She Gives A Kick

An historic event occured over the weekend, and I'm betting you didn't even hear about it.

 

The NFL allowed a woman to try out for the first time in professional football. By all accounts, it did not go well:

[Lauren] Silberman kicked only twice. They were two kickoffs for a total of 30 yards. Only one crossed the midfield stripe – by a yard. After that, her day was over because she said she aggravated a quad injury she suffered in practice last week.

In the NFL, the ball is placed on the defense's 35 yard line, which means it must make it 65 yards to the other team's defensive end zone for a kicker to be considered effective. Granted, with an injury to a quad, a kicker is going to be far from effective which begs the question why not take a miss on this tryout and find a way to latch onto a team's training camp as a walk-on?

Sadly, the perception from the NFL owners and general managers will probably be more sexist than that.

Naturally, women have a hard row to hoe in making it to the major league level in professional sports. Abuot the only woman I can recall actually being on a major league roster of any kind was Manon Rheaume, who signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL and played in a couple of exhibition games before being released. She then played for the Atlanta Knights in the International Hockey League where she became the first woman to ever appear in an American professional sports league.

Other women who have gotten nibbles from American professional sports teams include Ann Meyers, who was given a tryout with the NBA Indiana Pacers in 1980, signing a $50,000 no-cut contract, the first woman ever to sign a major league contract, Michelle Wie and Annika Sorenstam, both of whom were admitted to at least one men's PGA tour event (neither making the cut), and Japanese pitcher Eri Yoshida, who has been scouted by a couple of MLB teams.

It's hard to imagine a woman making it to the NFL -- the risk of injury due to size differences alone make it unlikely -- but a kicker would be a good place to start, to be sure. And to be honest, I'm rather surprised that no woman has made it to major league baseball as a pitcher. Some women softballers can throw in excess of 100 mph regularly and an underhand motion would make for an attractive change of pace (pardon the baseball pun) to the overhand delivery of most male pitchers.

 

Even a knuckleballer, like Yoshida, would have little problem duplicating the speed of pitches thrown by reigning Cy Young Award winner R. A. Dickey.

 

I think it's really a matter of time and development. I suspect in my lifetime, we'll see a woman idolized in professional sports the way a Jackie Robinson was.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) So Weaker Boener caved in and allowed the sequester to go through. Naturally, the mouthbreathers of the right cheered him on. As I posited the other day, it seems pretty likely that Weaker Boener did this as a sop to this flank, and will now have to negotiate with Harry Reid and President Obama. Do not expect easy negotiations. Boener is in a terrible bind, with ghosts of the 1995 shutdown looming over the Republicans and the American people pointing fingers directly at him.

 

2) The second private space flight to the International Space Station, the unmanned Dragon space craft, will launch today at 10:10 AM. It carries restocking supplies, including fresh food. NASA is paying $1.6 billion for a dozen flights.

 

3) Groupon fired its CEO (and general knucklehead) yesterday. He comes off an as immature brat, even walking out the door. Groupon could have, should have, been the darling of the American economy, particularly in tough economic times, but instead they ended up being a diversion, a light entertainment on the business landscape, and a thorn in the side of stockholders.

 

4) God bless America, where voting is an entitlement  -- Scalia's word -- but slaughtering a classroom full of five year olds is a God-given right.

 

5) Now that President Obama has a) endorsed gay marriage and b) won re-election, it's nice to see he hasn't forgotten to follow up.

 

6) A "polarizing issue"? My God, IT'S FUCKING GOLF, for Christ's sake! Gun ownership, voting rights, violence against women, those are -- although they should not be -- polarizing issues. But putters????

 

7) Another nail in the coffin for climate change denialists. Soon, guys, those will be literal coffins, as the planet pays us all back.

 

8) You know those background mental stability checks the NRA is proposing? Here's a good start. I'm betting many gun nuts would fail, epically.

 

9) First came the telephone. Then the cell phone. Then the smart phone. And soon? The brain phone. I have a problem with this: I like to turn my phone off at night.

 

10) I pick on Florida a lot in this column, so let me post something nicey-time for your perusal to make up for it.

"Two Arms" Instead of "To Arms"

John Kerry made an interesting statement yesterday on behalf of the United States:

ROME—Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. is preparing for the first time to directly provide nonlethal assistance, including food rations and medical supplies, to rebel Syrian fighters as part of a bid to change President Bashar al-Assad's "calculations" and expedite his removal from office.

Washington's top diplomat also announced at an international conference in Italy on Thursday that the U.S. will provide $60 million in assistance to Syria's main political opposition group, the Syrian Opposition Coalition, to help it unify politically and better distribute humanitarian supplies and public services to areas of Syria that have been liberated from Mr. Assad's rule.

The U.S. has already provided humanitarian supplies, communications equipment and training to Syria's political opposition. But Thursday marked the first time that Washington announced it will directly engage with Syria's military fighters through the Supreme Military Command, which is attached to the Syrian Opposition Coalition.

The Supreme Military Command is a coalition of the armed forces of the various opposition factions, and could be the basis of a replacement government should Assad vacate his office. Of course, care must be taken to make sure that none of that aid goes to assist groups with aims beyond Syria that include Israel and the US, and you can almost hear the far right Israel lobby throwing a hissy fit that America is getting involved at all in this, since it provides cover for militant activities in Syria and by extension, Lebanon.

Not that Assad is pro-Israel, of course, but the Devil you know...

Still, it's a tricky "thread the needle" that Kerry has to accomplish here: assist rebel forces in Syria without openly confronting the Sov-- I mean, the Russians who have announced they will jack up their military presence in the region.

And to be fair, $60 million is just a large drop in the bucket considering the assistance we could provide. This no doubt has the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) a little upset, but this is why diplomats exist, to make them see things our way.

What's the famous saying, "Diplomacy is the art of letting you have my way"?

The SOC threatened to boycott the Rome conference over the lack of a Western reponse to the humanitarian crisis of government-led violence against the people of Syria. The Russian chess pieces prevent us from openly doing much more than we have been able to, plus our new initiative. This is hardly the time to start a World War.

 

A Perfect Place For Bloodythirsty NRA Members To Move To

South Africa:

To understand South Africa's gun culture, it's crucial to go back nearly two decades. In 1994, apartheid ended. The official system of racial segregation, in place since 1948, took rights away from black Africans and gave virtually all power in every aspect of life to whites.

For generations, violence born out of apartheid spawned a kind of arms race; blacks and whites fought against each other, and everyone else armed themselves, afraid to be caught in the cross fire.

Gun violence was at a record high as the country made its first effort to become what archbishop and peace crusader Desmond Tutu envisioned -- a rainbow nation.

Sort of sounds familiar, doesn't it? A waning white majority panicked over the rise of people of darker complexion purchases crates of guns to protect itself in an overheated paranoid delusion.

Not surprisingly, that forced South Africa to toughen its gun possession laws. Less surprisingly, the anti-apartheid and liberation movements also stockpiled weaponry in response to the perceived threat that white people would start shooting black people on sight.

Even less surprisingly, home burglaries increased, primarily to steal guns that were grandfathered in. This adds a bit of a backdrop to the Pistorius claim that he thought there was a burgler in his bathroom, even if that's likely a bogus claim.

At least South Africa has an excuse: there has been a literal civil war for generations. Here, it's at best a figurative one and at worst the paraniod delusion of entitled white folks, even the poorest, somehow believing the government is teaming up with them against the common folk.

There's a certain logic to the wingnut paranoia, though. In the Fifties and Sixties, a lot of this stuff was pushed by the centralized Federal government. The reasons were simple and clear: the states weren't moving fast enough in passing civil rights legislation themselves, and people's lives were at stake. There was a compelling interest in the Federal government imposing the future on these redneck yahoos.

The reaction, no matter how over the top, is basic human logic: if they could make those people go to school with my viginal kids, what else can they ram down my throat?

You'd hope sixty years later they'd have gotten over it, but here's the thing: it's such a powerful trope ("Something bigger'n you and me is comin' fer us") that it gets fanned regularly. And sadly, there doesn't seem to be anyone pointing out there is no wolf whenever they cry "Wolf!"

Except us liberals, but then...well...

So we ignore them, and move on, and eventually history proves their irrelevance, which just makes them madder.

I don't see a good outcome out of all this, unless somehow cooler heads step in. We may end up with a literal civil war after all, which will not speak well of nation founded on the people's voice.

We can stop coddling them, however.

Or let them move to South Africa.

A side note: Is there ANYone involved in the Pistorius case who ISN'T even indirectly under investigation for gun violence?

Bad Medicine

Run, do not walk, to the local newsstand and pick up a copy of this week's Time Magazine for the lengthy investigative reporting done by Steven Brill on the price-gouging and profiteering of the American medical system.

 

From doctors to hospitals to insurance companies (which actually almost come off as heroes in this tale), Brill follows the money, and does it in-depth and in such a thorough manner that you feel what the various victims of the scamming feel as you read it: anger, terror, overwhelming intimidation.

When Sean Recchi, a 42-year-old from Lancaster, Ohio, was told last March that he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife Stephanie knew she had to get him to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Stephanie’s father had been treated there 10 years earlier, and she and her family credited the doctors and nurses at MD Anderson with extending his life by at least eight years.

Because Stephanie and her husband had recently started their own small technology business, they were unable to buy comprehensive health insurance. For $469 a month, or about 20% of their income, they had been able to get only a policy that covered just $2,000 per day of any hospital costs. “We don’t take that kind of discount insurance,” said the woman at MD Anderson when Stephanie called to make an appointment for Sean.

Stephanie was then told by a billing clerk that the estimated cost of Sean’s visit — just to be examined for six days so a treatment plan could be devised — would be $48,900, due in advance. Stephanie got her mother to write her a check. “You do anything you can in a situation like that,” she says. The Recchis flew to Houston, leaving Stephanie’s mother to care for their two teenage children.

[...]

The total cost, in advance, for Sean to get his treatment plan and initial doses of chemotherapy was $83,900.

Why?

Steven Brill is no wild-eyed radical. He created CourtTV and American Lawyer magazine and has advocated for charter schools and the dismantling of teachers' unions as a way to improve education in America.

 

Hardly a granola crunching hippie, is my point.

 

In this treatise, he makes a very cogent argument that not only are hospitals -- even non-profits, which opened my eyes -- overbilling, they are basically running RICO scams against consumers, fueled mostly by greed and cynicism.

 

We all know stories of the aspirin that costs $5 a piece, and we're told its because there's overhead and salaries and equipment to cover. Brill demolishes that shady defense, and points out that most of the money lines the pocket of shareholders and executives of hospitals, doctors' groups and insurers.

 

As I said higher up, insurers almost look like they're getting scammed, except Medicare. Brill lays out a very strong case for single-payer healthcare, pointing out that Medicare/Medicaid actually get the most cost-effective "bang for the buck" of any insurer out there...and they are still mandated to cover a comfortable profit margin for healthcare providers.

 

This article may be the arrow that finally pierces the armor of Big Med. Go read it. You'll be mad as hell, and yet come away with a sense of hope for the future.

 

Petulance

The Obama administration and Democrats is sitting awfully pretty this week. This is the week that Republicans will explode, no matter what happens. Pass the popcorn:

The danger for Republicans is that the budget cuts will severely weaken public support for the austerity theme that the party has been promoting since 2010. The cuts will make "deficit reduction" something very real to average American citizens and business and something that is often quite painful rather than an abstract debate over numbers.

While Americans have historically been hostile to government, they tend to support specific government services when asked by pollsters. So Washington's overall spending might not be popular as a concept, but Social Security and Medicare are.

The spending cuts will shift the debate toward the specifics. Americans will watch as government services are retrenched. The last time this happened, things didn't go well for the GOP.

That is, barring some grand and hidden scheme by Republicans that will successfully paint Obama as out of touch with the average American. That will be really hard, as it is Republicans who have driven the sequestration dialogue. Obama has helped egg them on, to be sure, but has taken great pains in his statements to set up a "you break it, you own it" theme.

After all, it's the Teabaggers who have run and won office on the promise to cut spending and keep taxes low, and they got their lunch stolen when Speaker John Boehner's caucus caved at the end of last year. Despite the high profile Weaker Boener has given to the Teabaggers (the State of the Union address featured not one but TWO responses from Teabaggers) there's still a lot of anger and the urge to drive off the cliff is strong.

Thus, we're seeing a lot posturing this week, starting with last night's fiendishly timed (just before the Oscars® aired) release of the list of how budget cuts would impact each state, starting with furloughs for Federal employees and drilling all the way down to the number of children who will not receive immunizations in Georgia (as an example.)

Many if not most of these cuts wouldn't be felt for some time. For instance, Federal law requires 30 days notice to lay off Federal employees, so staff cuts won't happen until April 1 at the earliest. Some impacts will be felt immediately, like Social Security checks not being mailed out for the 3rd of March, of course.

To be honest, this all seems like some Grand Guignol opera: the Teabaggers get their fiscal cliff and government shut down but then the responsible adults step in almost immediately to restore balance to things.

 

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Next week should be a pretty busy week for bloggers. First, we have the sequester deadline looming, and then we have a Pope resigning. Both stories are shrouded in mystery. Both stories will end up being non-stories, in my opinion.

 

2) The obesity crisis in America has taken an interesting and positive turn. People seem to be eating healthier and getting fewer calories, particularly from junk food.

 

This interests me because of a recent health issue that popped up in my life, forcing me to effectively become vegan, at least for a little while. Also, to give up alcohol. The pain I suffered was more than sufficient warning. God usually lets you know ahead of time if he's about to smite you. It's up to you to listen to the warning.

 

3) Apparently, Drew Peterson is a two-time scumbag. And oh by the way, priest-pentitent privilege is not sacrosanct when a capital crime has been committed. The priest can't be forced to reveal what he has heard, but he's damn well under no legal obligation to keep his silence.

 

4) There was a bombing that killed 16 people in Hyderabad. Speculation is that Indian Mujahideen are responsible.

 

5) Contrast Rush Douchebag's comment with Michelle Obama's comment of a few years back. Let's see how rightwing talkers handle this.

 

6) Apparently, science has solved every other pressing matter.

 

7) Florida. *shakes head slowly*

 

8) May the Unforce be with you. This will rock science to its very foundations.

 

9) Mutant goldfish. All we need now is for it to be a zombie, and every American International movie from the 60s will come to life.

 

10) I'm tired of these motherfucking mice on this motherfucking plane! (with snakes on a plane goodness thrown in as a bonus!)

Backup Or Escape Route?

Russia is about to send warships into the Mediterranean in support of Syria's president.

 

Again.

MOSCOW -- Russian warships are returning to the waters near Syria in a new demonstration of the Kremlin's interest in the outcome of the crisis there.

The Russian Defense Ministry told the RIA-Novosti news agency on Tuesday that four large landing vessels were on their way to the Mediterranean near Syria, three weeks after the Russian navy conducted its biggest maneuvers in the region since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

"Based on the results of the Navy exercises in the Black and Mediterranean seas from Jan. 19 through Jan. 29 ... the Ministry leadership has taken a decision to continue combat duty by Russian warships in the Mediterranean," the ministry said in its statement. “In the future the number of warships in the group and types of vessels acting in the said region will be defined in accordance with the given situation."

Russia has been a close ally of embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad and has strategic and economic interests in the country.

Russia's only naval base in the Mediterranean region is in Syria, in the port of Tartus. Naturally, this means Russia sells an awful lot of materiel to Assad. Partly in retaliation for US interference in the Ossetia uprising, Russia negotiated an expansion of that base in exchange for debt forgiveness to the tune of $10 billion or so, as well as arms sales.

Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Add to that the fact that Syria is one of the nations Russia is routing a natural gas pipeline through to reach the Middle East, and you have a pretty firm relationship, one Putin will be eager to protect and possibly exploit.

If you've been wondering why Obama has been very reluctant to step on Assad's toes in this civil unrest, here's why.

 

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Since gun owners are nothing but big whiny children, perhaps a little financial incentive will help them grow up a bit:

A bill introduced in the New York State Assembly by Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, a Democrat, would require the state’s residents to acquire liability insurance as a condition for gun ownership.

“Any person in this state who shall own a firearm shall, prior to such ownership, obtain and continuously maintain a policy of liability insurance in an amount not less than one million dollars specifically covering any damages resulting from any negligent or willful acts involving the use of such firearm while it is owned by such person,” the measure, dubbed S2353, reads.

Any person who has not purchased insurance in compliance with the law within 30 days of its passing would be in violation of the law.

Such an occurrence “shall result in the immediate revocation of such owner’s registration, license and any other privilege to own such firearm.”

Free marketz, bitches!

 

Of course, the namby-pamby little babies are all "But we don't wannnnnnnnnnnt to!"

“The legislation proposed in the Assembly today is a shot at all legal, responsible gun owners and sportsmen,” said Barclay. “Requiring this outrageous insurance policy is yet another way to try and limit sportsmen and deter people from owning any firearms. This legislation runs counter to the Second Amendment right of all our residents.”

“The fact of the matter is that the majority of gun owners are not involved in any crime. This bill again fails to address the real issue behind gun violence, which is the prevalence of illegal guns in this state,” he continued. “There is a long and storied tradition of sportsmen and gun ownership in our state that is being ignored in favor of political expediency. I strongly oppose this legislation and will continue to work to protect the rights of all responsible, legal gun owners.”

This is possibly the best argument against forcing liability insurance on gun owners.

And it's an EPIC FAIL. For one thing, the vast majority of homeowners don't have their houses collapse into a puddle but they carry homeowners' insurance. The vast majority of drivers don't have accidents each year, but they carry automobile insurance.

And those are things that have utility. A gun's primary focus is to kill. It's a hazard and like any hazard, ought to have some protections available to those it wrongly harms.

Look, I SCUBA dive. This means, I pay higher premiums on my life insurance policy for engaging in a risky activity, despite the fact that mortality rates for divers in general, and divers specifically engaged in the sport, are far lower than for bowlers (who do not pay a surcharge, believe it or not.)

And that doesn't include the small but not insignificant number of deaths caused by driving after a few beers at the bowling alley.

It's part of the price I pay to indulge myself.

Owning a gun is an option. We aren't in a state of war, and we do not have to kill our food. The last studies done...and they are grossly out of date because Republicans banned the CDC from performing anything more recent -- even if Obama has now freed them to do so -- show that a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to be used against a family member or friend in anger than to repel an intruder. A gun is ten times more likely to be used against a woman in an act of domestic violence than by a woman, either in an act of domestic violence or against an intruder, inclusive. And if I recall correctly, 22% of all domestic violence gun deaths are children.

Too, because of Republican efforts, gun manufacturers are exempt from civil liability statutes. This is outrageous. If a tobacco company puts out a product that, used correctly, kills you, then they are liable for putting that product out there, particularly if they do not take the proper steps to ensure you understand the risks involved from the get-go.

Which is what that tobacco settlement a few decades ago was all about: the blatant cynicism of the cigarette industry to push a product that kills.

Does anyone see a difference between that and guns? Because I sure don't.

If you own a gun, you'll be expected to take responsibility for it. Period. No more leaving the safe half-unlocked, no more letting it lie around with bullets in the clip or magazine. You bought it. You own it. Learn how to use it and keep it safe. I imagine insurance companies will fall all over themselves to find ways to offer discounts, like those five hour driver safety courses that get you ten percent off your car insurance.

This will not be expensive, but it will protect responsible gun owners who take great care of their weapons at the expense of the knuckleheads who do not. Because, frankly, those are the people we need to target.

It will take time and arm-twisting for the Federal law exempting gun manufacturers from liability to be overturned. In the meantime, imagine how much more thought George Zimmerman would have put in if he had a premium spike on his mind as he stalked and then murdered Trayvon Martin.

This is a great idea and I endorse the effort, and urge my legislators to pass it quickly. The time has come.

 

 

No One Could Have Forseen This!

Imagine! Latinos feel harassed in Arizona because Arizonans harass them!

TUCSON — It's routine for immigration officials in Arizona to detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Monday, however, the detention of two men — an immigrant rights activist and a father of six in Tucson [Rene Meza] — sparked protests, frustrated local authorities and illustrated the difficulties of complying with SB 1070, the state's controversial immigration enforcement law.

"This is unjust," Alma Hernandez yelled in Spanish to a crowd of about 300 that gathered in front of the Tucson Police Department to protest the detentions. Hernandez, a spokeswoman with the civil rights organization Corazón de Tucson, riled up the crowd by introducing immigrant rights activist Raul Alcaraz Ochoa, who had just been released from immigration detention.

"We need to fight for all those who are detained," Alcaraz Ochoa said.

Now, the father of six, to be fair, was in the country illegally, and was narced on by area residents who noticed that there were five children in his car, and none buckled in.

Think about that the next time someone busts you for talking on your cellphone, and you whine about privacy and stuff.

Ochoa rolled up on the scene after INS agents showed up to re-deport the father, abondoning the children to the care of his girlfriend. When he ascertained there was little he could do to get the father released and back to Mexico without arrest, he slipped under one of the vehicles where he was pepper-sprayed and forcibly removed.

You'll note: the girlfriend, Perla Lopez, was not arrested. She is a United States citizen.

Let that roll around in your head for a moment: a boyfriend visiting a girlfriend in the US is arrested and deported...for a traffic violation.

If the story told by Lopez's mother is accurate, the children were not restrained because the car had just been purchased privately and the car seats had not yet been installed.

We can get into the legalities of immigration law here, and whether SB1070 is even fair, but I want to focus in on a couple of larger points:

1) Had Meza been white, would this stop even have occured? Remember, it wasn't the cops seeing him, they received tips from "concerned citizens." Would the citizens have offered the benefit of the doubt to the driver or would they have become all "George Zimmerman" with him, too?

2) If a minor traffic offense can create such an uproar, where are the gun nuts with their "They is coming to violate my Constitutional rights!" yammerings on this?

 

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) A meteorite cracked and landed about a thousand miles east of Moscow this morning, injuring 400, mostly from breaking glass due to the noise. No word yet whether Sarah Palin could see it from her house.

 

2) In fairness to Carnival, you could probably write the same headline about every cruise that's ever sailed. But just to add insult to injury...

 

3) This could be the saddest story of the week: Pistorius fought so hard to be allowed to compete in the Olympics with his prosthetic legs, and it turns out his compulsions had a far darker side.

 

4) Asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass the closest of any known asteroid  of this size (500,000,000 pounds) this afternoon around 2PM EST. At about 17,000 miles from the surface, it will be closer to the ground that most of the near-earth satellites humans have launched. Between this and the Russian meteorite, is there some sort of message God is sending us?

 

5) Frank Lautenberg has announced he will not seek re-election in 2014, paving the way for Newark Mayor Corey Booker to run without much opposition for the seat. Lautenberg is the last World War II veteran to serve in Congress, and if Ted Kennedy was the last liberal lion, then Lautenberg was the last liberal panther: he was stealthy, staying below the radar for the most part, but working hard for progressive causes.

 

6) One Billion Rising seems to have been a huge success, particularly in the nations where it was desperately needed.

 

7) Note to men (and women): Always wrap that sucker.

 

8) Our prescription drug habit not only makes us a country of addled-pated morons, it makes our fish stupid, too.

 

9) God, I love me some Elizabeth Warren!

 

10) Beef. The other white meat. Wait. What?

Hagel! Holla back!

I have a modest proposal for President Obama in which he can screw around with Republican opposition to the confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary. I'll get to that in a minute. Let's take a look at what's going on:

On Wednesday Senate Republicans forced the Senate to a 60-vote threshold on the confirmation of Chuck Hagel. In order to move forward to a vote Democrats will have to find 60 senators to vote yes on cloture. If they do, the Democrats with a 55-45 majority are expected to confirm Hagel on a near party-line vote.

Wednesday was also a big day for Republican opponents of Hagel in two ways.

First, moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who some news organizations had reported would vote for Hagel, came out to say she would oppose his confirmation, although not block a “final” vote. (It’s unclear whether she would nevertheless support a temporary delay so her GOP colleagues Sens. John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Lindsey Graham can garner information they requested from the White House on Benghazi.)

Second, McCain and others remained up in the air, maintaining the very real possibility that Friday’s vote might not lead to a quick Hagel confirmation. Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced that he would support a filibuster if need be. (“If they’re not going to give us the information, the only way to get the information is to threaten to hold them to a higher standard of 60 votes.”)

Keep in mind, this piece was written by Jennifer "Billy" Rubin of the WaPo, which makes it about as factual as unicorn-riding talking pigs.

I mean, seriously, you can almost hear her gloating over a small procedural victory in the right wing attempts to smear an honorable and qualified candidate for the post in order to go on a witch hunt over details on a matter that's pretty much been put to bed, at least factually.

Distilling the facts out of her "writing," we find that a) the Republicans scored a cheap political victory that endangers our national security, b) a moderate Susan Collins might not agree with this pathetic stunt anyway, and c) even Senator McCain, who stands to benefit from the delay, opposes the idea of filibustering a Presidential appointee to such an important post!

Boy, I tell you what: Chuck Hagel must have made some serious enemies in the Republican camp for them to twist their panties in a knot this tight. Or maybe not. Let me explain.

The Democrats will have enough votes for cloture, to be sure, and if I'm Harry Reid, once that's taken care of, I don't even give the Teabaggers an ounce of recognition. I'd call for majority vote indicating unanimous consent, then throw it in the faces of every one of those niggling bastards running in 2014 and 2016.

The appointment of Chuck Hagel means just one thing, in my opinion: he has the credibility to line-item every single program in the military and either greenlight it or get rid of it. The establishment Republicans AND the Teabaggers concerned about district and statewide pork know this.

He brings street cred to the vital budget slashing that has to take place if we're truly serious about deficit reduction and not using it as a band-aid for slashing important social programs which are even more vital to the national interest than doubly redundant bombers and warships.

And I can definitely see Hagel trotting out, say, a naval air station in Oklahoma, and reminding people the damned state is landlocked and ought to be more than covered by Vance, Tinker, and Altus Air Force bases. That would smack the hell out of Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, as well as five Republican Representatives.

 

The deliciousness of this political ballet is really rather hypnotic.

 

So if you're scratching your head, wondering why Chuck Hagel, a former Republican Senator and one of the most respected party members, is suddenly being scraped off the bottom of shoes, there it is.

 

So here's my nuclear option for Obama, should Hagel's nomination be discarded. I would immediately turn around and nominate Senator John McCain to the post.

 

Want to see heads explode? Obama would still get his budget cuts (he'd short-shrift any attempts by his Cabinet Secretary to override him), McCain would have to go on the defensive again about his war record and his Senate voting record, and this time, he'd be hammered by his own party AND some Democrats piling on.

 

It would be good times. Good times.

A Watery State

Thus goeth Marco Rubio's Presidential aspirations. Apparently, Rubio can't stand the heat.

 

But, as to the President's State of the Union address, all seems to be in order. It was populist, and took much more liberal stances on issues that Obama had in his first term, as it followed closely on the heels of his stemwinder of an inaugural address.

 

He outlined a vision of a middle class that is healthy and growing that is in distinct contrast with the patrician and elitist views of the Republicans in Congress. His "ladders of opportunity" and support for increasing the minimum wage (a modest increase of less than 30%, to be sure) mirror my liberal libertarian views on government.

 

Government ought to be levelling the playing field.

 

Let me take a moment to brief new readers on what I mean: I view society as a three-legged stool. There's the people, the government and the business sector.

 

When these are in balance, the country is stable. It can grow and everybody benefits to some degree.

 

When one of these comes up short, the country is unstable and when two come up short, the country is set to topple over.

 

Balance in society is so damned hard to maintain because as people become complacent, business becomes aggressive. We rely on government to step in and keep business in check. Likewise, when business becomes dormant, people become angry and frustrated in poverty. And if government is small enough to drown in a tub, you've lost all hope of a stable society.

 

What we in America are in danger from is that two legs are not only longer than the people's leg, but they've nearly merged. This is a completely unsustainable construct.

 

But I digress...

 

You can read the full text here. I do want to highlight a few other points President Obama raised last night:

 

1) Austerity alone will not work, particularly cutting entitlements alone. Look, the DoD has more money than it knows what to do with. Let's cut there first, and see if austerity helps the economy and deficit.

 

2) Growing the economy is the best way to fix this mess, and the best way to grow the economy is middle class tax relief and asking the rich to put up their fair share (altho he didn't come out and say this last bit). 95% of small businesses in the nation are owned by people who make less than $50,000 from them. 90% of jobs in the country are created by small business. You do the math. He's right.

 

3) He left some Medicare reforms on the table. I know he's talked about a modest hike in the eligibilty age and certainly means-testing ought to be on the table. It's ridiculous that someone who earns $100,000 in his retirement has full access to the same Medicare a home healthcare worker does. Worse, the higher earner will likely outlive the poorer working stiff. This needs to be addressed.

 

4) He slapped Boehner's hands on the American Job Act, for not bringing it to the floor for a vote. Four years, not one jobs bill worth a damn in the House.

 

5) Science funding. I have to love a man who agrees that research is a critical component of government spending. I just wish he had gone further and said he'd start charging businesses who file patents on the backs of that work.

 

6) Gun control. I like that he challenged Congress to make a vote on the modest reforms he's asking for. I want these assholes on record because you just know there's someone out there thinking he can outdo Adam Lanza. Let's make these jerks put it on the record they support that effort.

 

7) Finally, he came out full-throated for fighting climate change. It's about time.

Pope Benedict To Step Down

While this is not a big deal for liberals in America, it's an enormous deal for Catholics around the world, all one billion or so of them, so I'm going to take a column and look at this.

Pope Benedict XVI announced Monday that he will resign Feb. 28, ending eight years as head of the world's Catholics because the 85-year-old pontiff is too infirm to carry on. He is the first pope to resign in 600 years.

The pope made the announcement in Latin during a meeting of cardinals in Rome.

"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," he told the cardinals. "I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only by words and deeds but no less with prayer and suffering."

This is a rather curious instance, to be sure, if the "600 years since it last happened" wasn't enough to arouse your suspicions. The Office of the Pontiff is the highest one that a Catholic can aspire to. This is even bigger than resigning as President of the United States, because the PoTUS can go into private industry and exploit his Rolodex.

Pope John XVIII, for instance, became a monk. The last Pope to resign, Gregory XII, did so as a political move. There were three claimants to the office, so in order to end the "Western Schism," Gregory offered up his mitre, ironically as an inducement to Benedict XIII, the so-called Antipope of Avignon.

So are there any political issues at stake here? Well, there is the small matter of sexual abuse within the church itself. As Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict was in charge of investigating and prosecuting cases, but his record is not without its inconsistencies. It is conceivable that there's is pretty damning evidence of complicity, as a best case scenario, in cases of child abuse, but it remains speculation.

In fairness to Benedict, however, we should note that prior to his election as Pope, he had submitted his resignation for health reasons, but stayed on when his predecessor, John Paul II, asked him to stay on. Benedict has suffered from some cardiovascular issues, notably a stroke and a heart condition.

It may be as simple as seeing the writing on the wall and deciding to give his church the chance to prepare for an orderly succession.

Still...it's pretty damned curious.

 

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) 17,000 miles. Even on the scale of our solar system, that's too damn close.

 

2) Bush the Elder's computer has been hacked and sensitive documents swiped off it. Probably nothing to be too concerned about in terms of national security, but maybe it's a warning shot to Barack Obama and others currently serving?

 

3) Here's the problem with trying to bulk up mental health care first, as a way to combat gun violence: psychiatry and psychology are light-years away from fully understanding what conditions make someone crack. Let's put the fire out first, then we can fix the plumbing in the house.

 

4) I posted earlier this week about my mixed feelings with respect to drone attacks on American citizens abroad. This is one measure that would certainly ease my mind.

 

5) Apple is indicative of one of the big problems our economy is suffering: you can lower taxes all you want, but the simple fact is, corporations are not spending it or even investing it, but sticking it in the bank and leaving it there. Which would be fine if banks were actually lending. As someone with A credit for a consumer, I have to leap through hoops to secure even modest loans against assets far more valuable than I'm asking for, so if it's tough for me, I can't begin to imagine how hard it is for a family to buy a house or start a business.

 

6) The US is a net exporter of oil and is poised to become the world's largest crude exporter in the next few decades. Here's what that means for you.

 

7) Today's Gee...What a Shock! news: deep fried foods can kill you.

 

8) This is pretty serious stuff that's going on in LA, but leave it to the right wing to politicize it. You could, you know, wait until it's over, at least? After all, John Rambo, the rightwing wet dream, started out as a Vietnam vet looking for....tada!....liberal treatment now that he was back home.

 

9) Did someone say "postracial America"? Tell it to the white folks.

 

10) Finally...no one could have foreseen this happening.

 

Stay dry, stay warm, stay funny!

Pass The Popcorn, Please?

Oh boy, this is going to be great!

"There is now an out in the open civil war within the Republican Party," conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace wrote in a Politico op-ed this week.
He's right.
Karl Rove has launched a new group, the Conservative Victory Project, which will aim to select GOP Senate candidates, weeding out future Todd Akins and squashing the prospects of anyone deemed unelectable.
It's not sitting well with conservatives. Its first purported opponent is Steve King, a very conservative congressman with a history of colorful comments, who may be considering a run for Senate in Iowa.
After pantheon of Tea Party campaign groups (The Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and Tea Party Express) bashed the new effort, on Wednesday a cluster of conservative leaders demanded the new organization fire its spokesman, Jonathan Collegio, for calling Brent Bozell, a pundit who runs the conservative Media Research Center, a "hater" in a recent radio interview. Collegio had alleged that Bozell, a critic, has an ax to grind against Rove.

As the song from Evita¹ goes, "Dice are rolling, the knives are out/Would-be presidents are all around/I don't say they mean harm/But they'd each give an arm/To see us six feet underground."

The tension between the far right nutbag headcases and the "moderate" corporatist Republicans is about to come to a head. Someone's going to be very angry at the end of it all.

Indeed, Joe "YOU LIE!" Walsh has created his own super PAC to go up against the Conservative Victory Project, in an attempt to save his own ass, since he's embarrassed the party time and time again.

Rove's idea is to fund incumbents and slightly more sane Republicans to run against bugeyed trollbait candidates who would ruin the chances for the GOP to gather more members from outside the old white male demographic.

Let's face facts: every time a Teabagger screams about rape, that's probably four votes out of a hundred the GOP loses. The only way they are even relevant any longer is through gerrymandering.

It sort of comes to a head here, doesn't it? Or at least, it should barring a major intervention by a figure of unimpeachable authority in both camps.

After all, thirty -- no, forty -- years of the corporatist wing dangling the social conservatives like puppets on a string while picking their pockets of both votes and tax money has probably created a monster that will eat the party from the inside like in one them Alien movies.

 

Rove is trying to prevent this. His track record is not particularly good when it comes to this kind of thing. He can ram through a bad President on an unsuspecting nation, but he seems to lose focus when he has little prizes littering the landscape. Remember his boast of a "permanent Republican majority"?

He never even came close to any of that. Well, maybe "majority" for a couple of years, but even then, intermural fighting made it impossible for President Bush to effectively pass any meaningful legislation. Even his precious tax cuts had to be rammed through...three times!...on reconciliations, which limited their destructive force.

Rove spent a lot of Bush's "political capital" in building the majority he so desired and then saw it all melt away by 2008. In doing so, he dipped into a well of derp that seemed bottomless, but that was more because no one ever imagined anyone would be crazy enough to go that far off the rails to find candidates.

It seemed bottomless the way a root canal seems endless.

The GOP's problem is pretty simple to sort out: their base is bugshit crazy. Rather than change the base, encoura    ge engagement by people with at least one foot on planet Earth, they prefer to force this asylumist wing into a cage. They are quite literally riding a tiger, which means they'd better not get off.

 

¹ "New Argentina"

Mah-Muled

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited what should be nominally friendly territory: Cairo, Egypt.

 

Not so much, it turns out:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, endured the humiliation of having a shoe thrown at him today as his visit to Egypt turned sour.

The trip, the first by an Iranian leader since the overthrow of the Shah 34 years ago, had been intended as a triumphant occasion that healed the rift created when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel.

But as Mr Ahmadinejad left the al-Hussein mosque in Islamic Cairo a bearded man burst through the crowd and twice tried to throw shoes at him.

Also, while the cat's away, the mice will play:

A former Iranian prosecutor and associate of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was freed without explanation after two days of detention, state-run media reported.

Saeed Mortazavi was arrested by judicial officials on Feb. 4 after a dispute between Ahmadinejad and long-term rival Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani exploded in public, with the two trading accusations of wrongdoing and improper conduct in the presence of lawmakers.

During the parliamentary session, Ahmadinejad showed a video apparently featuring Mortazavi and which the president maintained, implicated Fazel Larijani, the speaker’s brother, in fraudulent business dealings.

Mortazavi had been held on unspecified charges and no details were given on why he was released from Evin prison at dawn today, according to Fars and Mehr news agencies reports.

Ahmadinejad's visit to Egypt was seen as a realignment between two cold-shouldered rivals, particularly after the Iranian revolution in 1979 where Anwar Sadat granted asylum to the deposed Shah, as well as a state funeral.

Muhammed Morsi seemed particularly eager to mend relations between the two nations, but apparently, Morsi forgot to consult with his own itinerary. At Al-Azhar mosque, Ahmadinejad was publicly upbraided for his Shi'ite incursions into Sunni matters (Azhar is a Sunni mosque) and of duiscriminating against Sunni citizens in Iran.

And then, of course, came the shoes.

If you want to understand the relationship of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to the United States, you need look no further than his attitudes towards Iran, whom he saw as a grave threat not only to the United States and Israel, but to Egypt itself.

A coalition of Iran and Egypt would be a great threat to the interests of the United States in the region, even exclusive of Israel. We're looking at the Suez and the Gulf of Arabia, the Saudis and oil emirates friendly to our country, access to the Indian and subcontinental markets, even shipping from the east coast of the United States to Australia.

 

Iran understands this, which is why it's very hot to form a working relationship with Egypt as an insurance policy against Israel and the US getting ideas. Too, other attempts to draw Iran into regional dialogues by Egypt have brought everything up to outright hostility from the Saudis.

 

Here we have two domestically troubled leaders grasping for a plank floating in the Gulf and finding that if each holds onto the other's hand, they might find some buoyancy.

 

But there are sharks all around.

 

The Young Man Should Not Be Dead

(photo courtesy)

Droning On

I'm of two minds of this latest dust-up in military strategy and national security:

A Justice Department memo determined the U.S. government can use lethal force against an American citizen overseas if the person is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or one of its affiliates, according to a document posted on the NBC News website.

The paper provides insights into the Obama administration's policy of targeted killings carried out by the use of drone strikes against suspected terrorists. Several of those strikes have killed Americans, notably Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni American who had been connected to plots against the United States but never charged with a crime. Awlaki died in a drone attack in September 2011 in Yemen.

The 16-page white paper - titled "Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qaida or an Associated Force" - is a policy paper rather than an official legal document.

The reservations one should have about this are numerous and obvious: American citizens deserve due process and this opinion doesn't even provide for any legal oversight whatsoever. That right there opens a rather large can of worms.

And of course, other nations' sovereignty, the idea of assassinating anyone else on foreign soil...as I said, a whole raft of issues.

And yet, I can't completely oppose the measure, at least based on the memo that has been leaked.

It appears that proper diligence has been used to be outline that an "imminent threat" exists from an American citizen who has all but repudiated his American citizenship. "Turned traitor," we used to call it. Also, due care must be exercised and attempts to capture this citizen for judicial process must be exhausted first and war conventions observed. 

Yes, I know, it's lip service without judicial oversight, to be sure.  

The Supreme Court has already acknowledged that due process does not apply to an American citizen who has joined opposition forces actively engaged militarily against us and much of this seems to fall under those and other guideliness the courts have already established.

Yes, there is danger of over-reach, to be sure, and I'm troubled mostly by the lack of oversight in real time (I have no doubt there will be plenty of oversight in arrears from Congress and the courts.)

But a lot of the case I'm reading against this policy seems to me to fall into nearly the same categories that rightwing gun nuts use to justify assault weapons: hypothetical cases of heavy-handed government bearing down on its citizenry, when in point of fact, the number of people this policy has affected so far number in the single digits and most of those have actively repudiated any reasonable measure of citizenry or fealty to the US.

Still, this is worth keeping an eye on.