Bumper stickers!  The Left rails against bumper stickers, but they beat us every time.  Well, here is the one we should be passing around.  Here is the one that will put those old guys, like BilllyNoPinkie, to shame for their stupid position against single payer.  This is how those grey warriors can be recruited to our side.  They simply need to hear this and/or see this: "I support Single Payer.  I have Medicare".  I am sure there are seniors out there right now on our side of this fight.  We just need them to display their belief and we need other seniors to see that so they can move away from the group think.  I would guess there are many onthe fence unsure of what to do.  This should clear it up a bit.

"I support Single Payer.  I Have Medicare" should cause them to realize what it is they have.  Right now, from appearances, it seems all the older folks are against it, and we shake our heads.  Put this out there and watch who shakes their head!  The agitators will have a lot of explaining to do once they are exposed as having duped the elderly about Single Payer when they all take part in a Single Payer  system.

PS:  I don;t have Medicare, I'm just sayin'.

Evidently the company formerly known as Blackwater, now known as Xe, (Newly renamed after an odorless, colorless element, from the scientific periodic table of the same name), has lost their contracts in Iraq.  Well, not overnight, exactly, but in a few wekks, or maybe months. 

ABC News has the news, (No kidding!  It's like actual information) here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Blackwater/story?id=8466369

What comes to my mind as I read about this, along with the recent revelation that in Afghanistan, as we speak, there are more contractors then there are military personnel, is whether this is really cost effective?  This info comes courtesy of Huffington Post, here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/01/report-contractors-outnum_n_274627.html

Let's think about this.  It's pretty common to hear that the soldiers of fortune are making considerably more money then we pay our soldiers, enticing the bloodthirsty and the desperate to sign up with them, and these recruits to the proivate sector need not necessarily be veterans of the US military either.  Veterans of the Balkan Wars who served Milosevich and the armed brutes of Latin American dictators are among those hired to represent our interests in the Middle East.  These people are making serious money right out of the US Treasury.  In addition, these contractors have bought aircraft to ferry diplomats and such around the region.  Now, did they get a better price on those aircraft then a bulk purchaser like the US military?  If so, WHY?!?!?   

It seems to me there is no good reason that a private contractor with a few hundred "employees" should be able to garner  a price for aircraft anything like the discount the US military would get, right?  Come on.  Get up off the floor and stop laughing.  Here's a tissue to wipe your eyes.  I'm serious!  There should be nothing in their inventory, right down to the pens, that they should be able to obtain for less then a bulk purchaser like the US military, right? 

So why is anyone listening to the crap about how private companies can do things more cheaply and efficiently?  It seems to me that the only reason the military could not do things cheaper is a lack of will, a lack of stewardship.  But I wonder!  When was the last time the OMB, or whoever does this sort of thing, evaluated a cost analysis of private contractors doing things for the military versus the military doing things for themselves?  I also wonder, if the costs are significantly higher, whether the miliary might be given the opportunity to increase the benefits they provide soldiers, sailors, marines and the aviation crowd?  We all know our services are stretched thin, but with this economy, I am sure there are people would think about signing up if the benefits were better, and the opportunities were really there to build a career once they got out.  Maybe by eliminating more of these hired guns we could find money to pay for better representation, even with less money.

As a teenager, I lived behind the church, right next to the church hall.  On some Saturdays,  they rented the hall for weddings to raise money for the church.  There was this old guy, Andy, who made the best roast beef in town, or anywhere near town for that matter.  They were booked more then a year in advance.  Andy had been a cook with Patton's army.  He had the self-discipline and endurance to still be cooking in his seventies, even though he had to get up before dawn to put the beasts in the oven, and they didn't serve until late in the afternoon.  He was dedicated.  What would having people attend basic training and serving in the military in this way provide to this country?  It seems we have lost our edge, and I wonder whether the level of professionalism required to be a contractor, versus in the military, is not part of that deterioration.

A soldier knows one thing very keenly.  The chain is only a strong as its weakest link.  When we look at healthcare reform, if we understand this concept, it is a no brainer.  And if the financial tables have turned, which it appears to me is probable with the way everything else was stood on its head by the Bush Regime, a critical analysis might show it's time for the military to be the self-supporting unit it once was, and the war front to be a national effort not a private playground for capitalists with no-bid contracts.  I think it's time to really look at those expenses again and see whether we can do it better for less.  As a risk manager, I think we need to evaluate the moral hazards as well.  It would be especially relevant if this news report is found to be accurate in any way.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/blackwater-founder-a-murderer/hot-water/

It seems that now that Xe is leaving, it would not take much to get better with less.  

What a joke!  The clique controls the blog here at TPM?  Josh controls the blog, no one else.  The clique censors those who disagree?  Look if you posted the comment and your post is still standing, you've had your fifteen minutes.  You're making as much sense as those astroturfers bringing their guns to the townhalls.  How can you argue with a gun on your hip that people are taking away your guns?  We see it right there on your hip!  Is it raining or are you relieving yourself on my back?!?  There's too much encouragement here?  Not any more!!!  I think the recent "rain" has pretty well balanced the love fest we were having.

The clique!  Who is in and who is out, is what I want to know.  I went thru the DanK post, only 86 recommends into it, and found a couple newbies and all the rest were familiar and I wondered, are they the clique?  Or maybe some of them are in, and some of them are out.  I just could not tell!  Am I in?!?!

As I usually do, I will take the proposition, seemingly absurd, and accept it to see where it takes me.  There is a clique at TPMCafe.  Okay, let's remove the clique, because it is a poison.  Who leaves?  Would it be all the familiar faces that should go?  Maybe just me, a clique of one?  Would it be the huggers?  Oh GAWD!  These people are making contact with each other, someone pass me a barf bag!!!  Quick!!!  Don't touch me!!!  On the face of that I have to get back to that raining thing.  Referring anything here as a hug is ridiculous.  I was hugged once, and it wasn't anything like this cyber-world in which we are all playing.  It was AWESOME too!!!

Now let's take another tack.  Let's accept it is a clique and that it dominates this site.  Oh, and it's so wrong, too.  Did I mention it was disagreeable?  Well, I believe it is not so tight.  It's no conspiracy. The clique just shares certain values and beliefs.  Not to get too religious, but we, and I will assume I am part of the "clique" and can speak for its "members", have a penchant for progressive/liberal ideas and prefer common decency.   Therefore, when something comes up less then liberal, we speak out against it, we defend our position, and if something is offensive and rude, we tend to answer back, and some of us, and I KNOW I am in this group, are willing to meet the poster/commenter in whatever gutter they choose to originate the post/comment.  It's kind of antithetical to the preference of common decency, but it speaks loudly to the penchant for progressive/liberal ideals.

TPMCafe is the clique.  We are unique and I find that the level of discourse, even in the gutter, is more creative and insightful then most other places.  We have little tolerance for, or patience with, those who cannot support their arguments.  We abhor dishonesty, such that anyone can perceive the truth, but that is also one of our strengths being from the Left.  We are willing to question whether we have found a truth.  But we have also gotten to a point where the Right has managed to dispense absolutely ridiculous ideas with success and that destruction of reality is a threat to the nation we love.  So we get loud when it comes to this blog.

The bottomline is this.  The clique rulez!  It is the influence of the clique in their posts and comments that makes the Cafe what it is.  If TPMCafe was a landing place for random posts with no continuity, people would not be returning to the site again and again.  People come to read the clique.  They also come to read the objections to the clique, but may the clique always be there, because, as was recently remarked in another post on this topic, other sites began with one perspective and devolved into a cacophony of emotionalism and unsubstantiated screeds that should be rejected out of hand for their lack of grounding in any reality. 

The clique is what keeps things grounded, IMHO, and although some would object to this, I think people even appreciate those self-appointed defenders of the GOP or the Right, if for nothing less then the foils on which we display our positions.  Although I find that they really are much more then that.  I believe they are, in fact, part of the clique and accepted, even though they hold different views.  Very few have asked them to leave, though when it does occur, I am sure those events strike deep, cyberically speaking.  {Hey!  I just made up a word!  Kewl!}  I believe we are aware that if we are not challenged, we just might lose our grounding in reality.  We might become like those "other" sites.  I am hoping we do not and that people take this picture of the clique with a grain of salt because this clique is eager to wlecome new members and has done so on many occassions, even very recently. 

It does not seem "clique" is the best characterization of who we are, and what TPMCafe is, but I can see how some might come here and, when their beliefs and values are met with objections, color the TPMCafe in that way.  Be civil, prove us wrong.  Just be sure you can back it up because we do enjoy a challenge and don't think if you go into the gutter to throw stones at us, we will ignore you.  We are eager to meet you too!