Would it give us the balls to move forward with our ideas? Would the democrats feel emboldened? Would they actually get the mettle, the moxie, to believe that we could actually achieve something with our super-majority? The implications for the future could be mind-boggling. Why not do to the republicans what they did to us the last 8 years??? President Obama needs to be more than non-committal, he needs to lead.

"But skepticism from the White House isn't the only hurdle that remains. While a host of Democrats, including the administration, publicly praised Reid for standing by an opt-out public option, internal whip counts indicate that there are approximately 57 votes for the proposal. Convincing the remaining three caucus members that the bill should be allowed to get an up-or-down vote remains an uphill lift. Having a president that is non-committal in the process makes it even harder. Meanwhile, the likelihood that the proposal will not have a single Republican member's support removes the bipartisan cover that some conservative Democrats are demanding."

Still, the emergence of the opt-out option and its ultimate embrace by Reid has provided a major boost to health care reform and breathed new life into the prospects of a government-run insurance alternative.
We can do it!

"I think there has been a big change in momentum since the late summer and a growing belief in the caucus that this is a reasonable compromise," said Merkley. "We think it is going to sell itself."

Read the whole story here.

Quote of the Day

2009-10-27T07:39:00.000-04:00

"Medicaid, he noted, has an opt-out provision, but not one state has opted out. Public health insurance, in other words, is too popular for states to opt out."

Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican leader from Tennessee, said on the Senate floor Monday, in advance of leader Reid's announcement, (on including the opt-out provision in the Senate version of health care reform) that the opt-out provision isn't to be taken seriously.

Long Live Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

2009-10-22T20:05:00.002-04:00

My favorite Justice on the Supreme Court is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Supreme Court lists her bio:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, andreceived her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963–1972, and ColumbiaLaw School from 1972–1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behav-ioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977–1978. In 1971, she was instrumental inlaunching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served asthe ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973–1980, and on the National Board of Directors from1974–1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat August 10, 1993.

Over the years, her opinions and dissents give the impression of being intellectually superior, knowledgable of the law, and honest. I agree with many of her decisions. I respect the fact that she was the second woman to serve on the court after Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor retired in 2005 leaving Ginsburg the lone woman on the court.

A very interesting interview in the New York Times about the place of woman on the court asked, "What's it been like being the only woman on the court after Justice O'Connor retired?" Ginsburg replied "It’s almost like being back in law school in 1956, when there were 9 of us in a class of over 500, so that meant most sections had just 2 women, and you felt that every eye was on you. Every time you went to answer a question, you were answering for your entire sex. It may not have been true, but certainly you felt that way. You were different and the object of curiosity."
When asked if she felt that way this time around from her male colleagues? (on the court) "My basic concern about being all alone was the public got the wrong perception of the court. It just doesn’t look right in the year 2009."

On June 12th of this year in a speech to the 2nd Circuit Judicial Conference Justice Ginsburg said "I was cheered by the President’s nomination of Second Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice. The nominee will bring to the Supreme Court, as she did to the District Court and the Court of Appeals, a wealth of experience in the law and in life. I am glad no longer to be the lone woman on the Court, and look forward to a new colleague well equipped to handle the challenges our work presents."

The Daily Beast called Ginsburg "Feminism's Last Line of Defense." They point to her work as co-director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project. "Ginsburg was a central figure in a string of cases in which various kinds of sex discrimination were ruled unconstitutional. She was famously clever in choosing cases in which discriminatory laws hurt men—one of her cases involved a widower father who couldn’t collect social security benefits available to widowed mothers, another challenged an Oklahoma law that let women buy low-alcohol beer at age 18, while men had to be 21. Presented with victimized men, justices had a way of suddenly comprehending the perniciousness of sexism. Her work resulted in many of the protections later generations of women would take for granted."

So, she was important for women. She has been important for men. She has been important for the freedom's we hold and the civil liberties we cherish, as Americans.

Before leaving on a flight to London a short time ago, Justice Ginsburg collapsed because she was taking over the counter medicine mixed with prescription medicine. I was concerned, very concerned. She was taken to the hospital, never made the flight to London, but released the next day. I was happy, very happy. Justice Ginsburg said in the interview with the Times that she was looking forward to moving into the chambers that retiring Justice David Souter is vacating. A good sign!

Here's hoping new Justice Sotomayor is everything we've hoped for, and that Justice Ginsburg serves for many years to come.