Recent events after the Gates arrest at Harvard suggest there's a larger problem with police-public interactions.
Wednesday will be your opportunity to work with others around the globe to interview American police officers, solicit their reactions, and share your results.
The goal here is not to provoke the police to arrest you, but to discuss with them their views on the events, and how they would prefer things to happen.
The hysterical party vesus the non-hysterical (possibly lobotomized?) party.
(I mean wouldn't it be nice if the Democrats could show something beyond behavior akin to frontal lobotomies and get MAD about SOMETHING? ANYTHING? Like eight years of Rove-Cheney-Bush and the mess it has left us in? Like bonuses with public money? Gosh, wouldn't it be great if Obama would even MENTION this...except then it would highlight the fact that if they were so appalled by the last eight years, why are they just bitching about it now? Why didn't they do something about it then?).
The idea of living in a country for the rest of my entire life and having to endure what is now a well-established method of the right wing exhausts me. The method is HYSTERIA, as if you have not noticed. This is what they are hysterical about:
Obama is taking our guns.
Obama was born in a foreign country and his birth certificate was forged.
We don't mind our taxes going to corporations and banks but fire will rain from the heavens if we actually get something for our tax dollars, like health care.
Obama's health care plan includes the clubbing of little old ladies with baseball bats.
Is this it now? The state of political (no, this is not even political), utterly empty brain dead dialogue in America is putting right-wing circus freaks on televsion and the radio where they spew ridiculous hysterical spittle from their mouths in an effort to get the most stupid of our nation riled up?
I keep thinking this is going to stop eventually but I don't think it is. As long as media outlets offer these subhumans forums to behave like this, it will never stop. The result will be the ever lowering of the bar in this country for intelligence. ( Talk to any 23 year old and you will be able to confirm that our national education system is in fact, in deep trouble).
There is one thing I am nearly hysterical about and that is these hysterical right wing idiots may never go away. The Swift Boating of critical and important national issues will be what we get for the rest of our lives now. Or more apt, I will have to work to avoid these right wing idiots for the rest of my life. Great.
Cultural evolution in America is done then if this is it. We topped out. It's all downhill from here. The left is too intent on policing itself instead of showing any courage and leadership and as Bill Maher has said, the left is now the new right while the right has gone insane. My experience is insane people are locked up and/or treated. They aren't given television shows where they appeal to people just like them until they are a hysterical writhing mass of ignorance but this is the goal of the right wing now. Create a hysterical writhing mass of hatred. Dr. Tiller. This is the tragic consequence of right-wing hysteria which as far as I can tell has no checks at all. So the idea of this as the modus operandi of our media and nation exhausts and alarms me. It will never stop. For every Rush Limbaugh, there are three more and each will receive a million dollar a year contract.
Their actions are hysterical, hate-filled, and destructive. And where are the checks?
There are none.
If this is it now, then be afraid, be very afraid, in fact, feel free to get hysterical about it.
Mike Finnigan is:
A) A universally respected musician that has played with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Etta James;
B) A one-time player on the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team;
C) A liberal d-list blogger's best friend;
D) The coolest cat you'll ever know;
E) All of the above.
If you answered "E," give yourself a point. Because while Finnigan's
five-decade musical career has made him one of the most respected
keyboardists and vocalists on the planet, he's also played a huge role
in helping shape how thousands of people get politically active on the
Internet. Because just as his music career is the stuff of legends, his
friendship with John Amato of Crooks & Liars means he will also go
down as liberal giant (he is 6-foot-5, after all).
"Mike is one of the most incredible people I've ever met," said Amato
in an e-mail exchange. "As a musician he's a living legend and I've had
the privilege of jamming with him. He's been a political activist for
decades and inspired me to get active in politics."
But while politics has always played an important role in Finnigan's life ("If you didn't know politics in my family you better just sit down and shut up. It is just part of the culture," said Finnigan.) It is his epic musical career for which he most known and respected.
Growing up in a musical family in Troy, Ohio, Finnigan was a young man with many interests. He dabbled as an amateur basketball player and was a talented enough basketball player to earn a four-year ride at Kansas University. But music was always his calling, and he left Kansas after two years to pursue his dreams.
"I played as a freshman but I was gradually losing interest and if you aren't fully plugged in there it isn't for you," said Finnigan. "So I left my four-year scholarship behind, and my parents thought I was nuts."
Finnigan, who started out as a drummer but moved to the Hammond B3 organ, started playing music with some veteran musicians. Building his music career from the ground up by playing numerous gigs at clubs in and around Ohio, Finnigan and his band - The Serfs ("We thought we were pretty hip with that name. People of the soil.") - earned a contract with producer Tom Wilson.
While in New York recording their first album "Early Bird Café," Finnigan's prowess on the Hammond B3 caught the ear of Hendrix, who nabbed him and two of his band mates to work on the album "Electric Ladyland." Jamming with Hendrix on two tracks, "Rainy Day, Dream Away" and "Still Raining, Still Dreaming," Finnigan's career officially took off.
From there, Finnigan has worked on numerous projects with an untold number of historic and diverse musicians over the years, including Etta James, Dave Mason, Jerry Wood, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and Young), Cher, Ringo Starr, Bobby Womack, Santana, Dan Fogelberg, Elvin Bishop, Eddie Money, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Leonard Cohen, John Hiatt, Bonnie Raitt, Alice Cooper, and many, many others.
While known primarily as a brilliant R&B keyboardist with a distinctive voice, Finnigan has dabbled in countless other music styles, including cutting a country album in 1993 with his youngest brother Sean and former Bread member Rob Royer. Finnigan remains proud of the project but says his age scared away record companies.
"We had some killer songs and killer players and had the luxury of doing it slowly and thoughtfully," Finnigan says on his official MySpace page. "We came within a whisker of making a deal but when the label found out I was 47 years old, they panicked and backed out. It was (and is) I believe, some of the best singing I've ever recorded."
Currently, Finnigan tours with his own blues group, the Phantom Blues Band, as well as the likes of Joe Cocker, Taj Mahal, the Phantom Blues Band, Raitt and other veteran musical stars. At 63, Finnigan says he long ago started taking better care of himself, helping him cruise through what is often a grueling road schedule.
"I was up for most the '70s and '80s, but in 1986, I quit drinking and drugging and all that and started taking care of myself, so it's not easy, but if you've doing it for as long as I have it's not that hard, either," said Finnigan in a telephone interview, adding that playing with Cocker is truly a positive experience for all involved.
"It's not as easy as it was when I was 30, but working with Joe is a piece of cake," said Finnigan. "Everyone gets along, they're professional and good people. It's an ego-free zone."
Finnigan said that he understands how difficult it is to make it in the music business, and that modern musicians are severely hampered by a lack of venues to perform.
"I've been damn lucky, really. There's been so many really good guys and girls that don't just catch a break," said Finnigan. "In general, there's not any live music, any more. When I was starting out you'd go somewhere like Tulsa where there would be 50 places where you could play, but not anymore."
Finnigan added that a new generation of music lovers has come along and now expects their music for free, thus making it even more difficult for musicians to make a living.
"Making money in the music business is getting harder and harder," said Finnigan. "Part of it has to do with there's a lot of people who think music should be free. If you like music, then you ought to support the art. If I want to listen to a Sonny Rollins' album, I should pay Sonny Rollins."
But while his place in music history is etched in stone, there are many who know Finnigan primarily as the host of "Mike's Blog Round Up" at Crooks & Liars. Finnigan was there at the start as a friend of Amato's, going so far as loaning Amato $400 to start the popular blog. When C&L (which got its name from a newsletter Finnigan used to compile and send to friends called the "Crooks & Liars Update" ), Amato reached out to his friend Finnigan for help.
"After C&L grew and I became insanely busy, I wanted to make Mike part of the website because of (the inspiration he'd given me) and I also wanted to pass traffic around to the good and less known writers of the liberal blogosphere, because their links had helped me so much," said Amato. "I asked him if he would like to do a daily column called "Mike's Blog Round Up" and he quickly accepted. It's been a fixture on C&L for many years and has helped uncover some incredible writers."
For Finnigan - a proud life-long liberal - "Mike's Blog Round Up" has given him an outlet for his politics, which he says haven't changed much over the years. Though the nation's politics have changed around him.
"I don't know what a democrat is supposed to be and I sure don't know what a republican is supposed to be any more," said Finnigan. "These days, someone like Nelson Rockefeller would be a leftist. And, hell, I'm like Che Guevarra now."
While Finnigan is as well-rounded an individual as you are likely to ever meet ("He's a fountain of knowledge on almost any topic," says Amato), his family remains the strongest source of his pride.
"I've been married 40 years, and that's unheard of in the music industry," said Finnigan, who curtailed much of his touring when his children were young in favor of working of working on soundtracks and advertisements closer to his Southern California home. He even did work with Fox, "Before they went ditzy."
"We were talking once and my children said they remembered me being home a lot," said Finnigan. "I was only on the road anout three months a year. Between 1976 and 1996, that was pretty civilized time for me, I did a lot of studio work."
So who is Mike Finnigan? Well, he's an important person to untold numbers of people around the globe for reasons raging from his music to his politics. And he most certainly is the coolest man in all of LeftBlogistan.
-WKW
Yep, I'm obese. It's such an ugly word. It's hard for me to write it. I prefer overweight, but by definition, since I weigh more than 20% more than I should, obese is the correct term. At 5' 3" I should weigh about 125. So any more than 150, and I'm there. I'm so embarrassed I can't even tell you the exact figure, so let's just say I have more than 25 and less than 75 to lose.
I am a health conscious person. I do not smoke, and drink lightly. And I am not sedentary. How did this ever happen to me?
My mother was hugely overweight for as long as I can remember. I felt so sorry for her. Trying on clothes was a major ordeal. She never looked good in anything, and I can remember thinking to myself "it's okay Mom, I love you anyway..." Back in those days I don't think I realized that the fried bread and canned frosting on saltines we ate before Dad got home (and hid the evidence in the outside trash) were responsible for both her weight problem and the beginnings of my awful eating habits. All I knew was that I was a skinny kid, and no matter what, I'd NEVER be fat. By the time she died at the age of 63 (it was an accidental death - not weight related) she weighed about 325 and required a special casket. By then I was already clinically "obese." You would have thought that the need for a special casket would have sent me for a needle and thread to sew my lips shut.
Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. When I was still a skinny person, I knew I had the genes, that nurtured properly, would lead me into a life of obesity, but hey, I was thin, I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain weight, so what the heck? And besides, cheese and french fries for dinner followed by a hand-packed pint of Baskin and Robbins (1/2 chocolate mint, 1/2 jamoca almond fudge) was soooo much fun!
Fast forward a few years...After the babies were born and that weight lost, I hit 30 and the descent into obesity began in earnest. I had awful eating habits and it was finally beginning to show. I began an exercise program, but the eating habits stayed the same. I never ate breakfast, and rarely lunch. I didn't start feeling hungry until mid-afternoon, when I'd eat whatever was fast and handy. Then I'd graze the rest of the day and into the night. No 5 cheeseburgers, or anything so obvious...just nibbling. Constant nibbling. Even becoming a vegetarian didn't effect the weight issue.
Every once in awhile I'd get sick of myself and diet the weight off, never quite getting to where I wanted to be, but close, then I'd gain it all back...again and again and again. Each time the top weight got a little higher, as did the lower.
Now, I'm not a stupid person. I get that what I put in my mouth has a direct correlation to the fat on my butt. I could write the book about what to eat, when to eat it. I eat almost all organic food, and very little junk food. And if you want to compare calories, I doubt that I eat as many in a day as you do anymore. I have just lost and gained my way into metabolic hell. At this point my body could turn a banana into a pound of fat. But, even at that, if I upped my exercise, cut back just a bit on the intake and spread the calories out over the whole day instead of cramming them into a few hours, I could get the metabolism going and get this issue licked once and for all.
So why is it so hard? I've come to the conclusion that I don't have a weight problem, I have a self care problem that manifests itself through weight (borrowed that from Oprah!) But self care is something I can address if I want to badly enough.
What about those others who either don't get it because of lack of education or are too poor to buy fresh foods, so they eat off the high fat, high salt, high sugar value menu at their local fast food place, or just live in an area where fresh foods are hard to find? What about the ones that are so stressed out that their only comfort is food? If this weight thing is so hard for me, I can only imagine how difficult it must be for them!
Let's face it, for many food is an addiction just as powerful as nicotine or drugs, or alcohol. But, you can't just stay away from food. Somehow you have to make peace with it. And that, combined with our sedentary lifestyles is a disaster in the making.
With obesity comes dangerous health issues that could easily sink the whole health care situation in America if it is not addressed. A whopping amount of money is spent each year in treating weight related diseases. I am still healthy right now. But eventually, if I don't get my weight down, I WILL become a drain on the system. It only makes sense that regardless of whether we get single pay, insurance reform or more of the status quo, this issue is going to have to be dealt with, and hopefully before a staggering number of people, including way too many children, develop the diseases.
So once again we are back to the issue of personal responsibility. I can't make our leaders support single pay, or force them to reform the insurance industry, or make people be doctors so we don't have to ration care. But I CAN take responsibility for myself, get this weight off and do my part to consume fewer of our health care assets so they can be available for those who REALLY need them. And, I can model healthy eating habits for my grandchildren.
I hope all the rest of you who are obese (or even just overweight) or are abusing your bodies in equally destructive ways (ummmm smoking comes to mind) will join me in starting a more healthful way of living, in preparation for whatever the new health care program is going to be.
And Lis, I didn't eat the cookie!
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
Why is President Obama Losing Momentum in the Polls?
President Obama is beginning to lose the politically essential enthusiasm of many independent voters. The primary reason for that is that he seems to be deviating from the message that got their support in the first place. During his campaign, candidate Obama promised "A Change that We Can Believe in," but now, President Obama's vain attempt to appease the GOP is only serving to water down the very change that he promised, and America expected.
We embraced Obama because we understood that many of the problems in this country was a direct result of the logjam caused by the endless feuding between the far left and right fringes of American politics. We had the sense that Obama wasn't a partisan player, so middle America rose up, put race aside, and selected him as a refreshing change.
And as president, Obama is indeed a refreshing change in that he's neither liberal nor is he conservative. He's a pragmatist, so unlike most, his thinking is not distorted by a one-size-fit-all, pre-chewed and regurgitated ideology. He assesses every issue on its own merit, and he bases his decisions on what he believes is in the best interest of America as a whole.
But ironically, it is that very pragmatism that's currently undermining his efforts.
Political pragmatism has led President Obama to mistakenly believe that the best way to resolve the nation's problems is through reaching out in bipartisanship to the Republican Party. That sounds good in theory, but it can only work if the Republican Party is acting in good faith, which it isn't.
The Republicans have no interest in bipartisanship - especially if it means helping to resolve America's problems. Their only interest is in undermining Obama's presidency, serving their corporate contributors, and stoking the flame of division among the social fringies in the Palin\Limbaugh wing of the party. Clear evidence of that is apparent in Sen. Jim DeMint's (R, S.C.) comment indicating that if they can block healthcare reform it will break Obama - never giving a thought to the negative impact that would have on the families of millions of jobless Americans.
So the president's good will is being used against him, and based on the latest polls, with increasing effectiveness. The Republicans are using his attempt at bipartisanship to water down his initiatives to point where they're close to meaningless, then voting against them anyway after he's compromised in an attempt to accommodate them.
The president's accommodating nature is allowing Republican nihilists to have their cake and eat it too. First, they're sabotaging his bills with so many amendments that they're rendering them ineffective. Then, if the initiative is effective, they claim that the only reason it worked was due to their amendments. But if it's ineffective, they tell the American people, "See, we told you he didn't know what he's doing."
As a result, the polls show that many Democrats and independents are becoming increasingly weary with what's beginning to look like Obama's incessant catering to the whims of the right. Many of the president's supporters are now openly saying, we might as well have a Republican in office if he's going to give them everything they want. And it's becoming harder to argue that point with each day that passes.
In spite of the fact the every member of the administration has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, the Obama administration is doing a better job of protecting Bush and Cheney from accountability than they did for themselves, and it's absolutely unconscionable.
The Bush/Cheney regime mounted a blatant assault on the United States Constitution, caused the death and injury of thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, and they committed war crimes so heinous that they have all but destroyed the reputation of the United States throughout the world - and all for the purpose of political and financial gain. So why are they walking around with impunity?
While one might argue that the president fully intends to address this issue, along with the matter of sexual bigotry within the military, his economic stimulus and healthcare reform is under attack, so it's simply impractical to also alienate the Bush apologists and homophobes at this time.
I don't think that argument stands up. The class of people who represent the homophobes and Bush apologists are going to be hostile to the president's initiatives regardless to what action he takes, or fail to take. So by failing to promptly address the mandate that got him elected, he stands to lose his base of support without gaining a thing. And further, if the GOP were kept busy trying to protect the Bush/Cheney legacy, they wouldn't have the time to distort the president's healthcare reform at their leisure.
But most importantly, President Obama is a constitutional scholar, so he should know better than anyone that it's not up to him whether or not these men are held accountable. Their accountability is dictated by the rule of law, and either a nation believes in the rule of law, or it doesn't. Thus, by turning his back on his responsibility in this matter, Obama is setting a precedent that tells the world, and posterity, that in America the powerful are above the law, and the rule of law is secondary to political pragmatism.
By taking this position he's placing the future of this nation in serious jeopardy. If Richard Nixon had gone to jail for Watergate, and Ronald Reagan had joined him for his excesses during the Iran/Contra affair and flooding our inner cities with drugs in order to finance it, the Bush administration wouldn't have dared to engage in the criminal activity that they engaged in.
The only reason Bush and Cheney felt free to mount an assault on our constitution is because a precedent had been set with Nixon and Reagan that the powerful was above the law. Now, with President Obama talking about "looking forward," that precedent threatens to be set in stone. If that becomes the case, what can we expect from the next generation of demagogues?
So it's understandable that the polls are beginning to show that many Democratic and independent voters are beginning to question the president's approach to this matter. It's nothing close to a change that we can believe in. As they see it, it is one thing to be a nice guy, but it is something altogether different to completely ignore the rule of law - even in an attempt to be pragmatic.
As Neville Chamberland learned after his warm and fuzzy moment with Adolf Hitler - it never pays to kiss a snake.
"Let them have bake sales..."
The GOP are trying to make hay over the problems with the Cash for Clunkers program. Claiming that it's a prime example of how 'government' handles things, imagine what they would do with health care, they say.
Yes, let's look at the way government has handled health care. Let's look at how they've handled federal and state workers health care and pensions. Let's look at how they've handled our military's health care with the Veterans Administration. Let's look how they've handled medicare and social security for centuries.
Gosh folks, who hasn't started up a new project at their work place only to find they've made a few mistakes along the way? I can't tell you the amount of errors that were found during past conversions at my place of business or at past employments.
What the GOP, along with the media, seem to ignore is -- the GOOD that has come from this one particular project. Thousands of newer, more energy efficient cars are now on the road, and thousands more will soon be.
Thousands of car dealers are actually getting some business for a change instead of sitting at their little service desk in a chair with their feet on that desk, waiting and hoping for a customer to walk in.
This helps the economy people -- that is in it's worse shape since the Great Depression.
I've said all along that this kind of deal for several items that are expensive and that use energy (refrigerators, stoves, furnaces, air conditioners, new roofs and windows) would not only create jobs it would help our environment and save on our energy bills.
What do Republicans think? They think it's a poorly ran program (just like the Medicare and Social Security programs)....ignoring that 'anything' can be 'fixed' and should be, especially if it's 'helping' the economy, our seniors and disabled and our beautiful earth.
This reaction by the GOP should be used as an example of the way Republicans handle things. Instead of trying to fix a problem, they junk it.
In ages past, our great land was inhabited by tribes of people whose experience of life was primitive and simple. Hunting and gathering food was the order of the day for thousands of years. Protecting themselves from extremes of weather and threats of wild beasts, our aboriginal ancestors had no thoughts about the price of tea in China or the price of gold in Rome. No nation-states existed here in North America--no governmental mandates, no houses of Congress, no paper money, no grocery stores, no highways, no cars nor computers nor ipods nor tripods.
Actually, there were tripods. Constructed of lashed trees, and covered with animal skins, their purpose was to shed rain and snow so the inhabitants wouldn't be cold and wet. The earliest Americans used tripods--or teepees-- not to mount cameras and thereby capture images of life as we do today, but to protect their life from the perilous elements of the natural world.
And nature is, btw, dangerous. We tend to forget that these days, since our modern awareness of dangers is more attuned to those threats originating with other humans. Our native peoples certainly did have to contend with threats posed by other humans, but their collective threats against each other were not as elaborately organized or technologized as ours are today. . .
Until, that is, about half a millennium ago. All of that primordial simplicity was rather suddenly and rudely complicated by the arrival of Europeans.
These immigrating people-groups from the Continent had most of those basic life-needs pretty much taken care of. Civilization had adjusted their desires to higher levels of refinement. Spaniards came here looking for gold. Englishman sought untapped resources and business opportunities. Dutch reformers hoped to find religious freedom.
Their quests comprise, when you think about it, needs that are highly evolved-- much more complex than, say, the search for meat and potatoes and warmth that the aboriginals had conducted.
We have discovered in the last 500 years or so that civilization, highly developed as it is, brings with it a whole new set of similarly highly-evolved perils. Notable among such troubles is the instability, and the unpleasant consequences thereof, that arises from cyclical economic patterns--booms and busts.
Now we find
ourselves in the 21st century-- post-Depression,post-New Deal, post-Great Society, post-Morning in America, post-recession, post bubble, post- Chrysler, post-Enron
and AIG, post-derivative, post-cds, post hft, post neo-deal--getting back to the primeval roots . . .
Having questions like: "Where's the roof that was over my head?" Or, "Where's my next acquisition of meat and potatoes?"
And answers like: "I don't know, Joe. We'll stop for gas; then we'll swing by the ATM; then we'll stop at K&B and get your prescription filled, and then we'll go to to A&P for groceries."
These are
highly-refined needs on Mazlow's list. Such are the questions that arise in civilization.
Carey Rowland, author of Glass half-Full
I beg everyone who reads this and clicks onto the link to send it on to everyone you know. Send it to your congressmen, your governors, your legislatures, the White House. Get an email chain going--put the link up on yard signs or billboards. Put it on bumper stickers. Stencil it on tee-shirts or tattoo it onto your forehead. Whatever it takes.I was tickled pink that she got such recognition. So I am sending a shout out for her.
This is a television event too important to let die. Please. Keep it alive. Keep it going. It's up to us now.
One blogger at the widely read website Talking Points Memo summed up what many had to say: "I beg everyone who reads this and clicks onto the link to send it on to everyone you know. Send it to your congressmen, your governors, your legislatures, the White House. Get an email chain going--put the link up on yard signs or billboards. Put it on bumper stickers. Stencil it on tee-shirts or tattoo it onto (sic) your forehead. Whatever it takes. This is a television event too important to let die... Keep it going."
Democrat angst seems to be building over the governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, but needlessly so. Any Republican optimism about these elections signalling a change in forturnes is hugely misplaced. The off-cycle Dem wins in both virginia and New Jersey governor elections in 2005 turned out to be bellweathers for the 2006 Blue Wave. Even if (I'd say when) the GOP takes both the NJ and VA governorships this fall, that doesn't mean in any way Republicans are coming back. Unlike 2005, these two elections are purely local.
The underlying dynamics of a rapidly rotting Republican party had a lot to do with the 2005 elections, especially in Virginia where Gov. Kaine's opponent made a grave mistake with a "Hitler ad" on TV. Devout Catholic Tim Kaine said he would enforce but was opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds and, when asked, said that his position would hypothetically apply to Hitler. The ad was a huge mistake, unnecessarily displaying GOP attack dog politics at a time when party credibility was in a national nosedive and the GOP candidate had a huge lead. Right after that ad, the polls steadily reversed until Kaine, Lt. Gov. to the popular Mark Wagner, made up a deficit similar to what Creigh Deeds faces now and narrowly won. Bob McDonnell won't make that kind of error, and, at best, Virginia is still a swing state, probably ready to go back to a Republican governor after eight years with the Democrats. But the demographics of Virginia continue to trend blue and that's not changing any time soon.
New Jersey hates its Democrats until they get re-elected, but the state has been an economic wasteland. It's probably unfair to John Corzine who's greatest failure is not being a miracle worker. The organ-trafficking scandal swept up local Dems, but that's all NJ has locally, so I don't think it's a factor. There's just a lot of angry voters in New Jersey right now and Corzine is a convenient target.
If the Dems retain either state, it's New Jersey, but if they lose both, it's not because of any underlying momentum swing against Democrats generally. That won't keep Republicans from trying to make a sweep into some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's just not in the cards. Democrats have been remarkably scandal-free since November, keeping their promises (or at least attempting to), and overall, things are indeed getting better thanks to federal action and the natural business cycle.
There is nothing for the GOP to leverage in 2010 no matter how many times Michael Steele says "We're back baby!" (what an idiot; but I digress). The media will also be all over the wins in NJ and VA if they happen, simply because there won't be that much to talk about elsewhere in politics. But ignore all of that -- positive change is just not there for the Party of Lincoln in 2010 no matter what happens on the Atlantic Coast in 2005. But this is:
My GOP: Too old, too white to win
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/07/20/gop_math/
In the future, we will spell "GOP" with five letters: "S-O-U-T-H".
Exceptional ,yes. Exceptionally wrong. Which is connected with our misunderstanding of how our system works.
Almost alone in the "developed" world the US entrusts medical care-that is to the say our lives- to the Market. As Arnold Relman notes( July 2 New York Review) in 1963 the Nobel Prize winner Kenneth Arrow made the definitive argument why that doesn't work.
Quoting Relman ,quoting Arrow:
". medical care cannot conform to market laws because patients are not ordinary consumers and doctors are not ordinary vendors * ......patients must rely on physicians in ways fundamentally different from the price-driven relation between buyers and sellers in an ordinary market....contrary to the assumption of anti trust law, market competition..cannot ...lower medical prices. And since physicians influence decisions.far more than patients...health costs need to be controlled by forces other than the market "
(As they pretty much were when Arrow wrote at a time when professional standards,a still progressive tax system, and a non litagatory consensus meant we had reasonable health care, reasonably priced.)
How does it happen that we get this so wrong?
Remember Ann Richards comment that G.H.W.Bush was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple ? Something like that applies to all of us..
We occupy a space-essentially a continent- so endowed with everything required for a prosperous country that it takes extraordinary efforts not to have a society in which everyone lives well. We've made those efforts(think Globilization and a non progressive tax system) and consequently a significant proportion of our population is- unnecessarily- poorly fed , poorly housed and unemployed.And scorned for their misery which is attributed to their personal failings rather than being seen as the result of the system we've put in place.
We understand ,dimly, that the Fed follows a policy intended to ensure that unemployment will not fall below 5% but nevertheless scold those included in that unfortunate 5% for not making the effort that would allow them to get a job at the expense of someone else who would instead join that 5%.
Even more wrong headed we-or at least intelligent conservatives (forget Limbaugh,Coulter and Co,-think Friedman , Kristal, Brooks and Bernanke)- perversely misidentify these failures of our system as causes of the residual benefits of our fortunate location their philosophy has not yet blighted..
We've had greatness thrust upon us . And we ducked.
*Kenneth J. Arrow " Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care" The American Economic Review December 1963
Hmmmm . . . This is GREAT to see . . .
Very very interesting . . .
And big huge THANKS goes out to Ramona for her efforts here in her blog . . .
Bill Moyers shines light on the health
insurance mess - a Journalistic Best
The video and transcript link for Moyers' show from last night is here:
pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html
Here's Moyer's opening:
One blogger at the widely read website Talking Points Memo summed up what many had to say:"I beg everyone who reads this and clicks onto the link to send it on to everyone you know. Send it to your congressmen, your governors, your legislatures, the White House. Get an email chain going--put the link up on yard signs or billboards. Put it on bumper stickers. Stencil it on tee-shirts or tattoo it onto (sic) your forehead. Whatever it takes. This is a television event too important to let die... Keep it going."
Well, it's alive and well, and thanks to this station, you're about to see it again. The message is even more timely. You heard Wendell Potter tell us how the industry would try to shape the health care debate as it played out in Washington over the summer. Sure enough, that's exactly what has happened. By pouring millions of dollars into lobbying -- including hiring more than 350 former members of congress and government staffers and by enriching incumbents with campaign contributions -- the health care industry is winning again.
It's already too late for Bolton to change his mind. Israeli nuclear-armed submarines are even now awaiting instructions to strike.
Israel probably plans to send nuclear-armed, Dolphin class submarines through the Suez canal, skirting Yemen and Oman , up into the Straits of Hormuz in the Gulf, offshore from the UAE, there to fire warheads directly into Iran. These would have air-support from US supplied, missile loaded, Israeli F16 multi-strike aircraft
'The first subs of this class, equipped with sophisticated navigation and combat systems, were supplied to Israel by Germany in the 1990s, two of them as a gift. At Israel 's request, besides the six 533 mm launching tubes, suitable for short-range cruising missiles, all the subs were outfitted with four additional 659 mm tubes for launching long-range nuclear cruising missiles: the Popeye Turbos, which can strike targets up to 1500 km away. These missiles are a spin-off from the US versions and were manufactured jointly by the Israeli firm Rafael and Lockheed-Martin in an airborne version.
In 2010 the three nuclear attack-submarines were joined by two others, again from Germany . They were built in the Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG shipyards at a cost of 1.27 billion dollars, one third of which was financed by the German government. The Jerusalem Post confirms that also the two new ones, whose type-code is U-212, were built according to "Israeli specifications": they are faster (20 knots), have a wider range of action (4,500 km), and are more silent, allowing them to close in on objectives without being spotted.
According to military experts, one of the three Dolphins furnished by Germany patrols the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the second is deployed in the Mediterranean , while the third is held in reserve. With the addition of two more, the number of those under sail, ready to launch a nuclear attack, has as much as doubled. And this is only part of Israel 's nuclear might, estimated as between 200-400 warheads, equivalent to almost four thousand Hiroshima-type bombs, and whose vectors include over three-hundred US F-16 and F-15 fighter planes and about fifty Jericho II ballistic missiles on mobile launching ramps. These and other nuclear weapons are ready for launching around the clock.'
It is doubtful whether the United Arab Emirates will be happy that a damaging nuclear conflict will be brought to their doorsteps.
The danger to peace of disproportionate nuclear capability
Estimated worldwide nuclear stockpiles, 2009
Country: Total Warheads: Population
Russia:13,000 / 142,000,000
United States:9,400 / 307,000,000
*Israel (undeclared):100 - 400 max / 7,400,000
France:300 / 65,000,000
China:240 / 1,332,000,000
United Kingdom:185 / 62,000,000
India:60 / 1,167,000,000
Pakistan:60 / 167,000,000
North Korea:10 / 24,000,000
Dependent on the true number of undeclared nuclear warheads, Israel could be the 3rd most powerful nuclear state in the world if possessing the maximum estimated number of WMD. In that event she would be twice as powerful as the UK with a demographic just over only 1/10th the size of Britain's.
Undeclared nuclear states (from Wikipedia)
Nuclear weapons and Israel
Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and refuses to officially confirm or deny having a nuclear arsenal, or having developed nuclear weapons, or even having a nuclear weapons program. Israel has pledged not to be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the region, but is also pursuing a policy of strategic ambiguity with regard to their possession. In the late 1960s, Israeli Ambassador to the US Yitzhak Rabin informed the United States State Department, that its understanding of "introducing" such weapons meant that they would be tested and publicly declared, while merely possessing the weapons did not constitute "introducing" them. Although Israel claims that the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona is a "research reactor", or, as was originally claimed, a "textile factory," no scientific reports based on work done there have ever been published. Extensive information about the program in Dimona was also disclosed by technician Mordechai Vanunu in 1986.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Federation of American Scientists, Israel possesses around 75-200 weapons. Imagery analysts can identify weapon bunkers, mobile missile launchers, and launch sites in satellite photographs. Israel may have tested a nuclear weapon along with South Africa in 1979, but this has never been confirmed (see Vela Incident).
On May 26, 2008, former US president Jimmy Carter stated that Israel has "150 or more nuclear warheads" at a press conference at the annual literary Hay festival in Wales.
GD 073109
Titles: Satan Never SleepsWell folks, once again that bastion of freedom, the John Birch Society is back in MSM.
As the current Millennia reared its head in opposition to THE RAPTURE, the John Birch Society was actually invited to CSPAN to spew its ugly rhetoric. I recall this, but I cannot give you the year I can just tell you I watched it several times along with a group advocating that the gold standard should never have been abandoned. The gold standard nuts were at least more forthright about their stances.
This was like the devil in Marlowe's tome coming across as a rather decent guy.
So what is the John Birch Society? Where did this bastion of truth, justice and the American Way come from anyway?
Well I always like to start with Wiki:
The John Birch Society is a political education and action organization founded by Robert W. Welch Jr. in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1958. The society supports traditionally conservative causes such as anti-communism and the ownership of private property.[1] It promotes U.S. independence and sovereignty and opposes globalism and international regional groups, such as the European Union, or a hypothetical North American Union
Okie Dokie. I am glad that is cleared up. These patriots put together a group of good people who were against communism. Oh and there is fathead dobbs right with them all concerned about a North American Union. My God, communists and those dirty Hispanics although I am not sure what they have against Canada. But these fine people were against other things, things that cause us all a lot of concern.
Welch served as vice chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party finance committee in 1948, and unsuccessfully ran for Lt. Governor in the 1950 Republican primary. Welch supported the ultraconservative Taft over the more moderate Eisenhower by running as a Massachusetts Taft delegate to the 1952 Republican convention. In 1952 Welch wrote May God Forgive Us, a study alleging "subversive influences" by government officials and their allies to shape "public opinion and governmental policies to favor the Communist advance." The book was published by the ultraconservative Henry Regnery Company, which in 1954 also published Welch's The Life of John Birch, which told the story of a fundamentalist missionary in China who became an intelligence agent for General Claire Chennault's Flying Tigers. Birch was killed by Chinese communist soldiers while he was on a mission at the end of WWII. In February of 1956 Welch started publishing a magazine, One Man's Opinion, and in January 1957 he left the candy business to devote his energies to "the anti-Communist cause." http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/jbs.html
So at least now I know who John Birch was.
But Welch, again began as a repub and constantly called for the impeachment of Earl Warren and represented a right wing, right Christian perspective. Naturally this fed right into the cause against Civil Rights in this country.
The "Support Your Local Police" campaign opposed the use of federal officers to enforce civil rights laws. "[T]he Communist press of America has been screaming for years to have local police forces discredited, shunted aside, or disbanded and replaced by Federal Marshals or similar agents and personnel of a national federalized police force," one article complained. Another reason articulated for opposing the civil rights movement was that it was a creation of Communists, and Birch members were urged to "Show the communist hands behind it." According to a 1967 personal letter from Welch to retired General James A. Van Fleet inviting him to serve on the Birch National Council:
==="Five years ago, few people who were thoroughly familiar with the main divisions of Communist strategy saw any chance of keeping the Negro Revolutionary Movement from reaching decisive proportions. It was to supply the flaming front to the whole 'proletarian revolution,' as planned by Walter Reuther and his stooge, Bobby Kennedy" http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/jbs.html
Oh yeah, besides Mexicanos, we must worry about the Negroes. What a wonderful thing, this privately funded organization protecting us from our own citizens.
Well, William Buckley, early on, was disturbed by this group. You remember Buckley, that liberal pinko commie:
"How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points... so far removed from common sense?" Buckley asked. The attack on the Birchers, he wrote later, "proved fatal over time." After Buckley's attack, the John Birch Society became unwelcome in mainstream conservative circles. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-29/too-hot-for-fox-news/
Michelle Goldberg covers the new appearance of the Birchers into MSM. Fox News of course welcomes them onto the Napolitano show called (what else?) Freedom Watch.
That is, until recently. On July 1, John Birch Society President John McManus was a guest on Judge Andrew Napolitano's online-only Fox News show Freedom Watch, which airs every Wednesday at 2 p.m. Their chat was friendly, ranging over the "abominable doctrine of collectivism," the malevolent influence of "government schools," and the fraud of manmade global warming. Napolitano seemed to be actively trying to rehabilitate the John Birch Society's reputation. Untouchable as it once was, the group's old-right ideology fits well with the tenor of his show, which is full of figures previously dismissed as cranks--not just Birchers but 9/11 truthers and secessionists as well.
Andrew was a Federal Judge. Can you believe it and if you go to the link and listen to the show, you will hear Andew WELCOMING a real friend in the John Birch Society. A man he shares so many ideas with.
When this situation is taken in its proper context, one must become alarmed. I mean the birthers, the Birchers, the general besmirchers, and the secessionists all conspiring together and getting air time on the Main Stream Media.
THIS IS SCARY STUFF!!!
One Satan that never sleeps in the John Birch Society
"Yesterday, the State Department sent a very clear message to the President of the Republic, that he is the only President of the Republic of Honduras they recognize. They went to find him to tell him, 'there is an ultimatum that has been given to the coup regime. If they do not step down, we are going to have to act.'"Meanwhile, the Golpistas are threatening to revoke the visas of the US Embassy team. Interesting, they did that with the Venezuelan Embassy last week, but the ambassador and his team ignored it, since it didn't come from a recognized government. I don't know if Llorens and his staff would leave - but there are 600 US troops and some significant firepower a few clicks away at the airbase.
From itskevin over at dailykos:
Read the rest of the diary for some action items...Dem Party Leadership May Abandon Baucus Talks
According to The Note over at ABC News, there might be some real meat to the rumors that rank-and-file Senate Democrats and party leadership may throw in the towel on Max Baucus' super-secret, interminable bipartisan talks.
With the health care bill languishing in the Senate and under fire in the House, Democratic leaders are quietly preparing for Plan B.
Under the scenario now being discussed, bi-partisan talks would be aborted and parliamentary maneuvers used to force the bill through with a party-line vote.
And from an inside source:
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., still has time to try to work out a deal with his Republican counterpart Chuck Grassley, but fellow Democrats are growing restless.
"There's rising disgruntlement with how Baucus has handled this," a senior Democratic aide tells ABC News. "We have to look at other options."
Let's hope this is true. For our part, we might be able to exert real pressure in forcing our leaders to take a stand - and sooner rather than later.
Caught Up In The Rapture
Olivia tapped her foot impatiently on the church front step.
Really, if he's gonna meet me here, he could at least be on time, she thought to herself.
She looked down and noticed she was tapping on a crack.
There goes Mama's back, she muttered aloud and laughed.
Maybe if she's lucky we'll get single payer this year. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Bill sheepishly peeking around the corner of the street. She gave a little wave. He visibly gulped. She hid a smile and beckoned him to come further.
Bill put a pair of sunglasses on and pulled a newspaper out from under the crook of his arm and pretended to read it as he walked towards the church. As he neared Olivia at the stairs he whispered through clenched teeth, I don't want anyone to recognize me. Go in alone, and I'll sit behind you.
Olivia laughed and then turned away and walked into the church doors.
Sure enough, within minutes she could hear Bill panting heavily as he sweatily seated himself behind her.
And then the sermon began....
Hitler and Obama......where shall I begin? Well, Obama is not Hitler, we all know that by now. Okay, well, his SUPPORTERS know that....but the rest of the country still has doubts......and I say that's okay. Because any President with all the people in the nation behind him minus a few who can't do what Hitler accomplished after a few months ain't no President of mine! Can I get an aye men?
At this point all the men in the church stood and shouted, Aye!
Olivia muttered, Men....
But of course, no one heard her.
Now, we all know that you must be born in a manger to be heralded the savior, but where in hell was Obama born?? Anybody??????
No one spoke. No one spake, even.
And there you have it, ladies and good gentlemen of the Church! Obama was never born, therefore he can't be President. Can I get an A, men?
All the men in the church stood and shouted "A" while making awkward hand gestures that looked as though they were trying to spell the word "A" with their arms, only they had forgotten to take the Village People Course in Spelling, so that they all looked as though they were raising their hands towards the ceiling like interior decorators measuring drapes, only not holding measuring tapes.
God loves our country and we cannot see it torn down any longer by the Wrong People who lurk in our mist! cried the Pastor.
Aye, mist!!! yelled all the men in the church.
Oy...it's midst, you asshats, muttered Olivia under her breath, smiling to herself.
Just then she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Olivia tuned out the pastor's ramblings and turned her head to the left in order to hear Bill's frantic whisper from behind.
I'm not sure my wife would approve of me being here. But I've just found Jesus. You said on the phone last night that you could help me find him even further here. So far, I'm not seeing Him. Am I missing something?
How 'bout half your brain, Bill? Hahahaha. Instead, Olivia said, Once the choir starts to sing and we all feel caught up in the rapture, you might feel differently. Now, pay attention to the Pastor.
And so while Bill listened intently to the Pastor, growing more and more confused at each word, Olivia spent the rest of the hour planning her week ahead.
And finally the choir started to sing:
Our Church, its bigger
It's bigger than left wing nuts who hate you and me
The lengths
that they will go to
The tactics they will try
Oh no, they've
said too much
They set us up
That's us on the
fringes
That's them in the spotlight
Cursin' my
religion
Trying to keep God from you
And I don't know if they
can do it
Oh no, they've said too much
We haven't said
enough
We can hear them laughing
But if they could just hear us
sing
I think, they would hear our truth
Every whisper
As
of this important hour we're makin' our confessions
God's
gonna keep an eye on thou
They are like a blinded fool
Oh no,
they've said too much
They set us up
Consider this
Consider
this a world eons older
Consider this
A science that brings us up our knees to our true
God
What if all the bible truths
Come flailing around
Now
I've said too much
I thought that I heard them laughing
I hope
that they hear us sing
I think, I thought, we can just try
Now I've said too much
I thought that I heard them laughing
I
thought that we could be heard singing
I think, I thought, we
could just try
That was just a dream
That was just a
dream
That's them in the corner
That's them in the
spotlight
Attackin' my religion
Trying to keep us secular
And
I don't know if they can do it
Oh no, they've said too much
We've
all just had enough
Enough of all their laughing
Now they can
hear us sing
I think hell will make them fry
This ain't
just a dream
Pray, pray, pray, pray
This is just our dream
Just our dream
With that the services were over. All were jubilant. The rapture would come and the secularists would all be burned and the Community would be graced by the sight of Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. (The Community blesses itself lost in their own rapture).
What if all this crap were all TRUE? thought Olivia. Hahahahahaha. She could not help laughing to herself.
This is the key to movin' on up to the big time. A big smile came over her face.
She had forgotten about Bill. The guy is so weird. But he can help my cause. After all, my cause is all that counts in the end.
Bill was lurking in the background. He approached Olivia with a feeling of exhilaration.
Hi Olivia. I do not mean to bother you. Do you have a second?
Olivia turned. Oh no, another one with The Rapture all over his stupid face, she thought.
Why Bill, I did not see you there.
Oh I hate to be a bother but something happened to me. I mean real stuff happened to me. This is the first time I have been to this church. Or any church for that matter in a long long time. I feel as if I have been reborn.
I knew it. I could see it. But how to make the best of this, Olivia thought.
Well Bill I will see you on the morrow and I am thinking of beginning a prayer group just before the morning bell. Would you care to join us?
Oh I would like that very much, Bill said, his spirits rising as well as other things.
And Olivia went home, pouring herself a stiff one and finding herself in her favorite soft and cushy chair.
And as she rested on the seventh day, Olivia thought, THIS IS GOOOOOOOD!!!
First up, our local Speed Racer, who didn’t want to go to church:
With scads of Speed Racer vids after the break …
So has anyone else noticed that the birthers seem to be concentrated in the same areas as those who are the most religious?
It's almost as if religion trains people to believe what they want, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.
I have to note, however, that I have only seen correlation, not causality. But I wouldn't be surprised to find a causal link, would you?
A young man-about-Malibu like me gets set up with blind dates all the time, and I usually accommodate my many Best Friends Forever by squiring their mysteriously unattached older sisters back and forth between Planet Blue and Moonshadows.
Sometimes I put off a really scary prospect like Obama's Bipartisan Agenda month after month, but eventually I always give in, and in this case I was pleasantly surprised.
Obama's Bipartisan Agenda may not fit the patriarchy's stereotype of feminine beauty, but...
The billions weren't real, but the message was.
The top hat and tuxedo-clad "Billionaires for Budget Cuts" descended on Hartford yesterday, heaping some damning praise on Republican Governor Jodi Rell for her steadfast refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to close the state's $8 billion budget deficit.
The Connecticut Working Families Party sponsored the tongue-in-cheek rally as part of a month long campaign against the Governor's regressive budget proposal. Her plan calls for closing the gap with taxes on the middle-class and billions in cuts to basic services working families dependent on. But Rell is defiantly opposing a proposal to raise income taxes on the wealthy, what many progressive economists say is the best solution for states facing budget shortfalls.
The billionaires -- "Robin Eublind, "Rich N. Luvenit," and "Iona Lottabotes" -- called "Our Jodi" their "best investment." Arriving at the Capitol by limousine, they chanted a refrain the Governor has taken to heart, "taxes are for little people!"
At the press conference, the Billionaires lauded Governor Rell's Executive Order for July, which slashed funding for public services, from the life-saving LifeStar helicopter, to family resource centers and school-based health clinics.
The Obama Administration is now working on a proposal that could have a deeper, more dramatic impact on American society than any national initiative in years. No, not a climate change plan, or health care reform, or the continuing efforts to deal with a recession and two wars. The initiative with the greatest capacity to affect our lives may be the Open Government Directive, Obama's attempt to realize the rhetoric of his campaign and establish a new relationship between citizens and their government.
The directive began with the Presidential Memo on Transparency and Open Government released on Obama's first day in office. Since then, the White House has solicited thousands of suggestions and comments through an online forum that is open to the public. Next, the administration will release the Directive itself: the first concrete steps toward the president's broad vision.
Why does Open Government have such game-changing potential? Not because of the president himself, though his background as a community organizer and his embrace of online technologies have both shaped the way the initiative is unfolding.
The true power of the Open Government initiative is that it is building on a larger, more foundational shift in the development of our democracy. For at least a decade, it has been clear - first at the local level, where most major political trends originate - that ordinary citizens have very different attitudes and capacities from their counterparts in previous generations. The limitations of the traditional, 'child-parent' relationship between citizens and government are becoming more obvious, and we are struggling to establish more productive 'adult-adult' forms of governance.
Most citizens have less time for public life, but they bring more knowledge and skills to the table. They feel more entitled to the services and protection of government, and yet have less faith that government will be able to deliver on those promises. They are less connected to community affairs, and yet they seem better able to find (often through the Internet) the information, allies, and resources they need to affect an issue or decision they care about. Citizen capacities were dramatically evident during the 2008 election, mainly because the Obama Campaign channeled this new energy and showed that it could be the core ingredient of a powerful electoral strategy. But at the local level, it has been clear for some time that citizens are better at governing, and less willing to be governed, than ever before.
The Open Government Directive is an attempt to accommodate and capitalize on these trends. It is an acknowledgement that the traditional, official formats for public participation in government are outdated and inadequate. Most public meetings - from city council sessions and zoning board meetings to public hearings held by federal agencies - are structured in ways that rule out productive deliberation, prevent basic personal interests from being put on the table, and fail to give citizens a meaningful chance to be heard. Depending on the level of controversy, these official meetings and hearings either attract a lonely handful of attendees or a large, angry mob of people who rail at public officials and leave more frustrated than they were before.
Local leaders (and, increasingly, state and federal officials) have had to adjust. They have initiated public engagement efforts that: involve large, diverse numbers of citizens; enable those people to assess a range of policy options or priorities and decide, together, what they think should be done; and challenge those people to contribute their own time and energy to public problem-solving. A whole field of nonprofit organizations and public-oriented academics has sprung up to promote and assist these efforts; local and national foundations have become increasingly supportive, and national membership associations such as the National League of Cities, League of Women Voters, and International City/County Management Association have helped encourage and train local officials and activists to do this work.
These civic experiments also illustrate the enormous potential of Open Government. They demonstrate that when policymakers involve the public, they can break through legislative deadlocks and mitigate the influence of lobbyists and other special interests. They also demonstrate that citizens themselves, when they are supported and legitimized by government and other institutions, have the power to improve our schools, prevent crime, fight racism, improve public health, and spur economic development.
We have learned a great deal from these examples. The challenge facing the Obama Administration is to harness and build on the collected wisdom of these civic experiments, and find ways to "scale up" the best innovations. And while this work has been a mostly local phenomenon in the U.S., there are a number of interesting national initiatives in other countries, from the Community Participation Law in India to the "Duty to Involve" policy of the British government. The history of these local and national efforts is full of promising practices and avoidable mistakes; the most successful efforts have introduced new challenges even as they conquered the old ones.
Will the Open Government process take full advantage of the lessons learned from other democracy reform efforts? It is too soon to say. The online "crowdsourcing" approach the administration has used so far reflects the Obama Campaign's emphasis on online collaboration, and philosophically it fits with the overall thrust of giving everyone a seat at the table. However, as in any such experiment, casting such a wide net means that most of the ideas are either off-topic or seemingly uninformed by any actual experience in democracy reform. The challenge is finding the wheat among the chaff.
One good sign is the way that the Administration describes what they are doing. Though the goal of expanding access to public information has received the most media attention, Open Government is framed around three priorities: transparency, participation, and collaboration. The Administration understands that all three of these priorities are essential, that they overlap and reinforce one another, and that together they constitute a comprehensive democracy reform agenda.
The way that Obama pushes forward on those priorities may do more to shape his legacy than any other policy initiative. As many democracy reform efforts have demonstrated, Open Government has the potential to make major legislation on other issues more possible, and raise our collective capacity to solve public problems. The Open Government Directive may seem like a largely procedural, innocuous reform - but because it is driven by larger shifts in our society, it may be the most powerful proposal of all.
Matt Leighninger is executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and author of The Next Form of Democracy.
JUMAANE WILLIAMS - Brooklyn (East Flatbush and surrounding neighborhoods, CCD45)
 Jumaane Williams is a first-generation Caribbean American and lifelong Brooklynite. Educated in NYC public schools, he has spent his career organizing for affordable housing and quality youth programs -- most recently as Executive Director of a statewide tenants' rights organization. Jumaane is challenging incumbent Councilman Kendell Stewart, who voted to extend his own term limits, takes one third of his campaign funds from real estate interests, and just had two aides plead guilty to stealing taxpayer funds. The contrast couldn't be clearer.
Sign Up to Help Jumaane Win! |
|
S.J. JUNG - Queens (Flushing and surrounding neighborhoods, CCD20)  When S.J. Jung first came to America, he found help from a Flushing-based organization that supports new immigrants -- then got involved and rose to become the group's Executive Director. In this position and as a successful small businessman, S.J. has been working to improve his community for over 20 years. Now he's running for City Council to make sure the area's future development puts the needs of middle-class residents first. S.J. would be the first Korean American on the City Council, and a local paper even compared his campaign to "Obama's surprise inroad during last year's presidential election..." Sign Up to Help S. J. Win! |
|
DEBI ROSE - Staten Island (North Shore, CCD49)  A Staten Island native, Debi Rose has spent her whole life organizing to strengthen North Shore communities. She has served for nearly two decades as Executive Director of a highly successful dropout prevention program, while also fighting for better health care, transportation, and environmental conditions. When Debi ran for this seat in a special election earlier this year, she lost by just 300 votes. If she wins this time, she'll be Staten Island's first African-American elected official and the first woman to represent the borough on the City Council. Sign Up to Help Debi Win! |
|
YDANIS RODRIGUEZ - Manhattan (Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill, CCD10)  Born in the Dominican Republic, Ydanis Rodriguez came to Washington Heights at the age of 18 and has been fighting ever since to expand opportunities in his community. After working his way through college, he became a founding teacher at a local school that prioritizes quality education for immigrants, and has since organized his neighbors to secure better school facilities, protect tenants rights, improve language services in health care facilities, and keep public transit affordable. Sign Up to Help Ydanis Win! |
|
DANIEL DROMM - Queens (Jackson Heights and surrounding neighborhoods, CCD25)  Daniel Dromm has been a Queens public school teacher for 25 years, and a civil rights activist for even longer. He is known throughout NYC for his leadership in the LGBT community, and has fostered cross-cultural engagement and understanding in one of the most diverse Council Districts in the city. Helen Sears, the incumbent Daniel is challenging, has been MIA while the community struggles with overcrowded schools, hospital closings, congestion and economic challenges -- but she found time to vote to extend her own term limits. Now Dromm has a chance to make history as Queens' first openly gay elected official. Sign Up to Help Daniel Win! |
|
BRAD LANDER - Brooklyn (Park Slope and surrounding neighborhoods, CCD39)  Brad Lander is a longtime supporter of the Working Families Party and one of the leading experts on sustainable growth and fair development in New York City. As the former director of both the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Fifth Avenue Committee, Brad has helped thousands of New York City families find and stay in affordable homes, and led the fight to pass laws that ended city giveaways to developers. Brad is also a proud public school parent who has been endorsed by dozens of local PTA leaders. His record of results will make him an invaluable addition to the City Council. Sign Up to Help Brad Win! |
Very honest stuff.
But now some are pushing back.
There's this chart, under the heading "Don't f--- with graphic designers", shows the Dem's plan in a more aesthetically pleasing manner:
by Raquel Brown, TMC MediaWire Blogger
International climate negotiations are currently bogged down in smog. Many countries are in disagreement about the best way to go about reducing emissions and curbing climate change. Some, like the U.S. and Great Britain, are working together to cut carbon emissions; while others say it's their way or the highway. Until the air clears, it will be difficult to determine which global leaders are making the most effective choices--or even what the best path to a cleaner earth will be.
Here's a quick theory of what is going wrong with the health care debate. Standard Rhetorical Theory (SRT) no longer applies.
According to SRT - which I'm lifting from Aristotle's Rhetoric (book II, chapter I), what you do in presenting your case is
(1) try to make the argument of your speech demonstrative and worthy of belief;
(2) make your own character look right, (i.e. that you are someone of good sense, ability, and good will)
(3) put your hearers, who are to decide, into the right frame of mind (in this case, pissed off about corporate give-aways, fearful of losing their jobs and insurance, and pitying of the poor who already have).
I personally think all these three conditions have been met. The arguments are solid, voters trust democrats more than republicans, and are pissed, fearful and compassionate. Meanwhile the Republicans are lying bigger than ever.
Granted, some of their rhetorical tropes may still have some
grip on people, and much easier to set up than debunk. There is no easy two-line
retort to
"Free markets are more efficient than Government services, so government should stay out of health care".
Sure one could say, "These markets
aren't really free, and they cannot be made efficient in the case of health
care, because...", but you will lose half your audience at "Because". The same
can be said for
"High corporate profits is a sign of a good company, therefore high profits in the health care industry mean the corporations are good at what they do",
and
"These are hard times, so the government must tighten its belt", etc.
But I don't think these tropes are half as convincing as they used to be, especially coming from the enablers of the greatest free-market failure since the Great Depression, and the greatest government bailout of private corporations in history.
The Republicans are mistrusted, their talking points getting stranger and stranger (forced abortion, euthanasia, dieting, nothing can be or should be done for the undeserving hopelessly poor, people need stability not change, this is all a socialist/nazi Kenyan conspiracy), and people are not in a frame of mind to hear them.
But here is a suggestion. They are effective, not despite the fact that they are crazy, but BECAUSE they are crazy. Look at the examples they themselves point to again and again when they argue that government is incompetent: FEMA. The agency that THEY hollowed out and destroyed. Look at their worries about cost-controls and runaway deficits; what comes to mind? The fiscal incompetence of Republicans, the absence of cost-control measures in Medicare Part D. Look at their arguments about government encroachment in people's personal lives; what comes to mind? Gay-bashing, abortion restrictions, religious organizations dictating social policy. Look at their arguments against the complexity of the health care proposal, with their flow-chart grandstanding: WE'RE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND THIS!
What's going on? The Republicans have knocked points (1) and
(2) off their Rhetorical checklist. They are no longer trusted, and don't care.
And they don't care if you think they are stupid, ignorant, and
ill-intentioned. They no longer care if their arguments make no sense. All that
matters is putting the audience into a state of fear. And the crazier they
seem, the more the audience will feel afraid; Of them. For, when you look at
them, you may still believe the best of all possible outcomes may be a
Democratic reformed health care service, overseen by Democrats. But the worst
of all possible outcomes is a Democratic reformed health care service, overseen
by these crazy corrupt idiots. In a nutshell, the Republicans' best argument against
health care reform is themselves:
"Look at us, WE could one day be running this program!"
It's the offspring of the old Republican strategy: Run for office arguing that government is incompetent, and when elected prove you're right. Now they have, spectacularly, proven themselves right, and are running hard with that evidence.
So how do you counteract this strategy? Here's my rather Machiavellian suggestion: Argue that Republicans are competent and well-meaning. When arguing with Tommy Thompson, give as an example of well-run government health care his own stellar management of Medicare. When arguing about cost-controls, point to the brain-child of Mitt Romney in Massachusetts, where tweaks to this Republican universal health care plan are fixing the cost-problems that have cropped up. Point to the amazing Republican creation and management of the VA, the finest government-run health-care system in the world. Praise to the high heavens the Republican-inspired IMAC in the current proposal - an ingenious way to do non-partisan cost-benefit analysis. Republicans can run government spectacularly well. Even the present bunch are brilliant, successful, honest public servants who love America.
I say this strategy is Machiavellian, because I have no idea whether any of these claims are true. AND I DON'T CARE. People will only feel comfortable with greater government involvement in health care if they feel more comfortable with the possibility of Republicans running it.
In today's Times Norris ,incredibly, claims that Wall Street bonuses didn't cause this crisis because they were largely in the form of stock options that would become worthless if the bank failed.
Let's assume a CEO is asked to authorize a CDS with a potential profi whicht would ensure he'd qualify for a bonus but a non- trivial probablity of a future loss which could break the bank.How is he apt to rule if his potential bonus is
A. $10,000 in cash?
B $100,000 in stock options?
C. $5,000,000 in stock options?
D. $50,000,000 in stock options?
Answers
A. Turn it down.
B. Ditto.
C. Maybe
D. Go for it.
The essence of a Wall Street job is not avoiding risks. It's taking them.When the potential personal pay off exceeds the potential personal risk.Big bonuses justify taking bigger risks than smaller bonuses.
Many people are currently asking themselves if the government is truly capable of running a health care system. Those on the Left point to Medicare and the VA as examples of government run programs that work. While those on the Right point to Medicare and the VA as examples of government run programs that DON'T work! And there is plenty of ammunition on both sides of the issue to use. Anytime that you look into a subject as complex as health care, you will find problems to point to. The question we should ask is not: Can the government run a perfect health care system; but should be: Can the government run a health care system better than the status quo?
The VA is not without problems. During the 90's, major reforms were enacted by the VA in order to improve quality. Movies like BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY had raised the awareness of the American public to the needs of veterans. Quality of care improved significantly. Enter the Iraq and Afghanistan wars which have greatly increased the number of vets being treated by the VA. In 2007, it was estimated that VA care covered 264,000 patients. By 2009, those numbers had skyrocketed to over 400,000 patients and growing everyday. The rapid growth has stretched an already overworked system to the point where the backlog for non-emergency treatment had reached almost one million cases.
It is currently estimated that 1 out of every 4 Iraq vets being seen by the VA are being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The large numbers of these cases are slowing treatment for everyone suffering from PTSD. It is especially difficult to get treatment if you are an older vet. (The reason being that treatment for PTSD is most effective when dealt with as soon after the stress occurs as possible. So many older vets are being moved to the back of the line.)
None of this sounds promising to Americans wondering if their government can run an efficient system. But you should also take into consideration the fact that the VA published a report in 2000 that requested more clerical help to keep up with the paperwork. It was ignored throughout the Bush administration for 8 years and two wars. In February, the RECOVERY ACT granted the VA $200,000,000 to hire more clerical help and modernize record systems to speed distribution of benefits. So it is going to get better.
But it's obviously not perfect! So forget about government health care reform! It will end up just like the VA. The private sector is the ONLY way to provide quality health care to Americans....or is it?
Recently, the LA Times did an investigative report concerning the health care that private contractors from Iraq received upon their return to the States. The report is a real eye opener when comparing the VA to private health care providers.
Over 31,000 private contractors have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike American soldiers who get VA care, the contractors must deal with AIG! Private insurance companies have collected over 1.5 billion in premiums from Iraq & Afghanistan contractors. A military audit claimed that those premiums were "high". They were so high that often as much money was spent on insurance premiums as was actually paid to the contractor. And since the insurance premium was included in the contracts between the government and the contractor: your tax dollars paid those premiums!
So what did we get for our tax money? AIG rejected 44% of claims involving serious injury and over half of all claims for PTSD. (This included claims for artificial limbs! As an insurer, how do you deny a man his artificial leg?)
From the onset of the war, there was concern that insurance companies would not process claims quickly. So the contracts were written requiring AIG to respond to claims within 14 days. Rather than hurry an investigation, AIG simply denied the initial claims as a matter of course. Then the claims would go to mediation if the contractor filed an appeal. If no agreement could be reached (and in more than 1,000 cases they couldn't reach an agreement) the matter is referred to court. Now you are looking at approximately two years of litigation before a resolution is reached. In approximately 75% of the cases that went to court, AIG lost and was ordered to pay the contractor's medical care. Then AIG would file an appeal. And throughout this long process, the contractor is responsible for the cost of his own medical care.
The quality of the care is also different between AIG and the VA. The Rand Corporation recently did a study comparing VA care to private insurers that showed striking differences:
"The patients were randomly selected males aged 35 and older. Based on 294 health indicators in 15 categories of care, they found that overall, VA patients were more likely than patients in the national sample to receive recommended care. In particular, the VA patients received significantly better care for depression, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension. The VA also performed consistently better across the spectrum of care, including screening, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. The only exception to the pattern of better care in VA facilities was care for acute conditions, for which the two samples were similar."
So if you found out tonight that you are being sent to Afghanistan tomorrow....who would you want to handle your health care? That nasty, socialized, inefficient VA care or would you prefer to trust your care to AIG? It's your choice. You can look to an imperfect government program that focuses on improving the quality of its care for the citizens of its country. Or you can look to a private insurer like AIG whose sole interest is showing a profit.
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- The first 12 months of the U.S. recession saw the economy shrink more than twice as much as previously estimated, reflecting even bigger declines in consumer spending and housing, revised figures showed.
The world's largest economy contracted 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the last three months of 2008, compared with the 0.8 percent drop previously on the books, the Commerce Department said today in Washington.
"The current downturn beginning in 2008 is more pronounced," Steven Landefeld, director of the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, said in a press briefing this week...
Spending:
Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy, decreased 1.8 percent in last year's fourth quarter from the same period in 2007, exceeding the prior estimate of a 1.5 percent drop. Purchases also began sinking sooner than previously projected, registering their first decline at the start of 2008 rather than in the second half.
Recession Start:
The National Bureau of Economic Research, the accepted arbiter of U.S. business cycles, last year determined the recession started in December 2007...
Over the most recent period, the third quarter of 2008 underwent one of the biggest changes, going from a 0.5 percent decrease in gross domestic product to a 2.7 percent drop...
The deeper deterioration last year underscores why Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues at the central bank cut the benchmark rate to a record low and extended credit to non-banks for the first time since the 1930s.
The new GDP data also help explain why the unemployment rate shot up 2.3 percentage points last year, the biggest annual jump since 1982...
2001 Recession Milder:
The revisions showed that the 2001 recession was less severe than originally estimated, reflecting a smaller decline in business investment. The economy actually grew 0.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2000 to the third quarter of 2001, erasing the 0.2 percent drop previously reported. ..
In my humble opinion this goes to show Americans just what kind of mess President Obama and the Democratic Party took on January 20, 2009. It was much worse than what the Bush administration was letting Americans know about.
As for the recession of 2001, as first reported, it started in 2001 - NOT in 2000 as the Bush people would have you believe, and -- it was much milder than they were making it out to be.
This story in my view, just proves that the Bush administration lied to the American people from day one of taking office.
Yet private markets for health insurance, leftLet me repeat that last part. But unregulated markets
to their own devices, work very badly: insurers
deny as many claims as possible, and they also
try to avoid covering people who are likely to
need care. Horror stories are legion: the
insurance company that refused to pay for
urgently needed cancer surgery because of
questions about the patient's acne treatment;
the healthy young woman denied coverage because
she briefly saw a psychologist after breaking up
with her boyfriend.
And in their efforts to avoid "medical losses,"
the industry term for paying medical bills,
insurers spend much of the money taken in
through premiums not on medical treatment, but
on "underwriting" - screening out people likely
to make insurance claims. In the individual
insurance market, where people buy insurance
directly rather than getting it through their
employers, so much money goes into underwriting
and other expenses that only around 70 cents of
each premium dollar actually goes to care.
Still, most Americans do have health insurance,
and are reasonably satisfied with it. How is
that possible, when insurance markets work so
badly? The answer is government intervention.
Most obviously, the government directly provides
insurance via Medicare and other programs.
Before Medicare was established, more than 40
percent of elderly Americans lacked any kind of
health insurance. Today, Medicare - which is, by
the way, one of those "single payer" systems
conservatives love to demonize - covers everyone
65 and older. And surveys show that Medicare
recipients are much more satisfied with their
coverage than Americans with private insurance.
Still, most Americans under 65 do have some form
of private insurance. The vast majority,
however, don't buy it directly: they get it
through their employers. There's a big tax
advantage to doing it that way, since employer
contributions to health care aren't considered
taxable income. But to get that tax advantage
employers have to follow a number of rules;
roughly speaking, they can't discriminate based
on pre-existing medical conditions or restrict
benefits to highly paid employees.
And it's thanks to these rules that
employment-based insurance more or less works,
at least in the sense that horror stories are a
lot less common than they are in the individual
insurance market.
So here's the bottom line: if you currently have
decent health insurance, thank the government.
It's true that if you're young and healthy, with
nothing in your medical history that could
possibly have raised red flags with corporate
accountants, you might have been able to get
insurance without government intervention. But
time and chance happen to us all, and the only
reason you have a reasonable prospect of still
having insurance coverage when you need it is
the large role the government already plays.
Which brings us to the current debate over
reform.
Right-wing opponents of reform would have you
believe that President Obama is a wild-eyed
socialist, attacking the free market. But
unregulated markets don't work for health care -
never have, never will. To the extent we have a
working health care system at all right now it's
only because the government covers the elderly,
while a combination of regulation and tax
subsidies makes it possible for many, but not
all, nonelderly Americans to get decent private
coverage.
Now Mr. Obama basically proposes using
additional regulation and subsidies to make
decent insurance available to all of us. That's
not radical; it's as American as, well, Medicare.
Q: What do you call a politician whose vote is directly correlated to the interests of his major political donors?
A: A centrist.
Q: How do you know when Lynn Cheney is lying?
A: Her mouth is moving.
Q: What will Sarah Palin's do next?
A: Professor of Russian Studies at Regent University.
Q: What technique did federal penitentiaries use to dramatically reduce recidivism rates of prisoners?
A: They piped in Joe Lieberman speeches for two hours a day.
Q: Why did the "inquisitors" at Gitmo switch from Joe Lieberman to Red Hot Chili Peppers to force sleep deprivation?
A: They had to reduce the number of suicide attempts.
Q: How do the Treasury and The Federal Reserve plan to cut back on internal expenditures?
A: They plan to share office space with Goldman Sachs.
Q: What is wrong with the answer above?
A: They already share office space.
Q: Who recently gave a remarkable performance in an updated version of Buñuel's classic film - The Exterminating Angel?
A: The New York State Senate.
Q: What did Harry Reid say when informed that the Republicans were going to mount another filibuster?
A: No one knows because no one could hear his response.
Q: What is a fiscal conservative?
A: A politician who votes to cut marginal tax rates at the top and balances it by cutting services for the poor.
Q: What did Barack Obama say when his elementary school classmate stole his lunch money?
A: As a compromise, I won't eat lunch today. I can't let the good be the enemy of the perfect.
Q: Who is a firm believer that Dr. Strangelove was an instructional film?
A: Ralph Peters.
Q: Who is really angry by not being the answer above?
A: Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Perle and Randy Scheunemann
Q: What did Barack Obama say when his college professor published Obama's research paper as his own?
A: It is my work and I am proud of it. I can't let the good be the enemy of the perfect.
Q: How did Meet the Press dramatically improve its ratings?
A: David Gregory changed to the same format as Dancing with the Stars.
Q: What will John Boehner be in his reincarnation?
A: A Burnt Sienna Crayola Crayon
Q: Why can't Alberto Gonzales get a job?
A: Every time he walks into the lobby of a company that is hiring, he has no idea why he is there.
A: When interviewed, he can't recall his name.
A: When asked why he should be hired, he responds that he'll have to get back on that.
Q: Why won't health care reform pass?
A: The 47 million uninsured Americans are afraid of change and want to maintain the status quo.
Q: What is the title of John Yoo's new book?
A: The Bill of Rights - An Idea Whose Time has Passed.
Q: Why did the Sunday television talk shows have a majority of Republican Party and Conservatives as guests during the Bush (43) years?
A: Because Republicans controlled the Presidency and both Houses of Congress.
Q: Why do the Sunday television talk shows still have a majority of Republican Party and Conservatives as guests now?
A: Because the minority party needs to have its voice heard.
Q: Why am I stopping now?
A: My border collie herded six sheep in the back yard and I have to play a DVD with Camille Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony.
The object of his affection is Kelefa Sanneh, a writer for the New
Yorker and a former music critic for the New York Times. The reason
Sanneh makes Savage's heart go pitty pat is because Sanneh wrote a
gushing profile of Savage in the latest issue of the New Yorker.
Savage had Sanneh on his show tonight, and they had a lovely BFF
conversation. Savage feels so close to his man crush, that he even
called him by a nickname during the interview: "K." And "K" didn't seem
to mind.
Way to be independent, "K." Shill. I used to
enjoy the New Yorker. Now I feel as though I need to wash my hands
after touching it.
Snippets of his interview with "K:"
"What was the most surprising thing you found out about me?" Savage asked, coquettishly.
Savage asked if, were they grade schoolers, would "K" be his friend. "I would be your friend," he said.
"I think that might be likely," "K" said with a chuckle. "If that were
the case, I can imagine some long, all night discussions about a
variety of things."
Isn't that sweet?
"K," in the article, even wrote that the snippets of Savage's rants
posted by Media Matters for America are "accurate but misleading."
(Accurate but misleading. What they hell does that even mean.)
Here's what will become a classic quote, and emblematic of Savage: "I
try to support my position with fact or any persuasion I can come up
with." Even if that persuasion is a lie?
Later in the
program, Savage had a conversation with Rich "Big Vinnie" Lieberman,
Savage's other BFF. Of course, the topic of discussion was Savage. One
interesting thing about this interview: it sounded pre-recorded, as
though Savage was reading questions he had written out.
Lieberman, predictably, repeats the myth that the issue of Savage being
banned from the United Kingdom is "all about free speech." Even though
Britain does not have the same codified rights of free speech that we
do. But why let the facts get in the way of getting on a national radio
program?
This is a matter of censorship, Lieberman said.
And just how is Savage being censored, Big Vinnie? Has he been removed
from the US airways? No. And Savage's show is now being broadcast in
the UK, according to Savage. So I ask again, Big Vinnie, exactly how is
Savage being censored?
The answer is, he's not, and you know it. Or at least you should. Shill.
And then, as if "K" and Big Vinnie weren't enough, Savage also had on
his program perhaps his biggest sycophant, law professor and World Net
Daily columnist Ellis Washington.
The topic: Michael Savage.
Washington has written a number of glowing, supportive columns about
Savage and his problems with Britain. More like literary blowjobs,
actually.
What you won't learn from reading Washington's
handjobs to Savage is that Savage has chosen him to write Savage's
biography. Way to be independent, Ellis. Shill.
In what
appeared to be another pre-recorded interview, with Savage reading
questions written out in advance, Washington perpetuated the lie that
Savage was banned from Britain because he is/was Jewish, and then said,
without any backup, that the US government colluded with the British to
bring it about. How did this guy get to be a professor?
Actually, it sounds as though the third hour was just a compilation of
these pre-recorded interviews, and pieces of the previous two hours
sloppily stitched together. It was so badly edited that you could hear
where they chopped out a reference to "K" appearing later in the hour.
Real professional, Savage.
Anyway, Savage was quite taken
by "K's" characterization of his program as being, in essence,
eclectic. And to prove that, early in the program Savage played a "rap"
he wrote, part of which I reproduce here: "I got gang tattoos on my
soul, I got gang tattoos on my brain, man. I don't have any gang
tattoos on my skin man, I got gang tattoos on my soul. The gang I
belong to ... is the original gang, The prophet gang. I belong to the
PGs man, the prophet gang ... Ezekiel, Jeremiah. I belong to the
prophet gang,. The original prophets man, the OPs."
Have you ever heard such vomitude? I mean, that's just flat-out dreck.
And throughout the program, Savage was trying to show us that he's
really not a racist by playing jazz: Charlie Parker, Cozey Cole. Also
Cannonball Adderley. So what's his point, that he can't be a racist if
he listens to black musicians? What a jerk.
He's such a huge jazz fan that he doesn't know how to pronounce Dizzy Gillespie's name. It's a hard "G," Savage. Just like "K."
Just like there's a hard "P" in "putz."
Keep the faith.
How can anyone question a certified Certification of live Birth document that has been duly vouched for by a State official as true and accurate?
The answer lies in two COLBs, each virtually identical except for the last block. On the Decosta COLB it states: "DATE ACCEPTED BY STATE REGISTAR". On Obama's COLB is states: "DATE FILED BY REGISTAR".
In addition, on Obama's COLB it states Date FILED BY REGISTAR (Notice not the STATE REGISTAR, as on the Decosta COLB). Two different things. Either that field header is forged in Obamas or it means his registration was FILED at that date BUT it was not ACCEPTED.
Sec 338-16 of Hawaii Revised Stautes explains why these different terms would be used by the Registar.
Sec 338-16 ( Late Registration Defined ) d) When an applicant does not submit the minimum documentation required by the rules for late registration or "when the state registrar finds reasons to question the validity or adequacy of the certificate or the documentary evidence, the state registrar shall not register the late certificate and shall advise the applicant of the reason for this action."
Something entered on Obama's long form Certificate of Live Birth was not verifiable and thus, it was not ACCEPTED by the state. So assuming his online COLB is not fake (or the forgers were just too incompetent to notice they put in the wrong field header ), all we have is a filing of Obama's COLB and not and ACCEPTED COLB.
So "birthers" asking for more corroborative evidence than just Barack Obama's once posted and now taken down JPG of a COLB are not racists, crazy or 9//11ers. They are true American patriots, trying to do what all true American patriots should do, protect and defend our Constitution.
ex animo
davidfarrar
It has been quite a while since I have blogged here. I have generally been sitting on the sidelines watching health care reform spiral out of control, banks taking TARP money then paying bonuses exceeding profits, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on, Obama's birth certificate faux-controversy, etc, etc.
What I have witnessed was a small boon to the auto-industry. Basically, the "Cash for Clunker" program allowed consumers to trade in their gas-guzzling, broken down, or otherwise used car for a new one in exchange for a hefty government rebate. A fantastic plan, imo, that creates and/or saves jobs, gets some money back for taxpayers who now have a vested interest in the auto industry, and helps curb global warming.
The program was very successful. And we all know how we treat successful programs:
From MSN:
The government plans to suspend its popular "cash for clunkers" program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases, congressional officials told The Associated Press late today.
The Transportation Department called lawmakers' offices to alert them to the decision to suspend the program at midnight Friday.
Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension.
Bill Golling, owner of Golling Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., told the Detroit Free Press that his dealership had sold 80 vehicles already under the program.
"It's working so well I've got people mad at me because I can't take care of them," he said.
The popularity of the program raised concerns that with about 23,000 dealers taking part in the program, auto dealers may already have surpassed the 250,000 vehicle sales funded by the $1 billion program.
That's right, folks. In the midst of getting very little right under admittedly adverse situations, we get one program that works so well we have to scrap it. Such is the thinking in DC these days. We get what we pay for. Cash for Clunkers indeed.
Most of you know that I am 100% in support of a single payer/universal health care system.
The more that I have witnessed and learned, the more I feel that the public option will turn healthcare into a political football for years to come. And one question I have is, if it will leave out some people, who are they, and why?
It feels to me that there is an underlying game being played with this public option. If it truly allows competition (we 'secretly' know it will lead to a single payer system), we want it but the insurance companies and those supporting the insurance companies don't want it and will fight it with everything they've got. If it is watered down, distorted, and turned into something more chaotic, then more who support the insurance companies will accept it but it will offer us little value in terms of savings and competition so we don't want it.
This is like a game of chicken. A Mind 'D'uck! It is completely screwed up.
I think it is time to take the profits out of health care, 'now'.
The Energy & Commerce committee claims that they will vote tomorrow on HR 676. They apparently need 5 more votes. If you haven't alreay faxed, please do and email and call as well.
I have written to Waxman, as head of the committee, others as members of the committee, and to a representative from my state I said 'I am writing to you as the only representative from my state on the committee', etc.
The following is from www.democracy.com on the vote tomorrow:
One week ago, we eagerly anticipated a crucial vote on single-payer Medicare for All ( H.R.676 ) in the House Energy & Commerce Committee, sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). But then seven BlueDogs waged a highly-publicized war against a "robust public option" and the vote was delayed for a full week.
We just learned the vote will be tomorrow ( Friday ). Based on all of your calls, we have nine single-payer Democrats: Tammy Baldwin, Michael Doyle, Eliot Engel, Anna Eshoo, Gene Green, Edward Markey, Janice Schakowsky, Anthony Weiner, and Peter Welch.
| Lean Yes Diana DeGette CO01 202-225-4431 Jane Harman CA36 202-225-8220 Christopher Murphy CT05 202-225-4476 Frank Pallone NJ06 202-225-4671 @FrankPallone Bobby Rush IL01 202-225-4372 |
Be concise and practice in advance so you can speak quickly (or leave a voicemail) because they are getting swamped. Report the results of your calls here:
http://www.democrats.com/single-payer-committee-whip
| Public Option Only (or Won't Say) Rick Boucher VA09 202-225-3861 Bruce Braley IA01 202-225-2911 G.K. Butterfield NC01 202-225-3101 Lois Capps CA23 202-225-3601 Kathy Castor FL11 202-225-3376 John Dingell MI15 202-225-4071 Charles Gonzalez TX20 202-225-3236 Jay Inslee WA01 202-225-6311 @RepInsleeNews Doris Matsui CA05 202-225-7163 Jerry McNerney CA11 202-225-1947 John Sarbanes MD03 202-225-4016 Bart Stupak MI01 202-225-4735 Betty Sutton OH13 202-225-3401 Henry Waxman (Chair) CA30 202-225-3976 |
Don't let anyone tell you single-payer can't pass: the Kucinich Amendment for a single-payer "state option" passed by a shocking 25-19 bi-partisan majority in the House Education and Labor Committee on July 17. The Weiner Amendment will pass on Friday if enough Democrats vote for it!
A victory on the Weiner Amendment would make a huge difference. Please call as soon as you get this - night or day.
Thanks for all you do!
Mademoiselle Joan Walsh of Salon;
"I'm not a member of any organized party. I am a Democrat."
Will Rodgers said that.
The values of a laissez-faire capitalism supported by a puppet legislative government is reflective in your conversation about the history of the overworked and underpaid American. While your audience swells up with the suggestion of being elitist intelligentsia, not many comments got the true grit of your intended discussion. As a black patriot, your nutshell psychoanalysis of consumerism and the social science of profiteers that reduce Americans to chess pieces made my heart melt with cognitive affection. Such accurate interpretation of how the values and morals of United States of America's rich and famous just replaced European aristocrats who offer Angel food cake to the poor and downtrodden as they party with lobbyists.
Unfortunately, both Democrat and Republican politicians have joined the ranks of arrogant snobs who use the science of mass marketing to fulfill our needs for instant gratification with empty code words of schizophrenic propaganda enforced by class separation with the police as gatekeepers.
Thank you for being you.
I shall be pleased to discover more about you in your conversations Joan Walsh.
The storming of the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, Russian
I would tell you to take the following with a grain of salt. I am out of tobacco for the next 36 hours and it has been a little blue around here lately. I mean the health bill does not look so good and Matthews is making it sound like the Feds are getting ready to kill everyone over 65.
ANYWAY....
They can run (or, rake in $3 billion in three months) but they can't hide. A Senate panel has subpoenaed financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, seeking evidence of fraud in last year's mortgage-market meltdown, sources tell The Wall Street Journal. The congressional investigation is focusing on whether emails and other internal communications reveal that bankers privately doubted whether the mortgage-related securities they were facilitating were as sound as their public reports suggested. Washington Mutual, now largely owned by J.P. Morgan Chase, has also been subpoenaed. The investigation is the latest in a series of moves by Congress to examine the roots of the economic meltdown. Spokesmen from the banks have yet to comment. http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/?cid=hp:cheatsheet2#cheatrow_7997
NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued a report entitled. "No Rhyme or Reason: The 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose' Bank Bonus Culture," The figures regarding payment to 'top' executives by failing financial institutions is staggering. Here is what I have gleaned so far:
Goldman/Sachs apparently has 30,000 employees. 953 of these lucky bastards received bonuses of at least $1 million. By my reckoning, that is damn close to a billion dollars IN BONUSES. Of course these god-like 953 who could never be replaced if we believe repub hyperbole, also received salaries along with costly health insurance coverage that would make a Senator's package look like basic health care. They also received travel reimbursement which, no doubt included those big sized soap bars that hotels give their richest customers and probably monogrammed towels.
I should underline that perhaps our wrath centers on 1000 employees rather than the 29000 remaining but I have not seen what THE LOWER TIER bonuses were and I would guess that another couple thousand employees did not do that badly. It is a pyramid scheme of course. The top 4 received a total of $46 million. You see you must pay the tier under you well so that they will be content and abide by private contractual terms making them keep their mouths shut while the golden boys pick up the REAL MONEY.
And the shareholders for whom the corporation is dedicated? Well, Goldman reported to its shareholders that it 'earned' $2.3 billion. Oh these hundred thousand shareholders must have been so excited at the 'report' that they received concerning their 'earnings'; a report that was mandated by state and Federal law. Then we find out that total bonuses to 'employees' amounted to $4.8 billion. So the top two or three thousand employees received twice as much as the shareholders IN BONUSES.
Think about this. Forget all the other issues here. We watched as the 'Management'--which serves at the pleasure of the shareholders through the Board of Directors--slowly but surely over the last 50 years reached a point where they received more than the shareholders. More than twice what the shareholders received. I mean do not forget that Management learned how to install idiots on their boards when they were not performing a quid pro quo with other managements by sitting on their boards. Kind of like 'musical board of director chairs'. State and Federal law slowly took away any chance for shareholders to bring law suits against management or their boards. Conservative judges blocked these suits all the way up to the United States Supreme Court--as well as state supreme courts.
Now interject this system with repub administrations who basically took away all meaningful governmental oversight, and you have what we have today. Runaway management.
Now management could do anything they damn please. And of course 'cook the books' so that it was not clarified that the 'profits' of the corporation were not compared to 'bonuses' let alone 'base pay'.
And you must also, somewhere, add into all of this special distributions of stock that go to top management that are not recorded as 'bonuses'. Stock that is later sold on the basis of 'inside information'. Oh but prove that the repubs will say. WHO HAS MORE INSIDE INFORMATION THAN MANAGEMENT. And yet we put Martha in jail for getting inside information FROM HER OWN STOCK BROKER!!!!
How about Morgan Stanley? With 47,000 employees, 428 received BONUSES of over one million dollars. Well it claimed 'earnings' of $1.7 billion AND PAID OUT $4.5 BILLION IN BONUSES. How much information did the shareholders receive concerning this theft? And I would guess that, say, 40,000 employees did not know much about this either.
Two firms, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, suffered losses of more than $27 billion each but paid out $5.3 billion and $3.6 billion in bonuses, respectively, the report noted. Together, they have received TARP funds totaling $55 billion.
What the hell did Citigroup and ML tell their shareholders? Uh, well things did not really go well this year but WE ARE DOIN FINE. And what in the fuck did they tell the government when 20% of the TARP monies went to management?
At JP Morgan, 1,626 of 224,961 employees got more than $1 million, with the top four bonus earners awarded a combined $74.80 million. Now that is closer to two billion is it not?
THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE AND YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS, DO YOU AMERICA!!!!!
Now I got all this info from the Washington Post, or most of the figures anyway, but watch how screwed up their thinking is:
The report also noted that some banks paid bonuses that were more in line with their performance. For example, State Street made $1.8 billion and paid bonuses of $470 million. It received $2 billion in TARP funding. Thus, the relationship between performance of the firms and bonuses varied immensely, and the bonus incentive system does not appear to have been tethered to any consistent principles tying compensation to performance or risk metrics. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073001581.html?hpid=topnews *
Why do I think this thinking is fucked up? They are saying, hey, the management only received 25% of all earnings using the shareholders' company funds, company names, company contacts, company offices, company computers, company secret files.... WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? I mean are we grading on the bell curve or what? Hey these people only stole half a billion dollars besides monogrammed towels.
And catch this gem from the Daily Beast which sent me to the Post in the first place:
Think New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo might have an election on his mind? Look no further than the title of his new report on big bank bonuses for the answer, which does not shy away from stoking the populist furor.
POPULIST FUROR? Jesus Christ Almighty (blesses himself kind of), the Beast makes it sound like I am supposed to look at the work of Cuomo as being somehow politically expedient. THESE ARE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS BEING STOLEN FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, not millions. Total bonuses would add up to trillions over the years. And we are supposed to be worried about the cost of health care in this country. WHO IN THE FUCK IS KIDDING WHOM?
That was exactly the kind of language that frickin Novak would use, time and time again. Oh the liberals are fanning the flames of class conflict. I SURE HOPE THE FUCK SOMEBODY FANS THESE FLAMES!!!!!
TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS. Sure some Indonesians are making a buck making those monogrammed towels. And surely some Indians are making money making the bigger bars of soap. And I am sure that some limo drivers received nice tips and lap dancers filled their g-strings with Franklins. BUT COME ON.
Anybody who votes to sustain the status quo is the enemy. And that means ALL REPUBS IN CONGRESS RIGHT NOW. These pols voted for less regulation and also voted to keep the doors to the courthouse closed to the shareholders. They voted for tax loopholes for travelers. They voted for lower taxes on obscene salaries and bonuses. THEY HAVE NO DEFENSE WHATSOEVER.
* By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday,
July 30, 2009; 1:52 PM
I think Barack Obama is a natural born American citizen because his mother was indisputably an American citizen. I think he meets the residency requirements. And I think that Justice Scalia himself would not throw the President out of office now that he has been sworn in.
The issue is moot.
Not.. "The president was born in Hawaii in 1961" or anything like that... simply "it's moot."
December 4 2008:
[In re Birth certificate non-issue:]
Now that it is making legitimate headlines, let me offer my very firm opinion on the matter.
(1) There is reasonable doubt on the issue...
So perhaps there is some blowback from on high at the RNC, and perhaps the oh-so-patriotic folks over at Redstate are trying to shut up their mainstream fringe, but they still can't just say "these people are nuts." It's "there is doubt, but we should ignore it because it's a distraction." (And they want to lecture us on civic and community values...So I guess even Ann Coulter has more sense than Erick Erickson. Bravo, Ann!
...some similar tactical fashion. The point is, you can put me with Mr. Hertzberg and Ms. Brown, in the sense that we are getting close to the point (Are we PAST it ,already?) where we need to make use of the former President's unique skills. No one EXPLAINS complex public-policy matters better for the average person-on-the-street, and I doubt off-hand if anyone else out there has a better grasp of the often-rural, mildly conservative political mindset of the so-called 'Blue Dogs' who are at the heart of this present dilemma.
If we win without it, fine. If we lose without trying this approach, it's a very serious mistake.
I am writing in the moment of having just hung up the phone with someone who I love very much. Let's call this person Zeus.
Zeus said "Obama is Hitler."
I said, "Please don't make that comparison, Zeus."
"That's how I feel about it, I have the right to feel that way, besides when I said you will be the one that turns me in to them, I was just kidding. Didn't you hear me laugh?" said Zeus.
"It's offensive to compare anyone to Hitler. I don't care how you feel about it. Please don't do it around me, besides it makes you sound crazy." I said. "... And by the way I don't like being compared with the members of the S.S."
"Well I was just kidding, but Obama is taking everything over, just like Hitler did. And now you will probably turn me in for saying that" said Zeus.
I said, "Please stop referring to President Obama as Hitler, Zeus, and never compare me to a member of the S.S. It is not funny and it's not true."
"Well when I'm 65 and they come to take me away and you sign the papers ... I despise Barbara Boxer too. All of them. They are taking over. You are a dreamer and it is so sad to see how they have lied to you. You have a good heart, but when they take me away to kill me, you are the one who will sign the papers." Said Zeus.
"Zues, I'm happy to have this conversation with you. I love you. I will never turn you in." I said. "There's only a couple of things I ask. First let's be rational when we discuss this. Okay? Alright, you're like four thousand years old already but that's beside the point, which is that at 65 you were eligible for Medicare, (which is already run by the government who, by the way, is really good at protecting us from our enemies, criminals, fires, and many other things already) and that will remain unchanged. Medicare itself will remain unchanged, Zeus. Next if we are gonna discuss this issue in the future, I want you to actually read the proposals out there-"
"I ALREADY READ OBAMA'S PROPOSAL!" Zeus screamed. "HE IS TRYING TO KILL ME AND LET IRAN ATTACK US!"
"Huh?" I asked. "Hey Zeus, I know that we have different philosophies. That's cool. I know that you will support actual humane medical care and health insurance for everyone that is in this country, citizen or not, because that is the right thing to do, right? To protect your own children, especially the ones you had with human women, you shoud make sure that the poorest people are healthy, right? Cool. So don't get defensive when I say that I don't believe that you have actually read any of the proposals out there. That you are actually just repeating the lies of industry lobbyists who are fleecing America right under your nose, and that if you informed yourself we could actually have a sane discussion about this ..."
"I have read Obama's proposal, well parts of it and it is evil and corrupt like Chicago. But there are parts of the Republican proposal that I like."
"Um. Okay you just proved that you haven't read any of the proposals out there, because Obama has not put forth any proposal yet-"
"He's not smart enough to come up with his own proposal." Zues said, interrupting me again.
"Please stop interupting me. I let you talk."
"Okay," said Zeus.
"Okay you proved that you are just repeating things you've heard. Things that are being said by liars who work for two industries that are interested in scaring you into keeping things just the way they are. Neither President Obama's Administration, nor the Republicans in Congress have put forth a proposal, so when you say you read them it's clear to me that you're making that up because even you, Zeus, can't read something that isn't there. It's cool, I've made stuff up before plenty of times to support my argument. But not this time Zeus. It's too damn important for us all."
"I would sign on to this so-called "public option" if every member of Congress, the Supreme Court Justices, and the President and all their families signed onto it too. Hah. They will never go for that so as long as that is part of the plan, then I support it! Hah! Got You!" Said Zeus.
"I hope that you would also still support their right to accent their care with a private plan should they so choose." I said.
He paused a good while, then said "I would have to consider it once I've seen the details, but if it's good enough for a sewage worker then it should be good enough for the President."
"Do you support the right of the sewage worker to augment or choose between a public and private plan."
"No. . . " He said. "Yes." He paused. "I don't know. But I am never buying a GM car again. I do know that!"
I sighed and said, "Alright, Zeus, we should stop here for now. At least you stopped calling me a member of the S.S., and stopped comparing President Obama to Hitler, one of the most tragic, cruel and insane men in history."
"He's not done yet," said Zeus.
SOUTH CAROLINA - A stunning new poll by William K. Wolfrum & Associates shows that nearly 80 percent of all Americans would stop breathing right now if a major corporation gave that order.
The poll - which was based on looking into how Americans will gladly vote against their own self interests - made several other discoveries, including:
Noted sociologist Tim Johnson of Tupelo, Miss., said that the poll is in line with how many Americans feel.
"In the U.S., it's all about striving to be rich," said Johnson. "And if you fail, you're out. So better let the successful amongst us thrive than worry about the vast majority of Americans, who are abject failures at getting rich."
Republicans were quick to jump on the poll numbers.
"Americans are selfless people. So selfless, they'll always vote against their own interests," said Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. "At the GOP, we're aware of that and confident it will again lead us to power. The people have spoken, and they've told us they don't want to be heard anymore. We can do that."
More than 1,000 people took the poll, though many refused to accept the free pencils given out to fill out the poll, claiming it was a "socialist act" and that they should be "punished for not having their own pencils."
-WKW
Crossposted at William K. Wolfrum Chronicles
Well, the House is moving health care reform legislation forward. Waxman, the Blue Dogs and the Progressive Caucus are working it out and apparently will move a decent bill (including public option) out of the Energy and Commerce committee prior to August recess. All well and good! But in the Senate - MAX BAUCUS IS STILL DRIVING ME CRAZY!!! His failure to even get a final proposal out of his tiny "bipartisan" working group to present to the full Finance Committee is inexcusable at this point.
Max, Grassley, Enzi, Conrad, Bingaman and Snowe are thumbing their noses at us and Obama. How many hundreds of times now have we heard vague reports that they are "edging forward" or "making progress". Progress my ass! These few, powerful, reactionary senators have pitched their obstructionist picnic in the middle of the health care reform highway, and call for more lemonade as we the people sit fuming in a traffic jam of thwarted ideals and stymied enthusiasm.
I would like to walk into that conference room and throw icewater on these six sad sacks, then loudly alert them to their neglected duty. Failing that, I sent the following fax to Max today. It may mean nothing to him, but it made me feel better.
Dear Senator Baucus,
I call upon you to please do your part to expedite the completion of your Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill! We, the American people, have waited a very long time, and we are becoming more and more impatient.
We have waited many months, as your bipartisan group within the Finance Committee continues to meet and issue vague comments about "making progress". Meanwhile, the Senate HELP Committee completed a solid bill, and the various House of Representatives committees have done highly commendable work in moving their bills forward.
The little we know about the bill being crafted by your Finance Committee indicates that it runs counter to the efforts of the bills already advanced in the House and Senate. The information leaked earlier this week indicates that your proposed bill does not include a public health insurance option, which is one of the key features of health care reform desired by the American people and President Obama.
Although one must wonder why you would jettison the public option, apparently in an attempt to please Republican Senators with whom you are negotiating, it is your prerogative to do so. Do as you wish, Sir, but by all means COMPLETE A BILL and move it out of your committee!
You are becoming public enemy #1 in the perception of Americans who care about moving health care reform forward. You are seen as an obstructionist who is holding the process hostage. Your motives are being questioned, and you are widely viewed as being bought and paid for by insurance companies that have contributed massive sums to you over the years. Is this what you want? Is this the image you wish to convey? Is this the way you would like to be remembered? I think not. For your own sake as well as the good of the American people, Sir - COMPLETE A BILL and move it out of your committee, and let the process move forward!
If this means postponing or shortening the August recess, so be it! We, the people, in our professional and personal lives must postpone or delay vacations when important issues present themselves and demand our time and attention. We expect no less of our legislators.
The American people want health care reform, and we know that this is a pivotal moment in the struggle to finally make reform happen. We are watching to see what our legislators will do. Please show us what you are made of! Please COMPLETE A BILL and move it out of your committee!
Regards,
Tim Tarleton
Here is an editorial from yesterday's Washington Times explaining how "Obama's" health plan equals euthanasia. It is evil to scare so many old people this way. Obama even got the question at a health care event on Wednesday.
Thank you, Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council for being such good Christianists, and scaring the Devil out of senior citizens. It's what Jesus would have done...if he wanted to create theocratic-US-world-dominio-for-Himself asshats who want to wield ultimate power over people and nations in the Name of the Savior.
By | Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Avg. Rating: 0
$('#voting').load('/voting/79/389983/');
Back on May 1, we warned you that President Obama's health care proposals could lead to bureaucrats deciding when to "pull the plug" on an individual's medical treatment. That awful day is drawing nearer.
In an April 28 New York Times interview, the president spoke of having government guide a "very difficult democratic conversation" about "those toward the end of their lives [who] are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here." Those statements sounded a little creepy to us. Deciding who gets denied care at the end of life should not be dependent on government cost controls.
Presidential health care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and chairman of the Department of Bioethics at the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, has argued that independent government boards should decide policy on end-of-life care. He also has defended rationing care more strictly for older people because "allocation [of medical care] by age is not invidious discrimination."
It is in that light that House Republicans warn against draft Section 1233 of the House Democratic health care bill as an area of deep concern. It provides for seniors, every five years, to be provided "advance care planning consultation" for "end-of-life services." House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan warn that the provision "may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia."
If that fear sounds far-fetched, consider that similar things already are happening in several states. As Jeff Emanuel (no relation to the Obama officials) explains on the facing page, a panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this spring ruled that Georgia can override a doctor's decision about how much care is warranted for a handicapped child because the state is "the final arbiter" of medical decisions.
The situation is even worse in Oregon, which has legalized "assisted suicide." As radio host and author Mark Levin has publicized in his best-seller "Liberty and Tyranny," the Oregon health plan last year refused to pay for a recognized drug to prolong the life of lung cancer patient Barbara Wagner even after her oncologist prescribed it. Yet the same bureaucrats told Ms. Wagner that the plan would indeed cover doctor-assisted suicide if she chose that option.
Saving her life was deemed too expensive, but paying her to die was just fine.
A year ago, on July 28, 2008, FoxNews.com reported that such cases aren't unique in Oregon but are becoming almost commonplace. For instance, until he raised a ruckus, 53-year-old prostate cancer patient Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., was denied new treatments but offered full payment if he would just agree to be killed.
As Jeff Emanuel noted in a post at the Red State blog, Oregon's plan expressly does not cover "medical equipment or supplies which will not benefit the patient for a reasonable length of time." Reasonableness is determined by green-eyeshade, budget-crunching bureaucrats rather than by doctors.
Mr. Obama's government health care proposal easily could devolve into a similar nightmare. That's reason enough for lawmakers to give this awful legislation a merciful death.
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
Click here for reprint permissions! var addthis_pub="washingtontimes";
Any TPM'ers who plan to meet up with Gumbun, Ripper McCord and Jason Everett Miller for the Rally in DC today, please take note:
They are meeting up at 12:45 PM EST at the corner of Delaware and Constitution Streets, on the park side.
By Nezua, TMC Mediawire Blogger
Nobody said becoming a post-racial nation would be easy. The United States has its first black president, but as the son of a Kenyan immigrant, his citizenship and legitimacy are still being questioned. In the meantime, the White House is advancing programs like the 287(g) agreement, which have been linked to racial profiling and civil rights violations. It's a form of oppression made possible, perversely, by the very administration that many hoped would combat such injustices.
10:51 AM
Gates and Crowley enter the Oval Office.
10:52 AM
Gates bites Crowley on the neck.
"Anything I do with my jaws is protected speech," he says. Obama cheers.
10:53 AM
Crowley shoots Obama, but the bullets bounce off, and Obama is exposed as a stainless steel robot.
10:54 AM
Republicans demand immediate impeachment, because the robot Obama cannot fulfill the Constitutional requirement of being "born in the United States," but Democrats claim that "assembled in the United States" is even better.
10:55 AM
Healthcare reform is defeated in the United States Senate.
Some arch conservatives unhappy with President Obama are promoting the notion that he is not a native-born American, and hence ineligible for the presidency.
It is their right to pursue this, and I find it deplorable that some so-called "liberals" are trying to discourage them. Rather, in my view, these "birthers" are actually not doing enough. There is hardly anything more important than finding out whether our President is really American, and so the "birthers" cannot afford to content themselves with occasional media releases or blog comments.
What they must do is devote full and exclusive attention to where Barack Hussein Obama was born. This means dedicating all available time to that mission - it obviously cannot be 24 hours a day but it should be as close to full time as possible. It means ignoring every other issue. Colleagues may implore them to devote attention to health care, climate change, job creation, stimulus spending, or other headline-getting subjects, or might ask for monetary donations regarding these subjects. The "birthers" must resist these distractions, which would simply reduce the time they have to determine whether Obama's birth certificate is a forgery.
If "birthers" live up to their obligation and devote themselves exclusively to investigating Obama's legitimacy and to nothing else, they will be doing all America an immense favor. I expect no less of them.
I'm lost.
I feel as if there are so many committees; so many compromises; so many taking stands against a position; alliances both holy and unholy; that there is no accurate scorecard of where we really are on healthcare reform.
Does anyone (Josh?) have a breakdown of the current proposals from the various committees with their similarities and their differences broken down? Where is the Senate in relation to the House?
I have no idea what to even tell my Senator (D-decent) or Representative (R-worthless).
Could TPM staffers do this for us: A simple chart laying out the plans from committees and Chambers and the member coalitions pushing hard lines one way or the other? Post a special page with summaries of the latest greatest screwy ideas coming from fantasy land?
Just show me lost in the wilderness; seeing only trees.
P.S. If you are as lost as I am, please ask Josh to help us out.
When I was a high school junior at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, I started a United Nation's Club. I vaguely remember that Carl Bernstein joined my club, before he graduated to become a cub reporter at the Washington Post. As a result of my love for the U.N., I subsequently became the national student chairman of the United World Federalists, a group led by Norman Cousins, that wanted a world government based on the U.N. charter. The United World Federalists aspired to put some teeth into the structure of the United Nations, so that it could eventually replace nation state armies with U.N. forces. This we hoped would prevent an atomic holocaust.
That was almost 50 years ago, and I have since learned a few things about this planet. I now believe that in my youth I was a pawn for the American version of the English Fabian Socialist movement. The Fabians helped create the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921, the United Nations in 1945, and other New World Order groups that aim for a world government based upon communist principles, but with a softer, gradualist, non-violent approach. Their ideal is to promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people, in opposition, however, to principles of individuality and freedom,
Led by the Rockefeller family, which donated the block of land where the U.N. complex now sits, they have an elitist agenda. You can see signs of that agenda everywhere these days--control of the masses through distraction from the real issues of the day, through entertainment, gossip and yellow journalism; the creation of faux political fights where nothing ever changes, or it's one step forward, two steps backward. They want to control all financial transactions, our food supply, our medicine and drugs, and our travel. They are orchestrating the world financial crisis in order to centralize control of all currencies. They are coordinating the control of our food through multi-national agrochemical corporations that have gobbled up seed companies all over the world, ensuring that farmers can no longer save seed for subsequent years. They are redistributing various ethnic and racial groups to distant parts of the world, calling it "a melting pot," or "multiculturalism." Such mixing of races and cultures rarely engenders harmony, but instead keeps various nationalities and races fighting for the same jobs, and the same real estate. This tends to foment old hatreds in new locations.
I had sincerely hoped that Obama was not part of this scenario, but with each passing day, I am disappointed. He has made no moves to clean the Faustian Augean stables of all the damage the past eight years have done to American and world society. There has been no repeal of the Patriot Act. No arrests of the many criminals who profited and lied to us. No connecting of the dots concerning World Trade Center Building No. 7 that fell into its own footprint at 5:25 pm on September 11th, 2001, conveniently incinerating the Security and Exchange Commission's financial records of Enron, and its rip-off of Californians during the energy crisis. Even today with all the evidence of the many lies of the last administration, no MSM, or fast-rising blogger for that matter, has teased apart the official theory of what happened on that awful day.
Well, if you like homogenized milk, then welcome to an homogenized world.
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
It's Time for a Congressional Housecleaning
It's become increasingly obvious that simply taking away control of congress from the GOP wasn't quite good enough to disengage the corpo-congressional alliance. Self-service has now become an entrenched way of life for politicians of both parties, so the only way the American people are going to ever get the kind of representation we deserve is to do a complete housecleaning of the old congressional guard, both Democrat and Republican, in both houses of congress.
The political establishment in this country has become corrupt all the way to its bone marrow. The people who we thought we were sending to congress to represent OUR interests has become a class unto themselves, and their primary interest is in feathering their own nests.
Dedication has become a radical concept in congress, so it's time to get rid of all but the most statesmanlike of this group, and replace them with new politicians who understand that their primary role is to serve the people, not themselves.
What's most disgusting about this group is that they have no true political philosophy or loyalty to anything but themselves. The only concern that they have for political philosophy is as a convenient hook upon which to hang their demagoguery while manipulating the people.
They have absolutely no qualms about sending young Americans to die for the benefit of war profiteers, passing laws designed to protect big business as they poison our environment, and blocking our right to legal recourse after we've been harmed by one of their many campaign contributors. Truth and justice is meaningless to these people. It's all about dollars and sense - their dollars, and our lack of sense.
Their very survival depends on creating turmoil, distraction, and confusion, and their favorite method of operation is through distortion, misinformation, and division. Thus, the American people will never have the prosperous, tranquil, and productive nation that we all yearn for as long as we allow people of such moral depravity to occupy the highest offices in this land. They simply can't allow it.
Republican politicians have become so transparent that even though we clearly see them reaching under the table for the rabbit to pull out of their hat, they keep us so distracted by their divisive non-issues that many Republicans don't care that they're cutting their our own family's throat, "just as long as we don't do anything to benefit 'those socialist-leaning liberals'" - and the tragic humor in that is that most of them can't even define either socialist or liberal.
Take national healthcare, for example. Many people in this country have been convinced that it's a bad thing to ensuring that they and their families will have affordable healthcare if they lose their jobs, that their policies can't be cancelled simply because they have an illness that's deemed too expensive to treat. They see it as socialism. So in essence, just through the use of the word "socialism" they've been trained like Pavlov's dog to protect the very industry that's cutting their throats.
But the Democrats are no better. They've convinced their constituents that they're "the party of the people." But we mustn't forget that they're being funded by the very same people who are funding the Republicans, and now that they have a huge majority in congress, their efforts on our behalf just don't seem to be passing the sniff test.
What's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? A lot of flowery rhetoric.
After all of the fancy speeches, promises, and flowery rhetoric over the past fifty years, now that the Democrats have the votes and everything is in place to provide the people of this country with universal healthcare, all of a sudden, the Blue Dog Democrats have discovered fiscal responsibility.
Where was their sense of fiscal responsibility when they voted for every crony-enriching scheme that Bush and Cheney could conjure up?And where was their sense of fiscal discipline when during the closest thing we've had to a full blown depression since the thirties they voted themselves and every member of congress a $93,000 raise in "petty cash?"
They seem to have temporarily lost their way, but now that we want to do something to benefit the people, they've put their foot down - saying, "It's intolerable!"
We have a problem here. We've become so apathetic over the past thirty years or so that we've allowed a political culture to spring up in this country that is a clear and present danger to our national security. They represent everything that the founding fathers of this nation was dead set against. They've become royalty - a class unto themselves. Clear evidence of that is even though the Democrats and Republicans are mortal enemies, the Democrats are protecting their Republican predecessors against charges of war crimes.
I'm hoping that President Obama is taking these issues into account, because in the final analysis, it doesn't matter how well he does as president if he doesn't adhere to certain standards. History, and his constituency, is going to judge him on the following issues: Was Bush and Cheney held accountable for looting this country and committing war crimes in our name? Did he protect the integrity of the United States Constitution? And did he promptly address the issue of bigotry within the military? Those would be changes we can believe in? Anything short of that will be business as usual.
The president should consider as he's looking towards 2012 that he has a problem that the Republicans don't share. His constituency are not mindless zombies. They're thinking people - thinking people with long memories. So if he doesn't hold fast to his promises, as much as they love him, they're going to be intellectually immune to his charm. In fact, the polls are beginning to show that it's wearing thin as we speak. So he needs to stop worrying about the Republicans and start thinking about his own base of support.
As for congress - ladies and gentleman, that is up to us. If we do what we need to do in 2010, we'll get everybody's attention - including the president's.
Eric L. Wattree
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.
Let's be candid and perfectly clear on this. Republican and right wing resistance to President Obama's plans and policies is racially motivated.
The arguments against anything that President Obama has proposed or done thus far in his administration are not based on political ideology or alternative plans or proposals. The opposition to Obama is simple and clear, there will be no cooperation or bipartisan support for the black man in the White House.
Here is a list/summary of the opposition arguments:
1) He is not a citizen.
2) He is a socialist.
3) He is a fascist.
4) He is a not a Christian.
5) He is a racist.
The Republican wisdom has been to let the falsehoods run their course and when possible be supportive of people who maitain such views or positions.
The Republicans are focused and singleminded in their desire to "break him". There has not been nor will there be any effort to support plans or proposals that can result in any real change. Hence the Republican Party is not simply the party of "NO" but they have hitched their political futures and fortunes to being the party of the status quo...no change at all.......
The plan is simple. If they can keep Obama from making any changes for the good of the general public, they believe that people will become less enamored of Obama and his administration and thus be more disposed to voting against Obama and the Democratic Party during the next round of elections in 2010 and then in 2012.
The Republican Party has chosen to be the party that represents the protection and preservation of white peoples' interests while at the same time doing all that it can to promote the notion that anything that Obama does is for the benefit of and in the interests of black people, which are, they would have the less enlightened among us believe, by definition diametrically in oppsition to the interests of white people...In short the Republican party has become the party of and for racists.....Bill Maher said it best on his program ...."If you are a racist you are most likely a Republican." AMEN Bill, AMEN.........
To Congress: REJECT Obama's Socialized Health CareYeah. That's the type of country we live in. A stupid one.
"I saw the things that Obama is saying that really did not make sense and that concerned me. One, of course, that had to do with the all-civilian army. And I saw footage of children dressed in uniforms, saluting Obama and doing drills. That reminded me of young communists."I mean what do you expect her to say, I'm a communist agent sent to subvert your democracy, hell no, she's going to wrap herself in the American flag so we can't see her true colors. You know what they say "однажды КГБ всегда КГБ," "Once KGB always KGB." How do we know she's not one of Stalin's children? I saw, The Boys From Brazil. They didn't call him Papa Joe for nothing. I want to see proof and now, are you or were you ever a member of the Communist Party?
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | ||
| Womb Raiders - Orly Taitz | |||
| www.colbertnation.com | |||
|
Between 1947 and 1967, this was a somewhat accurate image, as the distribution of income made the population look more and more like a bell curve with each passing year. Yet since 1967, this story has reversed course. For more than 40 years, income has been distributed less equitably. As we consider the policy remedies to crises that are of immediate impact--such as the crisis in health care or in our financial system--it is critical to understand the larger arc of this socioeconomic narrative. How we think of distributing the costs of reform should be informed by this larger story. http://www.slate.com/id/2223734/
Read the entire article. In thirty years that top tier, the top one percent, went from 'earning' twenty percent of all income in this country to almost thirty percent. Slate is tying this all into our tiered health care system. But the article really underlines how things have become unbalanced.
We need a new definition of 'earned income'. We need changes in our income tax regulations that treat bonuses and extraordinary pay to management differently from 'earned income.' Again a 90% tax rate for certain levels of 'income' would send a message that enough is enough.
Nobody 'earns' ten million bucks a year, NOBODY. Earning has nothing to do with it. Period.
End of discussion.
And these 'bonuses' are given out to a few hundred in the top tier of a failing corporation when thousands of people IN THE SAME COMPANY are fired. 'Laid off' sounds so much nicer does it not?
But I came across some interesting articles today (and yesterday) that really get into this problem of the redistribution of wealth that has taken place in this country. Supposedly the term is Marxist in nature. But this redistribution went the other way. From the middle classes to the upper classes, leaving the rest of us in the lurch.
Lady Huff has revamped her book from 2002 and discusses this new economic 'recovery':
The problem is, this victory dance is being done on top of the same shaky financial system that nearly toppled over, sending us all plummeting into the economic abyss. And while the market is over 9,100 (with another 10 percent gain predicted by the end of the year) and Goldman, Citi, and Bank of America are reporting multi-billion dollar profits, unemployment is heading to 10 percent, foreclosures continue at a rate of 10,000 a day, credit card defaults are hitting record highs, and states all across the country are cutting vital services to the bone.
Two days before Enron went bust, the company gave senior employees $55 million in bonuses while simultaneously coming out against any financial assistance for the 4,500 workers who had just been fired. There was outrage and recrimination. But we quickly moved on. And a little over seven years later found ourselves once again outraged, this time by AIG's plan to pay $165 million in bonuses to the same people who had driven the company to brink of collapse and the need for a $180 billion government bailout.
Similarly, in 2002, on the same day WorldCom stunned the world with the magnitude of its accounting fraud, the company's inner circle began an extravagant, all-expenses-paid vacation in Maui. There was outrage and recrimination. But we quickly moved on. And six years later were outraged by the $443,000 luxury spa retreat executives of AIG took just days after the government unveiled the first $85 billion of the taxpayer-funded bailout package for the insurance giant.
See some of this is symbolic and some of it really cuts to the core of a rotten system. A sleazy economic system rewards the upper tier just for being in the upper tier and then just steps on the lower tiers. 4,500 workers without jobs in the Enron mess while 55 million went to the pigs who caused the mess in the first place. As far as the spa retreat, who cares? It just demonstrated a symptom of a much more serious problem.
And instead of holding the Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse who are still in charge accountable, those in the financial media are ready to move on, searching for the next superstar cover boys. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/more-pigs-at-the-trough-w_b_245940.html
Supposedly there is hope that things might change. There has been some movement to change things by our elected representatives:
Daily Beast: A House panel passed a broadly worded measure today regulating financial executives' compensation, The Wall Street Journal reports. The bill, approved in a 40-28 vote by the House Financial Services Committee, authorizes restrictions on "inappropriate or imprudently risky" pay packages--specifically Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other financial companies--with the exception of firms with less than $1 billion in assets. The legislation also guarantees more input from shareholders, as well as requiring that independent directors are included in board compensation committees. Opposing Republicans worried that "federal bureaucrats" would be setting pay levels for employees, but Democrats argued that the government wouldn't be responsible for the task--shareholders would weigh in. "There's nothing in this bill that allows the government to set compensation," said Rep. Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina. "Quit trying to hide behind the government as a big, bad entity." Read it at The Wall Street Journal
This does not do enough but at least somebody is attempting to do something. We need some real checks and balances in this country. And things are so bad, maybe we should take a look at how they handle things like this in other countries.
How do others, under different governments, provide needed checks to the terrible behavior of our managerial class? Maybe we could learn something from how others deal with these problems:
Chinese state media confirmed Monday that a steel factory executive was beaten to death after thousands of workers gathered to protest the takeover of their company. Chen Guojun, an executive at Jianlong Steel Holding Co., died Friday after an angry mob in the northeastern rust belt city of Tonghua beat him and then blocked ambulances from reaching him, according to the China Daily.
The protesters worked at the state-owned Tonghua Iron and Steel Group, which was going to be sold to Chen's privately owned Jianlong Steel. Chen sparked the riot by announcing 30,000 workers would be laid off, the newspaper said. They dispersed later only after they were assured by authorities the sale would not go through.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-china-mob27-2009jul27,0,3235364.story
#1
Myth: The Honduran court declared the referendum proposed by Zelaya illegal.
Fact: The issue was never tried on it's merits. The Honduran court issued a temporary injunction against the referendum. It found that without an injunction, remedy for the plaintiff would become moot and public money spent on the poll would be unrecoverable in an event where a hearing on merits found the referendum illegal and it had already taken place. This injunction was upheld on appeal.
#2
Myth: Zelaya was removed from office for trying to extend his term.
Fact: Zelaya was removed from office for what amounts to contempt of court because of ignoring the injunction and subsequent court orders.
#3Please note. This is not to assess the merits of the argument they are putting forward. Instead this is an attempt to provide a factual report of the actual allegations against Zelaya from the Honduran establishment's point of view.
Myth: The legal challenge to the referendum was based on an allegation that Zelaya wanted to extend his term in office.
Fact: The argument against the referendum was based on two issues, one statutory and one constitutional. The statutory argument involved jurisdiction: if Zelaya had legal authority to authorize the expenditures and conduct the poll, or if the authority is granted to a different government organ as alleged by the plaintiff. The constitutional argument is based on the nature of the November ballot question proposed in the referendum. Based on the Honduran constitution, certain articles can not be changed. Additionally the method for legal changes to the constitution is strictly defined in Article 373 which itself is one of the protected Articles. The court cites constitutional Articles 373, 374, and 375 as the basis for the legal challenge. Article 239, limiting presidential terms, is simply not mentioned or used as the basis for any legal argument.
6. And of course our Republicans are going ballistic ."I ask for forgiveness from those who for one reason or another do not agree with us, and I ask God to show them the light so they realize it is more important to live in peace," Micheletti said.
"I am here not because men put me here, I am here because God put me here," he said.
"I want the best for my country," Micheletti said. "I believe that up to this moment, I have no reason to be humbled before any man, but before God permanently, because I have acted correctly in my life."
While derivatives use among U.S. companies is widespread, an "overwhelming majority of the exposure is concentrated among financial institutions," according to the rating agency's review of first-quarter financials.
Concentrated, in fact, among a mere handful of financial-services giants. About 80% of the derivative assets and liabilities carried on the balance sheets of 100 companies reviewed by Fitch were held by five banks: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. Those five banks also account for more than 96% of the companies' exposure to credit derivatives.
No problem, right? After all, in order to get tarp money and access to the fed reserve window, Goldman had to become a bank holding company and do all those boring things that banks used to have to do. Ordinarily, that would be true. Except they got a waiver.
When I first came to TPM I wrote a lot -- perhaps ad nauseum -- about the contrast between FEMA and insurance company response to Hurricane Hugo -- in Charleston, SC, in1989 -- and to Hurricane Ivan, which pulverized Pensacola, FL in 2004, a year before Katrina decimated New Orleans.
In 1989, FEMA trucks with relief supplies as well as professionals ready to offer seasoned expertise were in place, in multiple locations, within twenty-fours hours. Insurance agents exceeded FEMA's performance, in dollars and cents if not in timing, arriving for on-site inspections within three days, checkbooks at the ready to settle claims on the spot.
In 2004, however, FEMA was AWOL for over eight days -- eight days (!) during which, without power and with water systems tainted, there was no ice and no bottled water in 100+ degree heat. Finally, when FEMA supplies arrived, they were inhumanly rationed (from only two locations) to a bag of ice and a gallon of water per family per day.... lest, according to free market principles, there be a temptation to "resell them for profit". When FEMA personnel finally arrived, they worked from only one location; furthermore, they were poorly-trained if kindly volunteers..... because the seasoned experts had been downsized. But they were better than the insurance agents, who again exceeded FEMA, if this time negatively; in many cases, no on-site inspection occurred for weeks and, in some cases, months. Almost all adjusters were independent adjusters from elsewhere, sub-contracted to the insurance company in question. As a further delaying tactic, claims were re-assigned to new adjusters repeatedly (in my case, nine times) which required starting the paper trail from scratch. And no money -- no matter which company, or what the policy said -- was forthcoming for over a year, despite the facts that most policies had emergency expense clauses, people could not live in their houses, and therefore had double living expenses. Payouts were finally made only to those policyholders who agreed to accept 70% or less of reimbursement due. There are still those who have received nothing, five years later, because they "stubbornly" refused to take less than they were owed.
So what did people do in the immediate aftermath of the storm and during the year that followed, to simply survive?
Neighbors who had been at war with each other banded together, sharing not only meager resources but also backbreaking labor. Neighborhood watches were formed to try to contain marauding bands of looters, not least of whom were maverick clean-up crews from elsewhere. Sometimes this backfired -- fearful, stressed-out residents called the police on their neighbors out-of-town family members or friendsarriving to help, etc..
The bottom line, in 2009, is this: the Bush/Cheney/insurance industry cabal betrayed its Gulf Coast citizens in 2004, after Ivan, which was ignored nationwide because Pensacola's backwater status drew no media focus. Learning nothing, the administration betrayed New Orleans a year later -- N'Ohrlins --a city so intrinsically tied to our image of ourselves as cool, mellow originators of music, a city at once so laid back yet so sophisticated as a culture that media attention was immediate, if misdirected, their attention focused on the problem, but not the solution, so desperately needed by so many.
Years have passed. Thousands of homeowners have been foreclosed. Stores have closed. Businesses of all kinds have gone under, or decamped to more accommodating climes. No wonder, then, that for those left behind, alcoholism is up, hope is down, and endurance is stretched beyond human absorption.
HEADS UP, America -- it's hurricane season again, the dangerous core of which is mid-August through the end of September. And so the question is this: is the Obama administration's FEMA ready, fully re-trained to do better? Has the insurance industry been reprimanded, regulated or contained in any meaningful way?
I would have assumed so, until healthcare reform evolved as it has, to date.
So, this year, is it hurricane business as usual? By which I mean insurance BUSINESS, as the priority, as compared to the health and welfare of the people to whom they allegedly have contractual obligations.
Caveat Emptor, dear family, friends and former neighbors -- all of you who still live in hurricane zones. Hope may spring eternal, but change we can believe in has yet to be demonstrated.
Therefore, remember a survivor's mantra: love thy neighbor as thyself, no matter what.
