More Puny Poutrage

Glenn Beck ought to try poutine. It might make his memory better:

Last night Fox News continued its disregard for the facts in an attempt to smear the Administration's efforts to win the Olympics for the United States. In the past, hosting the Olympics has been a source of pride and unity for the country, but once again Fox News' Glenn Beck program has shown that nothing is worthy of respect if it can be used as part of a partisan attack to boost ratings.

At the White House blog, there is a list of misstatements and outright lies Beck told just Tuesday night.

Let me add one more: Beck, aided and feloniously abetted by the rest of the rubber-lipped goon squad (e.g. Michelle Malkin, among others), has been outraged that Barack Obama would go to Copenhagen to make the case for the Olympics to come to Chicago, his home town.

Yet, strangely silent he was when George W. Bush was vacationing in Crawford, TX (I hesitate to say he was ranching) in August 2005 when Katrina hit and 250,000 people were stranded for days without adequate food, water, or shelter.

Even more strange, he had nothing to say about Bush's extended vacation in the summer of 2001, when he was shown a PDB warning that Al Qaeda was imminently to attack Americans on American soil, likely using commercial aircraft.

Indeed, he came to church on Bush in the last few months of the Bush term, finally speaking out against the massive bank bailout...which he supported just days earlier!

The sense I get from the right wing this month is, they've lost the battle on healthcare reform, lost the battle on economic stimulus, lost the battle on government aid for banks and the auto industry, and are faced with having to find some way to attack what appears to be a rock-solid wall around the Obama castle.

By flinging mud, or worse.

And when you fling mud, two things happen to a large wall:

1) Nothing.

2) It back-splatters back all over you.

The past few years have seen the decline of the heavyweights of right-wing punditry: Rush Limbaugh was shown to be a power-craved madman who would tear apart the GOP for his own ego. He was quickly muted. Ann Coulter was shown to be a whiny-voiced harridan who would attack anyone for a buck. She was quickly muted. Michelle Malkin was shown to be a hypocritical fussbudget with a counter-top obsession and a need to punish innocent children. She was quickly muted.

Into the void has stepped Glenn Beck. He will undoubtedly meet the same fate.

Polanski Agonistes

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More On Fairness

Barbara Ehrenreich made me late for work this morning.

No. Really. OK, a movie she was in that was playing on LinkTV made me late. And if you missed my side note yesterday, The American Ruling Class is one more reason to support LinkTV.

You may know Ehrenreich from her writings in Time Magazine. If you're a with-it Progressive, you know her books, like Nickel And Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America

Which brings me to this morning's appearance on LinkTV. The American Ruling Class is a mythical tale of two young men-- one rich, one poor-- graduating an Ivy League college, and being presented with the crossroads of choices: sell souls to Goldman Sachs and make a lot of money, or keep your souls and give back to society. It is, in short, a study of the American oligarchy. Or plutocracy. Whichever terms you feel best fits. Who rules America, really?

Back to giving. I didn't get to watch the whole thing...late for work, remember?...but I did catch a critical scene for the purposes of this blog.

Lewis Lapham (the film's protagonist and its writer) squires one young man to breakfast at the IHOP. There, they encounter Ehrenreich, working as a waitress, struggling to make ends meet on minimum wage and tips, already a hundred dollars behind on her rent budget for this month.

She sits down with Lapham and one young man, and makes the most astounding observation. Yes, many of the wealthy "give back" to society, to the tune of millions of dollars each year.

But look at what the working poor give to society: cheap labor.

A billionaire who gives away a million dollars a year is giving one-tenth of one percent of his net worth. Even a "good Christian" making a hundred thousand a year and tithing ten thousand is only giving away ten percent of his income.

But the working poor?

In order that you can have cheap lettuce, or mass-produced sneakers, or convenience stores open around the clock, they give 100% of their livelihood, often at a dear cost to themselves. Working two and sometimes three jobs, they struggle and fight to survive so you can have goods to buy on eBay, or cereal on your grocer's shelves.

We owe these people something. Why?

Look, throughout history, even slaves got some form of healthcare coverage, at the very least adequate to keep them working the fields for the master. It was cheaper to heal them than to buy a new slave and integrate him into the farm culture. Even slaves got some form of education, because it was more efficient to communicate with someone who could speak your language.

Slaves got got food and clothing and water, and a place to sleep. Granted, it was far from adequate, but today's working poor don't even have these guarantees any longer. Lose your job, lose the apartment or trailer you are living in, lose your money for food and clothing, and forget about insurance! If you're making $10,000 a year and insurance costs (minimum) $1,200 a year, who in their right mind would buy insurance?

The American Ruling Class (released in 2005, ahead of the housing bubble burst) notes the staggering amounts of money that Americans earned in the 1990s and early '00s, but also notes that most of the jobs that wealth created were low-wage, no benefit jobs that were almost guaranteed to ensure a serf class, forced to tolerate the most ignominious working conditions in order to bring you your iPod.

We owe them a lot. We owe them our lives and lifestyles, and it's about time we started paying them that debt.

Fairness

I was walking around my neighborhood at six AM today, and sort of mulling life, as my iPod died on my walk. I had a thought, rather a series of thoughts, and wanted to share them with you on this, Yom Kippur.

I guess this train of thought was triggered by watching LinkTV's presentation of an address by author and journalist T R Reid regarding his world tour surveying healthcare abroad.

(SIDE NOTE: If you can give, this is a good time to donate to LinkTV, a network dedicated to bringing you perspective and analysis of the news that you won't get from mainstream media)

Reid consistently pointed out that, logically, it is impossible to frame the current healthcare crisis as anything other than a moral question: Is the healthcare system fair? What is the ultimate responsibility of a government to its people if not to ensure they have long and productive lives?

He has a point: for all the flaws inherent in other country's healthcare systems, most notably the long waits for elective procedures in Canada's Medicare system, they are at their lowest common denominator, fair. The length of time a rich person waits under Canada's Medicare system (which was LBJ's model for his eldercare system) is the same as for a poor person.

It is, at heart, an ultimately fair system. Yes, if a rich person can afford to, he or she can opt to fly to the States and pay for knee surgery or to see an orthopedist, rather than wait a couple of weeks in Canada. But Canada also doesn't extend this triage function to life-threatening conditions: if your heart is on the fritz, you get seen immediately, rich or poor.

Fairness. It never has to be justified. But unfairness does.

And somewhere in the dark of the night of my sleep, this thought nagged at me, and I began to have an insight into human beings.

When we behave badly, we have to rationalize ourselves. We have to justify that behavior. We have to make excuses.

Fairness is inherent. Fairness is obvious. Fairness needs no excusing.

Just like getting up off the couch and taking a four mile walk needs no rationalization. It needs nothing other than "I wanted to stretch my legs."

Sitting on that couch for another hour, that requires rationalizing. That requires excusing: "It's raining. I'm tired. It's cold."

Or to put it another way, when was the last time you had to explain to a cop why you were going under the speed limit?

Good behavior is what it is: Bonnum commune communitatis. Bad behavior needs to be explained, excused and forgiven.

Back to healthcare then: what rationalizations would the corporatists give for the current state of healthcare in America? That it makes a profit for the shareholders of insurance companies?

Is that fair? Is it fair that the CEO of Oxford or CIGNA or Blue Cross earns a fat little bonus at the end of the year while people without insurance, some 700,000 each year, are forced into bankruptcy and 200,000 people die of treatable and preventable illnesses, all because insurance companies have to protect that precious little dividend and that precious little stock price at the expense of a healthier citizenry?

This is not about socializing medicine, either. For example, America generally operates under the German healthcare system, developed by Otto Von Bismarck over a century ago. Private doctors, private insurance, private hospitals, except costs are controlled. For example, Japan, which has 3,000 health insurance providers, cap administrative costs at 1.5% of premiums, meaning insurance companies have to spend 98.5% on insuring patients. Canada caps costs at 6%, and that's with a government health insurance.

American insurance companies bank 20% of premiums as "administrative costs". That's an awful lot of forms to fill out! And the Japanese spend about $3,500 per annum on healthcare and insurance. Americans spend $7,500.

And no one in Japan files bankruptcy because of medical bills.

Fairness. It never has to be explained, it never has to be justified.

It only has to be experienced.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) While she should win her re-election handily, Angela Merkel is in deep trouble creating a ruling coalition. She had been running the government with the backing of the center-left Social Democrats, but tried to run her election in tandem with the more conservative Christian Social Union. Voters aren't buying that tax cuts at this time are a good thing, so they are drifting leftward.

Which means trouble for her, in that she's run her campaign criticizing the very coalition a) she created and b) she'll be forced back into.

2) So now Iran is again accused of making fissible material for bombs. The sense I get is they are doing this, but El Baradei has been put in the unenviable position of having to play diplomat-pawn for the Russians and Chinese.

If you read between the lines, you'll also get a sense as to why Barack Obama has pulled our missiles out of eastern Europe. The linkage between that event and the bold statement by the US, UK, and France this morning speaks loudly.

3) The economic power of the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) has been realized: the G-20 is now the new G-8. Russia already was in the G-8 as the economic entity succeeding the Soviet Union, but now it is joined by the three other fastest growing economies.

4) While she's not the first Mansonite to die, Susan Atkins played a far more central role in the serial killings of the family. Many people, myself included, point to this abomination, the Tate-La Bianca killings as the true end of the Sixties and the end of the Hippie movement. If you are unfamiliar, or not that familiar with the story, let me put it in persepctive for you: I oppose the death penalty on all grounds and in all cases. This is the one case I may have made an exception. Read up on the murders. Ed Sanders, formerly of The Fugs, has some inside baseball that will creep you out.

5) It is interesting to me that Arab terrorists are targeting us with more vigor now than during the Bush administration. I don't think the Bushies did that good a job of keeping us safe. More, I think it's an attempt to probe for weaknesses, and it's nice to see that President Obama has focused on solving cases, not blowing up mosques.

6) By the way, on that note, it's nice to see Tom Ridge give a thumbs down to many of the things the Bushies did, of course, but dude, where were you when you could have made a difference????

7) Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Yet.

8) It was twenty years ago today, Pam Anderson brought her boobs to the Bay...

9) I didn't realize "tent revivals" included Viagra? Gimme that ol' time religion! Hallelujah!

10) Hm, think my boss would mind if I took an extended coffee break?

Condoms As Metaphors

It's taken thirty years, countless dead and infected, and a worldwide push, but it looks as though the very tricky and difficult HIV virus may be giving up its secrets to science:

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- An experimental vaccine prevented HIV infections for the first time, a breakthrough that has eluded scientists for a quarter century.

A U.S.-funded study involving more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand found that a combination of ALVAC, made by Paris- based Sanofi-Aventis SA, and AIDSVAX, from VaxGen Inc., of South San Francisco, cut infections by 31.2 percent in the people who received it compared with those on a placebo, scientists said today in Bangkok. Neither vaccine had stopped the virus that causes AIDS when tested separately in previous studies.

The finding represents a revival in a campaign that appeared to stall just two years ago when use of Merck & Co.’s experimental Ad5 vaccine boosted some people’s chances of infection in a study. The latest result will transform future research, said Mitchell Warren, director of the New York-based AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition.

31.2% is something, certainly nothing to sneeze at, but it means there's clues in there for a truly preventative vaccine or combination of vaccines.

I'm old enough to remember when sex could be had without any ill effects except maybe guilt. Syphillis, gonnorhea both seemed to be curable and AIDS and herpes were on a distant horizon.

I've often wondered if the spread of AIDS, HIV and even herpes was responsible, in part, for the rise of conservatism in this country. After all, when we could ball freely, we tended to be a little more open to new ideas as well as new experiences.

Once sex was clamped down upon, it seemed like everyone's rectums got a little more retentive, a little more conservative. Wearing a condom became a metaphor as well as a reality, forcing people to think back inside the box (um, pun not intended. Mostly.) because outside, alone, naked, was scary and a little dangerous.

Freedom became something negotiable, to an extent. You could be free, but you had to be ultravigilant, and once you had to be ultravigilant, that required an effort and efforts mean people will look for easy ways out.

Like the fox and the grapes, people began to look at sex as if it wasn't important, that sex was OK if it was readily accessible but to actually go out and pursue it became a matter of work. And who wants to work at sex?

So we saw a rise in monogamous relationships, but we also saw a rise in values that hearkened back to the Fifties, to a time when, yes, people had sex, lots of it, but no one talked about it, so everyone assumed no one else was getting any.

I dunno...just a thought.

Strategy Shift

You know, ever since the healthcare debate heated up this summer, I wondered why no one noticed the elephant in the room: mandatory insurance. I believed the whole "hands off my Medicare!" and "no public option" arguments were weak, and that perhaps there was an unfolding strategy to buy time for the GOP.

 

Well, here it comes:

On Tuesday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) described the health care legislation being considered by the Senate Finance Committee as a "stunning assault on liberty" due to a provision that would require individuals to buy insurance.

Earlier in the week, the individual mandate also came under attack when Tim Phillips, who heads Americans for Prosperity, described it as an assault on individual liberty.

"When you have health care, that's a choice that impacts yourself," Phillips told MSNBC's Hardball. "Drivers' insurance impacts other drivers you may have accidents with."

Utter bullshit, that last. Obviously, Phillips doesn't understand how insurance works: even car insurance, your insurance company pays YOU, and then recaptures the money from the other driver's company.

 

Sort of like how medical insurances are forced to raise rates because hospitals and doctors have to charge more for un- and underinsured individuals seeking medical coverage, usually for catastrophic and very expensive emergency or urgent care!

 

But it's no surprise to me that the Fright Wing of this nation would suddenly, after eight years of putting up with phone taps and email sifts and surveillance tactics...because it's OK if you're a Republican...suddenly find their balls with respect to individual liberty.

 

But this isn't about individual liberty. This is about my liberty not to have to worry that my health insurance company has to pay for a bunch of morons who aren't smart enough to buy their own insurance to cover their catastropic healthcare needs, much less any taking any preventative steps to ensure they don't impact me or the rest of the country economically OR medically.

 

In other words, what my neighbor does, or more, doesn't do impacts me directly, and affects my well-being.

 

Hm. Maybe this is more a sign that the Fright Wing is fighting a rear-guard action, and that they're previous tropes have proven so ineffective that they've decided to gamble on painting in primary colours now.

Let Me Get This Straight...

No laws are broken. No guns held to anyone's head. No quid pro quo. Just a conference call where suggestions for art topics that might be helpful to the administration to portray are discussed IN PASSING, and suddenly the right wing thinks they have a smoking gun from the Obama administration????

 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

 

 Seriously?

 

Apparently:

The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable.

(sic) And sick.

 

Wow, you mean politicians encourage like-minded people to speak up in support of their policies? Or is it anathema because those policies DON'T include killing South Asians?

 

Oh. Well. This IS disturbing! No administration should ever use its influence over, say, corporations or individuals to influence the national debate! It should clearly be the other way around!

 

Memo to conservatives: Just because you guys are thieving lying weasels with evil agendae does not mean that the rest of the country is similarly inclined and maybe you ought to consider psychotherapy for your deep, dark paranoia?

 

Who are these people and what country did they sneak into America from?

A Busy Week

It's going to be a busy week in NYC this week: the United Nations session starts today with a popular President making his first real appearance on the global stage (followed by a trip to Pittsburgh for the G20 summit), and the Clinton Global Initiative holds its annual conference in tandem with the UN opening, with prospects of reduced enthusiasm (read: funding). And if that ain't enough, talks for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty are already underway here.

 

Obama's schedule in New York City includes a summit with the leaders of the Palestinians and Israel's prime minister for talks aimed at extending the overtures special envoy George Miller undoubtedly made last week. That the leaders have even agreed to meet is a signal that there's some reliance on Obama's strength as a reconciliator. That alone bodes well, since under Bush, the Palestinians were reluctant to do even that much, given Bush's cheerleader status for Israel.

 

In addition, there's Iran. The missile shield that Obama promised to dismantle in Eastern Europe may or may not have been a quid pro quo for getting Russian assistance in the Iran muddle...first the IAEA says they built a bomb, then backpedalled furiously from that, but then leaked that an "annex" to a report confirms the report...but it doesn't really matter. It was a stupid and provocative idea in the first place, and while Russia could pose a threat in the future, it's unlikely that we would have insufficient warning that we could not simply move the missiles back into Poland and the Czech Republic.

 

They are, after all, mobile missiles.

 

Not surprisingly, Obama has a meeting with Russian president Vlad... I mean, Dmitry Medvedev. Likely on the table, Iran. And Israel. And the nuke shield.

 

The backdrop to all these diplomatic overtures is the general economic condition globally, something the Clinton Global Intiative will deal with, no doubt. When a country hurts economically, it has two choices: work internally to fix its economy, or steal.

 

Essentially, the latter is the choice that George W Bush took when the economy tanked just prior to his inauguration. Remember how Iraq's oil would pay for the war?

 

Yea. Funny how that worked out, innit?

 

(By the way, Lance Mannion will be blogging the CGI on Wednesday and Friday)

 

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) will be scrounging this year, despite Clinton's best attempts to paint a happy picture on things. Now, you'd think the Republicans would be foursquare behind the CGI, as it encourages private contributions to assist the poor and developing nations of the world, right? You know, "thousand points of light" stuff?

 

You have to look hard to find them even mentioning it.

 

Damn, but they hate them some Clenis!

 

Add to this that Clinton and Obama will be making the rounds of late-night entertainment (Clinton on The Daily Show, Obama on Letterman) and you have the perfect storm of gridlock for midtown Manhattan traffic.

 

But it ought to be fun. I have my camera with me, just in case.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) I've said it before and I will say it again: swine flu may end up being the single biggest factor in creating national healthcare.

 

2) The look on the co-anchors face is priceless. Of course, this is on a FOX outlet...

 

3) I had a feeling that Obama scrapping the Bush missile shield was the precursor for something much more important. Thie shield was ill-advised and ill-conceived and would have done precious little to protect Europe.

 

4) Also on the foreign affairs front, is it possible that Obama might end up truly being the saviour that he was mocked as during the general election?

 

5) Given the sudden irrelevancy of Ann Coulter, perhaps Beck on the cover of Time is the best thing that could happen, despite the similar fawning treatment he is being given?

 

6) Prediction: ACORN will quietly be re-funded before the summer recess 2010.

7) Maybe they installed a spine?

 

8) You know, if you read this headline uncarefully, you might think there's a story about space porn here.

 

9) Cthulhu for kids. Also, a cologne. Also. What's Cthulhu? Think Flying Spaghetti Monster, only cooler.

 

10) ThumbPer, my polydactyl kitteh who loves water, has competition.

A Short Lesson In Finance

Stocks are priced based on a gamble that future earnings will rise. The more likely that is to occur, the higher a stock price generally goes.

 

The actual price itself is an estimate of the value now of those future income flows.

 

OK, so with that said, explain how this new insurance "plan" from Max Baucus makes sense for the average American?:

In an important victory for the insurance industry, Senator Max Baucus's legislative proposal does not call for a government-run health plan that would directly compete with private insurers. Insurance stocks rose on that news Wednesday.

Although that exclusion had been expected, its confirmation Wednesday meant that the insurance companies "ducked a bullet," said Erik Gordon, a business professor and industry analyst at the University of Michigan.

The Baucus proposal is "a lower dose of poison than the other proposals," he said in an e-mail message. Other bills circulating in Congress call for a government-run public insurance option.

Ironically, this is the bill closest to the vision of one Barack Obama, President of these here Yoonited States, even without a public option.

 

Many have written, far more eloquently and knowledgably than I, reminding Obama and Congress about the need for a public option to compete with private plans, thus reining in healthcare costs, or at least mitigating their startling inflation.

 

So when a key Senator, one of the Group of Six bipartisan panel trying to write a bill that everyone can be happy with, presents this, without any Republican support whatsoever, one has to question the commitment of the Democratic party to truly reforming healthcare.

 

Not health insurance: healthcare. Yes, I have in the past advocated baby steps, and this bill is a small step towards the ultimate goal of universal coverage under a single payer plan, like every other intelligent, civilized nation on this planet has.

 

But there are baby steps and there are baby steps and this is less a step than a crawl. And all the evidence you need for this is the fact that the stock prices of insurance companies, the gauge of how much profit they will earn in the future, spiked higher on this announcement.

 

If Wall Street, which does many things badly but does price stocks on earnings with remarkable efficiency, buys into the notion that Baucus' bill is good for the insurance industry, already burning holes in its pockets with all the money it's earning, then how goddamned good can it be for you and me, huh?

If It Quacks Like A Bigot...

...you can call it a duck, but it's bigotry:

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd was among the first to assert that Congressman Joe Wilson's heckle revealed an underlying racism:

Surrounded by middle-aged white guys... Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. Fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!... But Wilson's shocking disrespect for the office of the president - no Democrat ever shouted 'liar' at W when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq - convinced me: Some people just can't believe a black man is president and will never accept it.

 Her belief racism was at play was echoed by Democrat Representative for Georgia, Henry Johnson, who told media: "I guess we'll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside intimidating people. That's the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked."

 Now, I'm posting some of this tongue-in-cheek. I don't think the color of Obama's skin matters as much to Wilson and the other bigo-- I mean, Republicans as his policies and, more important, the position he holds. After all, Bill Clinton was about as white as they get, despite being called "America's First Black President", and look what these jackals did to him.

 

No, I think Obama is being clever as all get-out here. He's got his surrogates playing the race card for him, because he knows the one thing Republicans are terrified of right now is being portrayed as racists. After all, Obama won in a veritable landslide over the second whitest politician in America, John McCain, so to be racist at this point would be shown to be woefully out of touch.

 

What I think the Republicans are doing is playing dirty pool, a game they've excelled at since at least Lee Atwater helped Bush the Elder win the Presidency in 1988. Yes, there are clear insinuations in Wilson's outburst of disrespect, but my suspicion is that's more about a rookie President being put on the ropes by a "loyal" opposition (who really had the floor in August to try to derail national healthcare reform) and finally going that one last obvious step over the line.

 

But note what occured in August: the astroturf movement that saw town hall meetings across this nation interrupted by organized yahoos executing instructions from their puppet-masters like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, the paranoid inflation of numbers of people opposing Obama's policies, even mocking his decision to take a vacation "at a critical juncture in American history".

 

All of these pushed an envelope of paranoia and desperation that even a moment's reflection reveals. Wilson's "lie" chant merely sealed the deal for Americans who may or may not have put out that moment's reflection. It coalesced and concretized the perception that not only are the Republicans out of power and losing their grip on the electorate after spending twenty years demonizing liberalism and Democrats, but that the Republicans know theirs is a sinking ship and that it's not about helping people live better lives, it's about holding onto power to reward their cronies and conspirators in plutocracy.

 

That's not to say there is not an element of racism in this opposition. For one thing, it's easier to oppose someone whom you have dehumanized and pointing out differences dehumanizes people. "They" can do what "they" want because "they" are (insert trait here).

 

It makes it easier to portray yourself as a savior, saving "ordinary folks" from the clutches of "they," but it's also a lazy way out of honestly engaging in policy discussions.

 

By dehumanizing someone, you make their opinion and views irrelevant to the discussion. "They" are not as good as "we" are, so "we" don't have to take their arguments seriously.

 

But of course, you miss out on the many opportunities to test your views, to strengthen and bolster those views, and to improve policy for everyone.

 

Obama's playing this correctly: he's taken the high road (note the very high-minded section of his speech the other night pertaining to realistic solutions being considered), while allowing his surrogates to dip into the same mud his opponents have smeared.

 

The Republicans' real problem is, they don't have a responsible and prestigious enough spokesman who can meet Obama's tactic head-on. All their spokespeople are either wallowing in the same mud that Jimmy Carter and others are flinging back at the GOP or the spokespeople who could conceivably wrest this debate back to a temperate level have been isolated and quarantined as irrelevant by the GOP.

 

Like Michael Steele, who could easily have met Obama on his playing field but for some bizarre reason decided to genuflect to the nattering nabobs of negativism in his own party.

 

Or John McCain, who has had to fight a rear-guard action in his own party to protect his reputation from Sarah Palin and the other neaderthals.

 

Instead, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, two men who have absolutely nothing at stake in politics, who can shift positions on any issue at any time if their ratings appear to warrant it, have taken the helm of the Republican party.

 

This is much like allowing Bozo The Clown to run a bank. It's entertaining, but ultimately unprofitable.

One Can Hope

I, for one, hope the Obama administration is not taking lessons from Dick Cheney and the Bushies on how to keep us safe:

Federal and city counterterrorism agents raided homes in New York City early Monday after a man under surveillance for suspected ties to al-Qaeda met with people in Queens, federal officials said.

Rep. Peter T. King (N.Y.), the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said after receiving a briefing from federal authorities Monday afternoon that the suspect's visit this weekend triggered the raids.

"He was being watched, and concern grew as he met with a group of individuals in Queens over the weekend," King told ABC News on Monday in a report forwarded by his office. "The FBI went to court late last night for an emergency warrant to conduct the raids this morning."

OK, that's not too bad, right? I mean, the FBI is keeping mum about the nature of the investigation and that it's ongoing and all that, but...well, as my post last Tuesday suggests, the US government might have a bit of a hair trigger on inicidents like this.

 

Here's the bit that worries me, a little, that perhaps the Obama administration might be taking a tougher stance than it has to, in order to deflect right wing criticism:

Authorities said there were no arrests.

Bingo. You execute search warrants when you have probable cause to believe a crime has been or is about to be committed. Suspicion, paranoid delusion, or rumour should not ever be considered "probable cause", and yet the lack of arrests tells me that the FBI feels it might have gotten lucky, but didn't.

 

And if anything, this ought to have the fright-wing of the nation in turmoil. Wasn't it just a few months ago they were up in arms over a Bush DoJ document outlining the right wing hate groups in this country and how improved surveillance was essential in order to keep us safe from that form of domestic terror?

 

But of course, in that warped, counterintuitive Bizarro logic of the right-wing political landscape, where consistency is measured in nanoseconds while crowds are inflated beyond comprehension, this is a quieting moment, where it would be hard to criticize a President for being strong on terrorism, especially in light of Osama bin Laden's...remember him? Because Bush sure didn't!...recent taunting of Obama. 

 

But it worries me.  

 

Health Care, Not Insurance

This is precisely why we need a national health service, and not the mishmosh of tangled threads of bureaucracies and naysayers that the Republicans and other fascists want to use to keep us down:

No one disputes that the $2.3 trillion we devote to the health care industry is often spent unwisely, but the fact that the United States spends twice as much per person as most European countries on health care can be substantially explained, as a study released last month says, by our being fatter. Even the most efficient health care system that the administration could hope to devise would still confront a rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet.

[...]According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are.

We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care.

In case you were wondering where the cost savings that would pay for this healthcare reform is coming from, those numbers speak loudly. Right there, just in obesity and diabetes, you have a $260 billion a year. A year.

Considering Obama's paltry proposal will only cost $1 trillion this decade, that savings alone, even if only half realized, means American healthcare would show a profit....IF WE ENACT ACTUAL HEALTHCARE!

Now, there are many who would say this is tantamount to dictating what Americans can and cannot eat.

Bullshit. How many Americans really listen to their doctors? Because if Americans were that easily persuaded off their bad habits, we wouldn't need healthcare reform. We wouldn't need to rein in rising healthcare costs.

You'd think the private insurance companies would have glommed onto this fact: if Americans eat healthier, that's more profit in their pockets.

But then you'd have to take into account America's "farm" lobby (really, it's better called "agribusiness" or for a more descriptive face "Big Food"), which is among the biggest contributors to heartland legislators, bigger in many cases than banks or credit card companies.

As an anecdotal example, just try talking to an Iowa caucus about cutting farm subsidies. There's a quick way to lose a primary cycle.

We don't need insurance reform. We need healthCARE reform, a system that encourages Americans, perhaps even thru tax incentives, to eat healthier, to lose weight, to stop smoking.

Indeed, many private insurers do this now, offering cash incentives: $400 per annum to visit a health club, discounts for being a non-smoker, discounts for attending weight-loss classes, and I'm sure there are a few that will actually rebate some of your premiums if in fact you do lose weight.

Imagine on your 1040 being offered the chance to take a few hundred bucks off your bill to the IRS by affirming, honestly, that you've quit smoking? Or can offer evidence that you went dutifully to the gym twice a week? Or you completed a marathon or a hundred mile bike ride?

We already use the tax code to reward good behavior, to construct social good, like the charitable or home mortgage interest deductions. What's wrong with using this device to cut a tax bill that everyone agrees is going to become more bloated as the tax code ratchets up from the ridiculously undertaxed position it has been for the past eight years?

Eight Years On

For once, the weather matches the mood of the city: somber, remorsefully raining. Not hard, yet, but a constant reminder of the color grey.

 

And rain helps keep things quiet and creates reflections everywhere. We have mirrors and glass, of course, which give accurate representations in reverse of the things in front of them, but rainwater allows for the pockmarks and scars of injuries long-healed to reveal themselves in distortion.

 

This September 11 has been harder than any previous since the first anniversary when grief was still so strong. We could rightly be angry at a President who failed us in the most critical moment of this nation's history: the first civilian casualties of a war undeclared since 1993, a tragic loss of life we can only begin to fathom this close to the moment. A terror attack on a scale unlike any before or thankfully since.

 

This year, we do not have that focus of anger. We do not have the lens of hatred of a failure of a President. We have no distraction. We have no one to blame any longer.

 

May we now heal. But that healing requires that we pause and remember that which injured us, that which challenged us, that which awoke us from the fantasy that large oceans could protect us from such horrors.

 

And that makes this anniversary so much harder. It's like having a broken leg and a hangnail. You may notice the hangnail more because your fingers are more sensitive, you are more aware of it, but once the hangnail is cut, the leg throbs worse than before.

 

In President Obama, we have someone who has rightly reconnected us to the Muslim world, to show a face that for eight long, grueling years, was hidden behind a cowboy mask of bravado and bullshit.

 

In President Obama, we have someone who has challenged us to dig a little deeper in ourselves and come up with that uniquely American spirit of service not to our country, altho that is part of it, but service to our neighbors.

 

For 150 years, this nation had no real formal structure in place to take care of the indigent, the needy, the sick. We relied on private foundations, churches, neighbors and family to see to those who needed help. And for 150 years, we saw that this system was deeply flawed, with actual starvation going on in rural America, elderly dropping dead in our streets, evicted for back-rent, sick and dying already for lack of healthcare, the poor without a safety net resorting to begging on the streets.

 

As recently as the nineteenth century, nearly 75 years after independence was declared in fact, poverty in the United States including a feudal system, with poor tenant farmers paying rent to work a lord's land.

 

Even today, even with government programs, about 15% of people are living in poverty, and about 12% need assistance securing food every day. That's more than 30 million people. Unsurprisingly, that's roughly the baseline of people who simply cannot afford medical insurance (another 20 million, mostly young, don't want to pick insurance up). If you can't afford food, you sure as hell aren't paying for insurance.

 

It's going to take more, and it's going to take private works, hand-in-hand with public works, to make this happen. And that's where we come in.

 

The National Day of Service, passed by Congress under Bush and signed into law by Obama, is today. September 11. And while the temptation is to mourn and grieve, a higher calling awaits us: to channel that anger and grief to help others. To remember that one of the hidden tragedies of September 11 was how little we truly care about our fellow man until tragedy strikes.

 

You don't have to go hand the homeless guy on the corner a twenty. You can do good by doing what's right for you to do, even if it seems insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Make the world a little better, a little easier, and it all gets paid forward.

 

For instance, let's say you like football. You can find opportunities (that website I referenced two paragraphs earlier has a searchable database) to coach impoverished children.

 

Doesn't sound like it will change the world, but if it keeps one kid motivated to finish school and go to college on a football scholarship, that's one more kid who stands a pretty good chance of not ending up in a soup kitchen, meaning that soup kitchen can feed someone else even more needy.

 

You can become a mentor if you have mad coding skillz. Or you can take your camera and record the good deeds done by others and give them desperately needed exposure.

 

This isn't hard. This is easy. This isn't a thousand points of light, but millions of beacons lighting the landscape and bringing those in the dark of poverty and hunger and homelessness into our family. It's a welcome to those who struggled to get here and struggle here, and yes, maybe a few who got here under the radar benefit but so what? Those people die too, and would you rather bury the body or help them get back home, or better, get a real legitimate life here to contribute to society unquestioningly?

 

We don't have to be such an angry nation. We don't have to give into the venom of the right and the far left. We here in the mushy marshmallow middle can change the world, and fuggedabout those jerks who stand athwart history crying "STOP!"

 

We'll pave them into the field of daisies we'll plant.

And It's....OUTTA HERE!

The stakes could not have been higher.

 

On a political scale from one to ten, one being a ribbon cutting at a needed bridge, ten being the absolute linchpin moment of an administration (think "Katrina"), last night's speech on healthcare was an eleven. While it wasn't bottom of the ninth, two out, bases loaded, it was certainly bottom of the seventh one out, men on second and third. Critical, but not irretrievable.

 

President Obama parked one in the seats. Granted, it was from a friendly pitcher but it impressed the audience nonetheless and probably wrested the momentum for healthcare reform back from the opposition.

 

It didn't hurt that one member of the opposing team balked, and gave him a chance to show the Republicans for what they have been for twenty years: obstructionist corporatists interested only in servicing their wealthy capitalist masters at the expense of the citizenry. Americans will put up with a lot of rowdy behavior in lots of places, even some that formerly had been places of quiet and respect, but to diss a President on national TV like you were heckling a stand-up comedian, no matter how abject the apology, is going to harm the cause faster than if you took a shot at him.

 

It's precisely why the GOP leadership backed off from Wilson's comments faster than a sorority co-ed from a serial killer.

 

Likely, Obama instigated the bad blood that Wilson (and others) felt, perhaps to trigger precisely that reaction of irrationality. Just moments earlier, Obama called out Sarah Palin and other harsh critics by calling them liars with regards to "death panels."

 

A digression: I've noticed that suddenly, right wing blogs have been following stories out of the UK about life and death decisions made by the National Health Service with respect to triage of mortally ill people. Interesting those stories have started to pop up in the press in England, dontcha think?

 

But I digress...

 

Here's what I think insurance companies are afraid of: once employers, particularly smaller, struggling employers who do not have the resources to wage a bidding war for their insurance pool, realize that the public option is not only cheaper but takes the entire insurance problem out of their laps, they will abandon private insurance in droves.

 

This is a good thing. It will force private insurers to stop taking 14 or 15% of your insurance premiums and spend it on themselves, their houses and their country clubs. It will immediately lower rates, and it will ultimately plow more money back where it should be: patient care.

 

The only real weapon the Republicans have is scare tactics, a strategy that had some traction over the summer, as Blue Dog Democrats across the nation started getting antsy about reform.

 

Well, here's a free piece of advice to any Blue Dogs reading this: your constituency NEEDS a public option. Likely, they are made up of fairly conservative working class folks, who respect an honest appeal to their sensibilities and their values.

 

Rather than be scared by talk of "death panels," remind them that when little Johnny down the block was crippled by illness because his parents had no insurance, or when Uncle Elmer died because the insurance company calculated it would cost too much to keep him on life support, those death panels were nowhere to be seen. And yet people died and were tragically crippled.

 

Which they would not have been, had they had an option for real healthcare.

Obama spoke to some of thess concerns in his speech last night:

One man from Illinois lost his coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because his insurer found that he hadn't reported gallstones that he didn't even know about. They delayed his treatment, and he died because of it. Another woman from Texas was about to get a double mastectomy when her insurance company canceled her policy because she forgot to declare a case of acne. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, her breast cancer more than doubled in size. That is heart-breaking, it is wrong, and no one should be treated that way in the United States of America.

The speech outlined a comprehensive plan that, while not ideal for the American public, is a damned sight better than the mishmash of private plans out there now, and would force insurance companies to hew to some form of accountability.

 

Who knows? It may ultimately be the kind of healthcare that countries with purely public plans, like Canada or England, would move to when their own citizenry begins to age and healthcare costs begin an inevitable march upwards in those nations, and we can claim the mantle of leadership once again in an area of social progress!

 

 

Baby, You're A Rich Man

It's 09.09.09, and that means one thing will dominate the news cycle: The Beatles.

 

EMI is re-releasing the entire Beatles catalogue in two versions: as recorded (meaning the earliest albums are in monoaural) and one digitally remastered in stereo. Nearly every fawning review has mentioned the beauty of the new recordings.

 

In addition, The Beatles: Rock Band videogame is being released. Again, the reviews are almost saccharine. 

 

Now, I love The Beatles. When Sir Paul was at Citifield in July, I sat second row. I mourn every December 8 and November 29, despite the proximity of the dates. And Ringo is Ringo.

 

I have all the albums on vinyl and all the original releases of the CDs.

 

So please don't take the tone of this column as being curmudgeonly, altho I am certainly known for that. This is not about hating The Beatles.

 

This is about hating the money-making machine around them and the dilution of the artistry that is The Beatles.

 

According to the press releases and reviews, the intent of the dual-release was to capture a whole new market of fans for Beatles music: Millenials who might not have known Beatles' music. The idea is, play the game, buy the catalogue.

 

The catalogue has been remastered and from all accounts, the sound has been sharpened and honed to a finer edge.

 

And there's my beef.

 

Those original "records" were played by kids on "turntables" that were barely moving at 45 rpm (the speed of a single for you youngsters out there), with "needles"...yes, they touched the "record"...usually weighed down with a nickle (or a few pence for my Brit readers). Or we'd listen on an "AM radio" in monoaural with all kinds of static and cross-signal interference, and would lose the station in a car passing under a bridge.

 

My point being, the way we heard these records was not in soaped-up distinct digital form, but in sloppy ugly tinny crappy boxes and cans.

 

And we went nuts! I remember standing in front of a mirror for hours, mimicking Paul and John's playing style, and George's solos, trying to get John's singing posture...a turtle on his hind legs is the closest short description...or Paul's goofy smile and whipping of his head and hair just right.

 

I knew the lyrics to every Beatle song from With The Beatles to Revolver within a week of getting my hands on the album. After that, I was so blown away by the artistry of Sgt. Pepper's or Magical Mystery Tour or The White Album that it took a little longer.

 

All on crappy Denon turntables and Tandy cassette players and Westinghouse radios!

 

To release these albums completely remastered without that part of the experience, actually trying to hear the music, work out the chords, follow the baseline, is to deprive the listener of the thrill of discovery. Yes, maybe that squeak of the piano seat at the end of A Day In The Life now blasts thru the earbuds at full volume with so much detail you hear the farts of McCartney, but that treat on the vinyl was buried in the track that signaled the record player to pick up the needle! What a joy it was to find!

 

And I don't need to hear Paul's fingers slide down the neck of his Hohner to appreciate the baseline in Taxman.

 

This event, this stunt, speaks to me more of milking a cash cow, like the Anthology release of twelve or so years ago, than of bringing this music to a whole new audience. Which, by the way, was represented very nicely at the concert in July. At least the Anthology had the charm of bringing us two new Beatles songs, albeit in a really creepy fashion.

 

But this, this is pure piracy on the part of EMI.

 

So I guess I have to go buy it. But not Rock Band. I don't have room for a four piece band...

Knee Jerks

Well, it turns out that, in addition to jeopardizing our fighting men and women by playing loose and fast with torture rules, Dick Cheney put innocent American civilians at risk as well.

 

As part of the recent trial of three would-be bombers held in England (convicted on all counts, no thanks to Dick Cheney), it was revealed that the Bush administration, at the direction of Dick Cheney's need to glorify his ego, nearly let the bombers off the hook:

Dick Cheney, the former US Vice President, nearly destroyed Britain's efforts to bring the airline bomb plotters to justice, police and intelligence experts said today.

By ordering the early arrest of Rashid Rauf, the bombers' link man in Pakistan, Washington forced British police to detain the suspects in the UK before all the evidence had been gathered, it was claimed.

Yesterday three British Muslims - Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Tanvir Hussain and Assad Sarwar - were finally convicted of plotting to blow up seven transatlantic airliners in mid-air in a co-ordinated attack intended to surpass the horror of 9/11. But the plotters were arrested before they had bought the airline tickets that would have been the ultimate proof of their intentions. Police fear that several key figures of the plot have remained free.

Andy Hayman, who was the Metropolitan Police's Assistant Commissioner Specialist Operations at the time of the plot, said he believed that the White House had grown jittery as the British updated them of the mounting evidence of a plot targeted at American cities.

Brave Sir Rob-- I mean, Dick Cheney! Not wanting to see American cities attacked once more on his watch, he decided to arrest one of the linchpins of the attacks, thus blowing the cover of an in-depth undercover investigation.

 

The anti-terror chief of Scotland Yard all but calls Cheney a coward in an op-ed piece in today's London Times:

Fearful for the safety of American lives, the US authorities had been getting edgy, seeking reassurance that this was not going to slip through our hands. We moved from having congenial conversations to eyeball-to-eyeball confrontations.

We thought we had managed to persuade them to hold back so we could develop new opportunities and get more evidence to present to the courts. But I was never convinced that they were content with that position. In the end, I strongly suspect that they lost their nerve and had a hand in triggering the arrest in Pakistan.

(emphasis added) As it was, it took two trials and one acquittal as well as one plotter receiving a reduced conviction and a "controlled release" (meaning he's under British surveillance constantly) before anyone was convicted of actually trying to bring down a plane headed for either Chicago, Toronto, New York, Washington, San Francisco, or Montreal.

 

Seven transatlantic airliners were targeted, according to Hayman. That calculates to something on the order of 3,500 people or more, exceeding the death toll on September 11, as well as the 7/7 bombings in London's Underground and buses.

 

You may remember the original alert...I sure do...because this was the plot that forced us starting in August 2006 to carry less than 3 oz of any liquid on board a plane, in a one-quart sealed bag.

 

Al Qaeda seems determined to use our airlines as weapons in their jihad. Of course, neither Cheney nor Bush will admit their fear created a dangerous situation.

 

But we will, and we will remember.

 

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Tip of the hat to Ben And Jerry.

 

2) There's some reason to consider living in Madison, WI.

 

3) The new terror weapon: ass bombs.

 

4) Own a piece of rock history, for only $300,000. When the housing market firms up, I'm betting you could double your money.

 

5) In real news, things are heating up in Afghanistan. Again. Of course, maybe calling in an airstrike on a fuel tanker is a bad idea...

 

6) And unemployment is creeping up towards ten percent, as corporations try to boost profits on the backs of working families.

 

7) Needless to say, the Republicans blame Obama.

 

8) In truth, they should look to their own warped philosophies.

 

9) Could you ever have imagined a speech by a President about staying in school creating an uproar amongst the low-normals????

 

10) And, some bad news about global climate change. Right. Let's get our kids to quit school early so they can destroy our planet further thru ignorance.

 

11) I have to end this on a happy, or at least funny, note: this brings a whole new level of meaning to "three-legged races".

 

 

The Drumbeat For A Public Option

If not for single payer healthcare:

The truth is that government, for all its flaws, manages to do some things right, so that today few people doubt the wisdom of public police or firefighters. And the government has a particularly good record in medical care.

[...]

A study by the Rand Corporation concluded that compared with a national sample, Americans treated in veterans hospitals "received consistently better care across the board, including screening, diagnosis, treatment and follow-up." The difference was particularly large in preventive medicine: veterans were nearly 50 percent more likely to receive recommended care than Americans as a whole.

"If other health care providers followed the V.A.'s lead, it would be a major step toward improving the quality of care across the U.S. health care system," Rand reported.

That's the Rand Corporation, folks. Not SEIU. Not ACORN. Not the DNC. The Rand Corporation, an objective, non-profit think tank. Formed by the US DoD, I might add.

 

Government is designed to do the Big Things: national highway system, defense, interstate commerce, natural resource protection, coastal protection, creating a national energy policy, installing the national electric grid, dams, coordinated air traffic control.

 

Healthcare should not only be among those, it should be at the top of the list. And while, at this point, any healthcare reform, even if it's just reforming the insurance we pay for privately, is welcome, there is absolutely no reason, none whatsoever, that single payer coverage should not be the law of the land.

 

Period. Forget the "public option," it should be a "private option" if you don't want to be on the National Health Service.

 

I urge President Obama in his speech tonight to raise the issue and to defend and deflate the inevitable ignorant attacks from the fear-mongerers of the right, funded largely by insurers and the AMA, nipping this dissent in the bud. He should produce and present a cogent and organized outline of a public health plan that would help us prevent disease rather than treat it, provide for mental health treatment (the average mortality rate of people diagnosed with mental health issues is 25 years shorter than those undiagnosed), and give Americans the promise of the Declaration of Independence: "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness".

A Lesson In Populism

Or why people are idiots:

California's wildfires are not only burning trees – they're burning state cash, and setting off a cascade of other problems in the state. Already, as the fires appeared to have spread in the past 24 hours, they have delayed a ballot count in two special elections.

Let's focus on the "cash" aspect. California has had major budget woes this year already, mostly due to the facts with respect to the overall poor economy, as well as the plummet in property values.

 

But...

 

If California had been allowed under state law to have its taxes, particularly its property taxes, indexed over the past twenty to thirty years, this crisis would have been far more manageable.

 

You might recall, if you are of a certain age, an asshole named Howard Jarvis. Jarvis is the asshat credited with "Proposition 13," a particularly moronic piece of "citizen activism" that forced California to freeze its property tax rates at 1% (One. Percent.) of the assessed value of the property. This created an immediate average property tax cut of 57% statewide, and a blooming deficit in couty and municipal coffers for eternity, ad nauseum.

 

This is why, for instance, Los Angeles among many other cities and towns, is under constant threat of default, dragging California as a whole down that path a few times already.

 

In a juxtaposition of irony, Californians have been hurt by Prop 13 in a booming housing market as it creates a disincentive to sell (the property taxed is indexed to the resale value, not the assessed value), while also creating a desperate housing market in an era of "buy as many homes as you want".

 

Hmmmm...

 

And now, those same homes that have been coddled by Prop 13 are burning up faster than you can turn around to look, as Prop 13 tended to benefit more those older, more established areas close into downtown urban areas, like Los Angeles.

 

Of course, most of the people who approved Prop 13 don't live anywhere near the fire zone, so what do they care, right?

 

Well, see, the trouble with that logic is, the cash drain that's going to cause this enormous budget gap won't only affect LA. It will affect infrastructure repair. It will affect flood prevention and rescue (another of California's season: mud). It will affect hospitals and firefighters and police forces.

 

And more important, it will cut into the state's water reserves, already down to between three and six months supply. A three year long drought will do that.

 

Now, if there's an earthquake up near San Francisco, up in the Central Valley, and the levees break, allowing sea water into the water supplies for both Frisco and LA, it's ballgame over, and there will be a mass exodus from California, south to San Diego.

 

And where will your property tax freeze help there, smartypants?

 

Of course, no one could have forseen fire and drought in a desert, could they?

The Third Musketeer: Pathos

Poor Joe Klein over at Time Magazine:

Twice in the past month, my private communications have been splashed about the internet. That such a thing would happen is unfortunate, and dishonorable, but sadly inevitable, I suppose. I ignored the first case, in which a rather pathetic woman acolyte of Greenwald's published a hyperbolic account of a conversation I had with her at a beach picnic on Cape Cod. Now, Greenwald himself has published private emails of mine that were part of a conversation taking place on a list-serve. In one of those emails, I say that Greenwald "cares not a whit for America's national security."

A few points before I go on:

 

1) Joe, as any long term denizen of the Internet...not the World Wide Web, but the thing that Al Gore helped Tim Berners Lee turn into that pretty little colorful Flash animated monstrosity that is the WWW, the Internet, Usenet and Listservs...any long time user of the Net will tell you that ListServs are not "private communications".

 

If you are dumb enough to post something on a listserv, then you deserve to have your shit called.

 

2) As anyone with an ounce of sense knows, a conversation with an "acolyte" is going to get reported back. And if you did not know she was an "acolyte," then maybe you should have stopped staring at her tits and started engaging your other head.

 

But I digress...

 

I can't speak for Greenwald or his position on the US military. Frankly, most of his columns bore the shit out of me, but he's a popular blogger on the left and likely enhances his prose to appeal to part of his base. My suspicion is he is not as anti-military as you want to make him out to be in your notes.

 

All writers write what they think their audiences want to read, particularly if they are being paid for presumably attracting a readership (thus negating any need I have to write what I think my audience wants to read...I do this for love). It's no different for Greenwald.

 

Or for you, Joe. I don't know the authority structure at Time, but I would imagine there is someone with one of those clickers that keeps tabs on how many eyeballs your columns attract to determine if Time is getting enough bang for its buck.

 

Some of us on the left think your focus is here, and not on reporting and analysis. This is sad, in my opinion. You seem like you could be a fairly bright guy who once worked hard to tell a story. Now it seems more often than not, you're rewriting someone's press release.

 

Left, right, center. It doesn't really matter. Sometimes, like in this column, you don't seem to want to think things through all that carefully and see if there's a different conclusion you could reach.

 

In this column I linked to, you posted the following note you sent to the listserv:

Therefore, I have seen no evidence that he [Greenwald] cares one whit about the national security of the United States. It is not hyperbole, it is a fact.

It's hard to prove a negative, but it seems to me that Google is your friend. One verified, pro-soldier stance is hadly "no evidence." And based on Googling "Greenwald military," it seems as though you don't want to look at his nuance. He's not attacking the military as keeping close tabs on the legality of their actions, particularly with respect to human rights not just of terror suspects but of American citizens (in particular, possible posse comitatus violations proposed by Dick Cheney).

 

I'd hardly call that attacking the military. Attacking an unecessary war (Iraq) is not attacking the military. Attacking Pentagon abuses is not attacking the military. Attacking power hungry politicians, the ones you chat up at cocktail parties in Georgetown, is not attacking the military. Talking about wanting to freeze military spending when the US outspends the entire world combined is not attacking the military.

 

It's taking a rational stand athwart history, pleading for sanity.

 

 

Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out, Dick!

Well, well, well...I can't imagine why he'd be up in arms over this, can you?

Former Vice President Dick Cheney lashed out at President Obama and the attorney general on Sunday, saying the Justice Department's recent decision to investigate whether CIA operatives broke the law in their interrogation of terrorism suspects was politically motivated and dangerous to U.S. national security.

"I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage long-term to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney said in an interview that aired on " Fox News Sunday."

The formal interview, conducted last week at Cheney's Wyoming ranch, was his first since Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. announced last Monday that he was conducting a preliminary review into the actions of certain CIA interrogators who might have gone beyond the techniques approved by the Bush administration's Justice Department.

Of course, an effective administration investigates its own wrong-doing, as how Janet Reno did under Bill Clinton, so Cheney has a point to make: any investigation should have rightly been carried out under the Bush DoJ.

Which seemed to have issues with indicting a ham sandwich, to stretch the famous analogy.

Or Congress could have, as it did in the early 70s for President Nixon's crimes, the 80s for Iran-Contra, and the 90s for the Lewinski affair.

I don't know about you, but my instinct tells me CIA agents violating international treaties probably ranks higher on the crime scale than a blow job.

But I digress...

It is true that, in none of the above scenarios was the investigation of a previous administration left as the dirty work for the next group of bureaucrats.

But then no administration, in conjunction with a Congress best described as "whorish to the self-interests of the administration," had ever had such an abysmal record of dictatorial, almost tyrannical, abuses of authority as the Bush administration, which includes ignoring the fact it might have been breaking the law.

It was, in short, a perfect storm of corruption and scandal, with a "look the other way" mentality that was at once abhorrent and antithetical to the good and welfare of the nation.

In shorter, it was the blind leading the deaf leading the dumb.

The dumb being us.

There are higher issues at stake here than whether some rogue CIA agents violated even the very liberal torture policies of an autocrat. There are issues that go to the very heart of what we stand for as a nation: do we allow torture so blatantly (because no one believes the US is always right and always innocent) or do we shove it back in that dark corner where we occasionally get upset at the things done in the name of freedom?

For that, and that reason alone, Dick Cheney should shut the fuck up.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) I'm tempted to fly down to DC to observe this.

2) Idiotic Idea #3,457,986 that Bill Gates has come up with since he stopped blatantly ripping Steve Jobs off. It would work IF you expanded the area covered by a factor of at least ten. If Gates can't get that climate is NOT weather, how can we expect the average American to get it?

3) Of course, Gates might just want to stick to his knitting. By the way, take a close look at the laptop in that picture...

4) More signs that things are turning around slowly.

5) BREAKING NEWS...MUST CREDIT SLB....NO METS INJURED IN YESTERDAY'S GAME!

6) Shop at Trader Joe's

7) I thought the border fence was supposed to stop Mexicans from getting rich off the labors of hard-working Americans?

8) PROTIP: If the alcohol isn't going in your mouth, ur doin it rong!

9) I had the opportunity to buy this house about twenty years ago, and passed on it. With furnishings, I'm almost as tall as it is wide.

10) I'm guessing Mt Vernon, WA is not a happenin' town...

Lifting Clouds

The Fall is usually a time of bleaker economic news than the rest of the year. Not so much this year:

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Fewer Americans filed claims for jobless benefits last week, another sign the economy is pulling out of the worst recession since the 1930s.

Applications fell by 10,000 to 570,000, a higher level than forecast, in the week ended Aug. 22 from a revised 580,000 the week before, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The total number of people collecting unemployment insurance fell to the lowest level since April.

Companies’ staff cuts are easing as government stimulus measures help stabilize the housing and manufacturing industries. At the same time, a rebound in hiring will take longer to occur, restraining the consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

[...]A separate report from the Commerce Department showed the U.S. economy contracted less than forecast in the second quarter as a jump in government spending and smaller cutbacks by consumers helped mitigate a record plunge in inventories.

I won't bore you with an analysis of that last paragraph. Suffice it to say that companies are running leaner operations than they had been, and the economy is starting to drift back towards growth.

The wildly successful Cash For Clunkers program, ended Monday but launched July 24, wasn't even a factor in the 2nd quarter, which means that the 3rd quarter will probably show a further slowing in the rate of recession, if not a turnaround.

New homes sales rose ten percent in July, which is an amazing leap when you factor in the thought that mortgage lending was nearly non-existent until the second TARP bailout enacted under President Obama. Still, sales are off 13.4% from July 2008. July 2009 was the fourth straight month to show a gain in new home sales.

That's not to say housing is out of the woods yet. Lending to builders is still tighter than a maiden aunt's ass which means new home construction, a vital component of the American economy, is moribund. What you're seeing is the sale of previously built homes that sat empty.

Still, things could be much worse and the economy could be in a lot worse shape than it is. Right now, things are still teetering on the precipice like a Keystone Kops clown car. We could still tumble.

But at least I have faith that this driver is not going to put the car back into gear and drive us off the cliff like the last President nearly did!

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

What can be said about Ted Kennedy that you haven't read a million other places today?

The life of the last remaining true progressive authority (there are others more liberal, to be sure, like Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders) can be summed up in one way I doubt you've read anyplace else.

For all his flaws and faults, he became the lightning rod for right wing hatred.

You don't see Rush Limbaugh making fun of Feingold. You don't see anyone making fun of Bernie Sanders. In his death, even, the right wing extremists are making fun of Ted Kennedy.

You know what that tells me? It tells me that he had them terrified.

Ted Kennedy not only represented a link to a time when liberal legislation was effected, heck, even admired (civil rights, Social Security and Medicare, clean air and water), he ultimately came to embody those core principles of liberal philosophy.

Our lives are better for Ted Kennedy's existence. Here was a wealthy man who understood that rising tides may lift all boats, but that we need not wait for a rising tide to fix those boats that are leaky and in need of repair.

Conservative muttonheads knew this, which is why they toiled so hard to keep mocking his weight or his affairs or his one moment of avoidable tragedy.

Granted, there are some mistakes you never stop paying for, and the tragic death of Mary Jo should be one of those, but that those knucklebrains couldn't find fault with his legislative savvy or his programs and policies speaks volumes about their fear of Kennedy.

Indeed, one might make the case that life's plan included having Kennedy demeaned and belittled, as it would make him a more effective legislator, able to be scrutinized for himself, and not his stances. The distraction became the illusion became the reality.

When JFK said in 1961 "Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans," I wonder if he knew the last surviving torchbearer would be his younger brother, Ted?

I raise my voice and join the chorus of those who have asked that the healthcare reform that Ted Kennedy fought so hard to enact in his lifetime be passed immediately, that President Obama call a special session of Congress, and insist that a public option be included, and that the "Senator Edward M. Kennedy Healthcare Reform Bill of 2009" be passed by unanimous voice vote, in tribute to this man, this great man, this lion of the left.

The torch has been dropped, my friends. Who among us will agree to pick it up, for Ted's sake?

Days Of Swine And Roses

It could get ugly this fall:

Up to half of the population of the U.S. could come down with the swine flu and 90,000 could die this season, according to a dire report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

[...]"It's a plausible scenario that we need to be prepared for," said Marty Cetron, the Center for Disease Control's director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.

The report says that under a worst-case scenario, between 60 and 120 million Americans could get sick with the swine flu and another 30 million could contract the virus but not show symptoms. Between 30,000 and 90,000 could die -- more than twice the annual average of deaths associated with the seasonal flu. Those deaths generally occur in people older than 65.

It should be noted that swine flu eruptions continue throughout the northern hemisphere, despite the onset of summer weather, which usually mitigates flu outbreaks.

So we're looking at a highly contagious, highly infectious disease that shows signs of only strengthening as people are forced into closer contact behind closed doors.

Not fun.

Keep in mind that a far larger percentage than normal of those getting ill with this flu will be younger, healthy adolescents and young adults. It's not clear if the same hiccup in the affected age will trend in the death statistics. One presumes that a healthy adult will be in a far better position to fight off a bug than the elderly, very young, or infirm.

But...

The 1918 flu pandemic saw an unusual spike in young adults precisely because of the nature of that virus (more avian than swine) and possibly because it was similar to another flu outbreak 30 years earlier.

With swine flu and avian flu currently exposed to one another in the southern hemisphere, it would be prudent to follow this story a bit more closely than current surveys indicate it has been.

It could be ugly. It might not be. My guess is it will be uglier than the CDC and HHS are making it out to be, particularly once the vaccine runs low.