The Sky Is (Not) Falling

Mr. Groothuis of The Constructive Curmudgeon can always be counted on to make unnecessarily inflammatory statements; like this one:

"On April 19, The Supreme Court will decide whether campus Christian groups, such as Navigators and InterVarsity, can exist as official groups when in light of the fact that they require certain beliefs and behaviors of their members. This is another choice between liberty and tyranny."

It's not that I don't believe what Mr. Groothuis says, it's that I have learned not to trust him. So I went and checked the facts of the case and--not surprisingly--liberty and tyranny live only in Chicken Little Curmudgeon's head.

The scare-mongering post on the Curmudgeon's blog refers to Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which will be heard by the Supreme Court next Monday. The gist of the case (as I understand it) is this: Can a public institution refuse to officially recognize an organization that prevents those who do not share its religious and moral values from becoming voting members? More specifically, in the case at hand, can Hastings College of Law, a publicly-funded school, deny the use of its funds, official logo, and other privileges to an entity, specifically Christian Legal Society, which practices discrimination as a requirement for membership (a student club, for example)?

It is important to note that lack of official recognition does not equate the prohibition to exist or to operate on school grounds, or to communicate via certain channels provided by the institution.

If you are interested in the facts of the case, and the implication of the possible rulings I recommend that you click on the preceding links. I also recommend that you read Prof. Volokh's detailed considerations on the case, expressed in various posts of his. Then you can decide for yourself if Mr. Groothuis is right in suggesting that CLS v Martinez is a choice between tyranny and liberty. I don't, and I offer this piece of advice to the tragicomical Curmudgeon:

When a party is sure of the force of its reasoning and of the legal validity of its viewpoint it does not need to resort to hyperbole and fear to secure support for its position.

A choice between tyranny and liberty? Only in Chicken Little's Curmudgeon mind.

Read To Believe

No comment necessary.

Corporate Front Group Funded By Coal Industry Scorns Widow Of Mine Disaster: ‘Everyone Wants Free Money'

Limbaugh: Volcanic eruption in Iceland is God’s reaction to health care’s passage.

One can only hope that karma will do its job.

Tax Day Has Come And Gone, Unlike Ignoramuses, Rich Opportunists and Liars

I filed my taxes. Finally. At the very last possible minute, like the procrastinator I am.

It's never a happy process, and I can't say I love the idea of parting from money I worked so hard to earn, particularly when the money I pay to the federal government buys so little of what I need most (like guaranteed basic health care, commercial free and impartial TV and radio programming, affordable higher education, rational, affordable and efficient public transportation, and so forth) and so much of what I loathe (ginormous "defense" spending, corporate welfare, bailouts to those who almost totally bankrupted us, handouts to states represented and inhabited by a majority of idiots who spend their lives condemning federal handouts, etc.) The good news is that the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress are (too timidly) reversing some of these policies. The bad news is that the asylum is still run to a large degree by the inmates (lobbyists and their political butlers.)

Nevertheless, I am not one of the wingnuts and/or liars who would have you believe that the Federal Income Tax has gone up this year for most Americans, when in fact the opposite is true.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A Lesson In Civics

From the pages of the Daily Kos: Running After Happy. It is a rare lesson in civics and what the Founding Fathers might have wanted for the United States, had they had more of a say in the current state of things than the conservative pundits who hijacked their thoughts.

I made a similar point, not too long ago, in the context of the health care reform struggle. It is not nearly as eloquently as exmearden on the Daily Kos, but certainly as heartfelt.

A Stroke of (Repuglycan) Genius

Dr. Jack Cassell, a Florida urologist, has posted the following sign on the door of his practice: "If you voted for Obama ... seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your health care begin right now, not in four years."

Congressman Grayson (D-FL), often too quick to bash Repuglycans, wasted no time to bash the good doctor for being a sore loser, and a cruel one at that.

Actually, I wished all doctors who harbor the same feelings against "Obamacare" would be as explicit as Dr. Cassell. In fact, I wish all corporations were so blatantly idiotic. Then we could take our money elsewhere, instead of unwittingly fattening the idiots' wallets.

Obama's Not A Socialist. And The Heritage Foundation Lies About HCR.

Tea partiers and Repuglycans like to attack the President by accusing him of being a Socialist. As any proud Socialist will tell you, you have to be pretty ignorant or intentionally deceitful to make that claim.

Also, surprise surprise, the Heritage Foundation keeps spreading disinformation. According to an HF spokesman, the United States is a right-of-center country and Obama's health care reform is a massive takeover of one sixth of the economy. (How could that be, when there is no public option and the best Demo-chrytes could come up with is an individual mandate to buy health insurance?)

The Heritage Foundation would also have you believe that President Obama's claim that the health care reform bill that he just signed into law incorporates ideas from the Heritage Foundation is false. Unfortunately for the Heritage Foundation, you are entitled to your own opinion, not to your own facts. Why, as recently as 2003 Stuart Butler, Ph.D, laid out many of the ideas that have now become law, including the individual mandate that HF now rails against, in Congressional testimony.

Food For Thought For Freedom Lovers and Socialism Haters

You could do worse than reading this brief, intelligent essay on the meaning of socialism--and freedom.

The Right Wing And Violence, Verbal and Physical

Dante Atkins at the Daily Kos reports the latest incendiary statement by right wing clown Glenn Beck: "It's just like 9/11 all over again, except we didn't have the burning buildings." Yeah, that's exactly the sentiment that the threat of "cap and trade" legislation brings to mind to reasonable people.

As Atkins says,

The right wing needs to understand something clearly: you don't get to claim that policy initiatives proposed by Democrats are tantamount to armageddon, Stalin, Hitler, the 9/11 attacks, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and an internal contradiction of the space-time continuum that will lead to the destruction of the universe--and then turn around and say that the last thing you wanted was to see people stirred to violence. You either sincerely think it's bad enough to merit violent resistance or you don't. Pick a side and stick with it.

You can see the criminally stupid video of Glenn Beck on the Daily Kos site.

There Is No Hell, So Make Earth A Living Hell For Them

As a lapsed Catholic, now a contented atheist, I have particular contempt for those who committed sexual abuses against children, and even more contempt for those who covered up their heinous acts.

They are among the very people who would like you to convince you that the guilty will reap their eternal punishment in hell. Guess what? There is no hell beyond earth, so let's make their one life hell, right here. Send them to jail, as they deserve, and let them rot in a cell. They can then seek comfort in their divine fantasies, if they so choose. No special treatment for anyone, including the Pope, if he is as guilty as he seems.

Jefferson Quotes, True and False

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not," warned Thomas Jefferson.

First of all, it is not known that this is an actual quote from Thomas Jefferson. It does not exist in any of his writings according to the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia. I say it because the person who used the quote on his blog has been rather sloppy with facts in the past (more about him at the end of this post), and my suspicions about the attribution of the quote were confirmed by a quick Google search which led me here.

What I find offensive about the quote is not just its incorrect attribution, but the fact that it is presumably being used to condemn "Obama care". (I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty given the context (the blog) and the user of the quote (again, more on him to follow).

As it happens, the quote seems aimed at eliciting in readers the worst feelings about what the American Right likes to call redistribution of wealth (which non-millionaires like me call what it is, i.e. progressive taxation) by implying that it rewards laziness over industry and entrepreneurship. Of course, this is--for the most part--sheer bullshit, but it helps that the people peddling it have the biggest megaphones.

Redistribution of wealth aimed at ensuring that as many of our fellow Americans (and legal aliens) can enjoy affordable access to a basic human right, i.e. the right enjoy a minimum level of health care services without risking bankruptcy or death, a right that is recognized by all civilized countries, should be accepted rather unbegrudingly by your average moneyed interests. It is the part of the social contract between the haves and the haves-not that guarantees, among other things, that the latter will not take to the streets and burn down the palaces of the former in exchange for a fair standard of living, which includes the ability to put a roof over one's head, to feed one's family, to go to affordable quality school, to be treated equally before the law regardless of income levels (yeah, right!) and, yes, to be able to receive good and affordable treatment in doctor's offices and hospitals.

But the picture that the Right astutely and disingenuously painted of the health insurance reform that Congress trudgingly and clumsily passed days ago is in keeping with the quote given at the top of this post, that is that Congress and the President are taking from "those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

It takes some truly despicable people to subscribe to and to promote the fantastic idea that this health insurance reform bill is a handout to those who don't deserve it because they are too lazy to go get it. Many of the uninsured or under-insured have a job. In fact, some even have more than one, but they still cannot afford health insurance for themselves or their families because of the outrageous cost of premiums or of deductibles and copays. You don't have to believe me. You can visit the many websites that document this known fact, like the ones listed below.

Faces of Maryland's Uninsured Project
Pennsylvania Health Law Project (PDF file)
The Uninsured (New York Times Editorial)
National Association of Free Clinics (PDF file)

These data are not hard to find, so not finding them is probably due to a combination of dishonesty and willful refusal to acknowledge that the picture they paint is definitely not one of lazy unemployed people whose goal is to mooch health care from those who work.

Consider that, as reported by USA Today, "the percentage of all employers offering health insurance in the past eight years peaked in 2000 at 69% and has fallen steadily since, hitting 60% this year [2007], according to an annual survey of employers by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Among small firms of three to nine workers, the percentage offering insurance has dropped even more — from 58% in 2001 to 45% this year" [again, 2007, which is when the article I quoted was published. And that was BEFORE the worst of the unemployment crisis hit.)

More recent [PDF] data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that since 1999 the cost of premiums has increased by 131% and that the cost of worker contributions has increased at more or less the same rate (128%). It also confirms the drop in number of business, particularly small businesses (between 3 and 9 employees) who are willing or able to offer health care benefits.

All these data help to dismantle the meme, propagated by the right and embraced by those who are angry and vulnerable (the ignorant, the uneducated and the fearful), that the bill is aimed at building a constituency of leeches who will vote for Democratic candidates to keep their "entitlements"*, the kind of bullshit that the right seeks to convey every day using inflammatory and demonstrably false rhetoric, aided by seemingly authoritative but fabricated quotes like the one at the top of this post.

Which brings me to the person who used the quote as a means of corroborating his despicable and false message. Sloppiness is an annoying trait and if the use of the quote above was simply a matter of sloppiness it would be bad enough. But I fear that we are dealing with something more sinister than sloppiness in this case, that is a willful attempt to mislead those who are vulnerable and inclined to be misled. This is particularly despicable when it comes from a member of academia (though not very reputable academia, to be sure) like the individual who runs The Constructive Curmudgeon, where the quote was posted. An educator is not supposed to mislead but to enlighten.

Let me leave you with a true quote by Thomas Jefferson: "To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse." Apply that concept, liberally if you will, to the topic of health care.

---

* This is an accusation that has now been leveled against Democrats for 3 quarters of a century. Consider the following quote from H.L. Mencken, written on the eve of the 1936 election, about the New Deal:
"Its chief practical business is to search out groups that can be brought into the [Democratic Party] machine by grants out of the public treasury, which is to say, out of the pockets of the rest of us." [Sam Tanenhaus, The Death of Conservatism] You know how bad the New Deal turned out to be for Americans, don't you?

In My Crystal Ball I See...

I predict that an invective by the (not so constructive) Curmudgeon is forthcoming for the "blasphemous" Brian McLaren. It wouldn't be the first invective against that influential Christian leader from the pages of the Curmudgeon. McLaren's crime is to favor a reading of the Bible, in particular the New Testament, that does not reward dicks for, well, being dicks.

In an interview with NPR to mark the release of his latest book, A New Kind Of Christianity, McLaren expressed views that don't resonate too well with older, more traditional Evangelicals.

"God revealed in Christ crucified shows us a vision of God that identifies with the victim rather than the perpetrator, identifies with the one suffering rather than the one inflicting suffering," he says.

McLaren says modern evangelicalism underplays that Jesus — who spent most of his time with the poor, the sick and the sinners — saved his wrath primarily for hard-core religious leaders.

Curmudgeonly people focus their message on the sanctity of the Republican Party vs. Democratic demons, behind a curtain made of common Evangelical calls for fools, like a very selective concept of the "sanctity of life" (the "pre-born", not Iraqi or Afghani children), a despicable view of the "sanctity of marriage" to the exclusion of anyone but heterosexual (whites), a view of society devoid of any social justice (let freedom rule, where freedom is to be enjoyed in direct proportion to one's earning ability), and so on. They do not spare any invective against McLaren's reading of the New Testament, in which Jesus is more concerned with chastising Pharisees and hypocrites than prostitutes and lepers. Their interpretation of the role of Jesus has more to do with power than charity (of spirit) than McLaren's, so the latter is a heretic. All this from a bunch of people who owe their religion to heretics in the first place.

Now, you know me, I think that all religious people are delusional to a higher or lesser degree, but if you want to be a bible literalist remember that the bible is composed of two volumes: one Old, in which God acted like a capricious despot, and one New, in which his soon thankfully proves to be more more mentally balanced than his father, and more concerned with walking the walk than with talking the talk.

The Rev. Jim Wallis said this:

We did this experiment way back a long time ago, as young seminarians, we found every passage in the Bible about poor people, about wealth and poverty, oppression, all that, and we found several thousand verses. It was the second most prominent theme in the Hebrew scripts, the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, the Synoptic Gospels, the first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, one of every 16 verses.

[...] In Luke, it was one of every seven verses. And we took the Bible and we took a pair of scissors and we cut out of the Bible every single reference to poor people. And when we were done, the Bible was in shreds. It was full of holes, falling apart in my hands. I'd take it out to preach. I'd say, 'Brothers and sisters, this is the American Bible. It's just full of holes.

[...]This isn't about politics or a liberal or a conservative. This is about the integrity of the word of God. There's nothing as basic as this, how we treat the other, the vulnerable, the poor, the enemy. The one who's not at the table is the one we're going to be judged by. [from http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/jimwallis/transcript.shtml]

If people like McLaren and Wallis can provoke hissy fits in curmudgeonly hypocrites, more power to them.

Eric Cantor Is A Douche

Eric Cantor is, alas, one of the most representative faces of the current Republican Party.

Recently he went on national television to chastise Democrats for allegedly exploiting the climate of hostility verging on hatred that led to actual acts of violence against a few of them in the wake of the passage of health insurance reform. I say actual acts of violence, as opposed to fabricated ones, like the one Cantor alleges to have been a victim of. Except, according to the Richmond Police Department the incident was not directed at Cantor or Cantor's office.

Only a high-ranking Republican could have the balls to accuse his opponents of trying to gain political advantage from acts of violence directed at them while fabricating a story about being a victim of violence. Why would he do that, other than to try to gain political advantage.

It is not the wrong policies and politics of the Republican Party that are the biggest problem. It is their shameless hypocrisy that will get them in real trouble eventually.

Keep it up, Repuglycans.

Those Who Don't Know History Are... Republican Attorney Generals

It is quite astonishing how Republicans have immediately started calling for the repeal of the health care reform bill that President Obama signed into law today. Such is the frenzied state of mind of Republicans and their pitiful leaders (such as Senators DeMint, McConnell and McCain) who bet the farm on Obama's failure to pass any health care reform at all, and will now make utter fools of themselves in the process.

Or, consider the 13 or 14 State AGs who have decided to sue the Federal government for doing what has never been done before, that is forcing American citizens to buy a product they did not want. Ahem... If only they had read this before proceeding with their ill-conceived, clumsy lawsuits.

But then again, the true intent of these demagogues is not to have the law overturned (though this Supreme Court is perfectly capable of going to any lengths to thwart progress, I bet.) Their true intent is to create a divisive enough electoral issue to rally their fevered, deranged troops in November.

Put it this way: the sick and the uninsured are the gays of 2006 and 2008. Because, let's face it, when it comes to hating, it makes no difference to a Republican if you are gay or sick. Either way, you brought your situation upon yourself.

Perhaps we should teach Republicans new ways to use the bootstraps they are so fond of reminding us of.

On The Hypocrisy Of Self-Anointed "Pro-lifers"

Those who, like Mr. Groothuis of Denver Seminary, call this a "day of infamy" because a health care bill has finally passed; those who, like him, profess that they have the best interest of the "pre-born" at heart; those who routinely call their opponents "enemies", "baby-killers", "mass murderers" and many other unkind, un-Christian epithets (while at the same time chastising others for supposedly using ad-hominems): these people would do well to read this op-ed by Michael Moore, particularly this excerpt, about abortion rates in other countries:

Why does godless France, where abortion is nearly free (it's covered by their universal health insurance), have 20% fewer abortions per capita than we do? What's even more amazing about that statistic is that you can't even get an abortion in America in 87% of our counties because there isn't one single doctor in those counties who will perform one! 87%!!

Mr. Moore also has a good thought for those how support disingenuous amendments to state constitutions such as the so-called "personhood amendment":

What is "life"? An egg is life, a sperm is life. Those sperm aren't running on a battery pack. They are living creatures, as is a fertilized egg. But they're not "human beings." A human being is something that can exist outside the womb of a mother. If you think a fertilized egg is a human being, then I respectfully ask you to go down to the DMV today and have them change your birthday on your driver's license to 9 months older than what you've been telling everybody.

The Republican Solution For... Well, Everything

Meg Whitman, she of eBay fame, is running to be the next governor of California on a platform of--wait, you guessed it--cutting taxes. For the rich. To solve California's budget deficit.

California already had a couple of actors as governors. It's time for another joker.

Does Prayer Really Work?

For the umpteenth time, it appears it does not. From the pages of The Constructive Curmudgeon:



You can imagine me snickering with delight then when this appeared on the pages of the Huffington Post a few hours later:



Either prayer does not work or, more frighteningly for Christocrats, prayer does work and

either
a) a larger number of people were praying to God that health care should pass, which then means that God finds it more important for people to have health care insurance than the "defeat this abortion-laden health care bill." What would that say about the Christocrats' God?
or
b) a larger number of people have prayed to Satan than they have to God, which should also dishearten the Christocrats.

Either way, you have to question the power of prayer. Personally, I would rather rely on old-fashioned boots on the ground activism than hands to the sky fanaticism, of any kind, but hey, that's only me.

The Great Health Care Debacle

When the Democratic health care bill becomes law, most likely this coming Sunday, it will be a betrayal of the principle that health care is a human right. It will be a gift not to those who have struggled for years to keep their health coverage, but to the corporate uberlords who have exploited a universal need to enrich themselves and their cohorts in Congress. It will signal to the world that the United States has chosen to put profit over social justice, something no other advanced nation in the world has done. It will be a blow to progressives, who will be defeated but won't stop fighting for what is right: the right to be treated equally in front of an illness, regardless of one's station in life.

It is a revolting bill. It did not have to be. It did not have to reward the very interests that deserved to punished. It did not have to legislate that health insurance is a duty while health care is not a right. It did not have to bow to corporate interests instead of taking them on. It will do nothing or too little to control costs, absent a public option to keep insurers on their toes.

That is why I have not backed it in spite of repeated pleas by the White House and by a number of representatives who have my name on their mailing lists. I cannot support a bill that so unconscionably and so casually abdicates the tenets of progressivism and of social justice. Single-payer was not even brought to the table and the public option was a chimera created to pacify those who would not readily lend their support to this health care reform but who could be convinced that something pretty ugly was better than nothing. That, incidentally is true. Even this ugly bill is, in some ways, better than nothing (the status quo), which should really clarify for everyone how deep we have sunk this country's sense of what is right, what is morally acceptable.

You should read Solomon and Rothschild to understand what is happening and what needs to be done

Let Them Idiots Secede (Continued)

"Texas Board of Education cuts Thomas Jefferson out of its textbooks" is just one of the brilliant ideas the Texas Board of Education had for its textbooks. Here are some others:

– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”

– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.”

I rest my case.

Let Them Idiots Secede

I am all for letting Southern states secede. I have had enough of them. They are populated by too many idiots, bigots, and hypocrites who keep electing dicks (mostly Republicans with some Conserva-Dems) who make a living by railing against big Washington spending and handouts when most Southern states are, as it happens, the biggest net recipients of Washington handouts.

If that weren't enough, these disingenuous, conniving, and overbearing Congressfolks continue to financially rape those who elect them, in exchange for empty promises of restoring decency in America and protecting family values. Take for example the Mississippi high school that canceled its prom rather than have it "marred" by having a lesbian couple in attendance. So bless the ACLU for suing the idiots!

Back to secession: There is plenty of room in the surviving states of the Union for those who would inevitably be persecuted (you know, blacks, Mexicans, atheists, GBLT types, scientists, etc.) by the dumb idiots who would secede. We tried to create a great Union, and--alas--we were overwhelmed and overpowered by stupid.

We can no longer afford to let some inbred Senator from Oklahoma or Kansas halt environmental protections or health care reform while rising temperatures make glaciers melt and oceans boil over and thousands die every year for lack of access to health care. We can no longer live in a nation that allows credit card companies to exist that can charge 79% interest with impunity, or to let C students take us to war against the wrong country. We can no longer tolerate a whole class of bigoted electors and politicians who legally discriminate against those who were doomed at birth by their economic fate or who later in life found out that they were "differently-attracted".

We reasonable people are "unequally yoked" in an abusive, forced relationship with people who believe that it is more important to care for embryos than for those who have already landed amongst us, who believe that the world was created six thousand years ago by a petty, mean-spirited caricature of a deity who, for two thirds of our existence (based on the 6k year time-frame), ruled that adulterers should be stoned to death, that you are impure and should go to hell for eating shellfish, that you should treat your slaves fairly, etc.

We are up against a sea of idiots, who eat cheap lettuce picked by the same people that they rail against and would rather leave to die than spend a penny to treat in a national health care system; an army of retards, who rail against socialized medicine while themselves or their parents are alive because of Medicare or Medicaid; a coalition of the dupes, who complain about the decay of the American family and the middle-class, and then go on to elect serial adulterers and closeted homosexuals whose whose only cure for society consists of cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations while facilitating the exodus of jobs beyond American borders; a legion of failed Klansfolk, who attend tea parties holding up signs that depict president Obama as an African tribal leader, complete with bone through his nose and traditional garb, while their conservative heroes enjoy their all-expensed-paid retreat at a tropical golf resort, courtesy of their generous corporate lobbyists who are clamoring for labor laws to be relaxed and to return the U.S. to the days when child labor was all the rage.

I have had enough of all of them.

Let them secede. Let them live without the annoyance of the EPA, the FDA, the FAA, while their children get leukemia from drinking polluted water or die of dehydration induced by their e-coli infested hamburger meat, if they have been lucky enough to survive the runway crash that took the lives of most their fellow fliers when their Halliburton traffic-controller did not show up at work because he existed only on paper, so Dick Cheney could charge the government some more billions for services not actually rendered.

Let these idiots secede. Then the rest of us can go on with our lives, without having to subsidize these sanctimonious doofuses, and make a better place for those who want it.

Pass Health Care, So We Can Get Rid Of The Big, Fat Idiot

If Congressional Dems cannot pass health care reform for the right reasons (you know, to help the uninsured, the underinsured, etc.), perhaps they can do it to get Rush Limbaugh to move.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is.... Ken Starr?!?

If you had any doubt about the fact that an evil man without credibility can only give rise to an evil woman with no credibility, you have to look no further than Dick and Liz Cheney.

Their attacks on President Obama and his policy are so vile that even one of the vilest men of the 90's, Ken Starr, thought it fit to distance himself from the Cheneys.

For Communists Only

And now that I have your attention, watch these two segments from last week's Bill Moyers Journal:

The first one, where communist Wendell Potter (formerly a vicepresident at Cigna) tries to convince socialist Bill Moyers that President Obama's health care reform plan is worth voting for.

The second one, where Marxist Marcia Angell (former Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine) argues for why we'd be better off with the status quo for a few more years.

At the end of the episode, Bill Moyers asked his viewers to express themselves in favor or in opposition of reform. I know my post does not answer the question, but it summarizes how I feel about the health care kabuki theater. In italics, below.

To a foreigner who has lived in the United States for almost twenty years, the health care reform debacle is almost incomprehensible. It becomes simple to understand once one reminds himself of the fact that Americans have been brainwashed to think of themselves as Number One, in every field of human endeavor, no matter all evidence to the contrary.

As everybody who has ever been the best at something knows, being Number One at anything requires not just confidence in one's strengths, but awareness of one's limits, something that most Americans are completely oblivious to.

That is how, in the midst of the health care reform fiasco, most Americans are shamefully blind to the fact that no other advanced country treats health care as a commodity, and that there are plenty of successful examples around the world of countries that have tamed the health care beast with better outcomes and at lower costs. Imagine how surprised most Americans would be to find out that, in spite of Republican fearmongering, many of those countries have thriving health insurance sectors.

You can't fix health care until you fix stupid.

David Michael Green As A Modern Day Cassandra

"Keep yout passport current" is Michael Green's advice to progressive Americans as the next two or three election cycles complete the plundering and destruction of the American middle-class.

Stupid Political Correctness (And The Height Of Inconsistency)

Fresh from the Oscars, from the "In Memoriam" segment: Deceased actresses (e.g. Brittany Murphy, Jennifer Jones, etc.) identified by the on-screen caption "Actor". That during a show where awards are given out for best Actress in a Leading Role and best Actress in a Supporting Role.

Olson, Boies on Bill Moyers Journal

In 2000 (and the at the beginning of 2001) I had no love for Ted Olson, for his role in shutting down the recount that could have spared us 8 years of agony under the Bush quasi-dictatorship. (Actually the role Olson played was not as decisive as that of the 5 Supreme Court idiots that gave us the worst presidency in recent American history, and that includes the Reagan presidency.)

Anyway, last night's appearance by Ted Olson on the Bill Moyers Journal partly redeems him from the disgrace he so instrumentally contributed in unleashing upon the country ten years ago.

With David Boies, his opponent in Bush v. Gore, Olson made cogent, logical, unassailable arguments in favor of gay marriage. Those who still hold on to their illogical, slippery-slope-based arguments against allowing same-sex couple to marry, AFTER watching the conversation Olson and Boies had with Bill Moyers, are either irrational or dishonest (or both).

No rational human being can continue to defend this hateful form of discrimination using arguments that have been debunked and shown devoid of any basis over and over again, like those that Olson and Boies have countered in their impassioned and rational defense of the right of same-sex couple to marry in Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

Denying same-sex couples "the right to be as miserable as everybody else" (as comedian Bill Maher would put it) is as despicable as denying people of different race or ethnicity the right to marry, which always comes down to trying to shove one' sense of religion-driven moral delusion down society's throat.

You can watch the whole discussion here.

NBC Olympics Coverage Sucks, Once Again

I could go on and on and on to explain why NBC Olympics Coverage sucks. I won't. Suffice it to say that when I was a kid, in Italy, when the Olympics started I went "underground", only two resurface about two weeks later after watching hundreds of hours of live coverage of every conceivable contest.

Since I moved to the United States nearly 20 years ago, I have come to the conclusion that NBC is run by a bunch of morons who think that people will sit mesmerized by their "brilliant", tape-dalayed packaging of competitions that have ended hours before, making it nearly impossible for anyone who lives in the age of the Internet to watch a competition without knowing the results.

Not only that: they package races and matches in such a way that you can only know in which 5-6 hours span the competition you wish to watch will be shown, forcing you (only theoretically) to sit through 5-6 hours of unwatchable crap and commercials in order for you to enjoy the one race you were really interested about.

NBC = No brains corporation.

I just hope one day ABC/ESPN will snatch the broadcast rights from this incompetent, idiotic crowd.

A Last Ditch Effort

Below is a letter I wrote to President Obama in a last ditch effort to convince him and his administration to back th public option. Feel free to do with it what you wish.

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing because time is running out to put a stop to the immoral conduct (when it is not downright criminal) of health insurance companies that use the free market as an excuse to raise premiums unreasonably, to drop customers who threaten their bottom line, to let them die for profit's sake. You, Mr. President, may be the common man's last bastion against these profiteers.

That is why I am writing. To remind you of the hope you represent for the middle class, of the power you have to make good things happen. You speak beautifully, Mr. President, but you will be judged not for what you say in your beautiful speeches, but for the actions you took in support of the speeches you made.

I am also writing to ask that you fight for our freedom. Freedom, you see, is not just a slogan to use on the stump, or to rally the "troops" behind a common cause (as when your predecessor said that "terrorists hate us for our freerdom"). Freedom is a tangible asset, too. But for too many, when it comes to health care, it is as intangible or inconsequential a concept as there ever was. What does freedom mean, if your choice is limited to the least harmful, less overpriced product? (One that, to add insult to injury, will soon be mandated at the individual level) What freedom do you have when you are all but chained to your employer because you cannot afford to lose your health benefits? What is freedom when you must use what little money is left at the end of the month to pay outrageous medical bills or premiums that no other resident of any civilized nation could even begin to imagine?

And, Mr. President, what is the meaning of freedom when your only hope against an expensive chronic medical condition (not necessarily a catastrophic one, but one that consumes, day after day, both your financial resources and your will to fight) is that you will fall below the poverty line, so you can receive public assistance if it is not too late?

I know that your plan addresses some of these issues, albeit too timidly. But it is not enough. What I hope, Mr. President, is that you will fill freedom with meaning, by backing the public option at last. It is, after all, only an option. Not a mandate or a socialist takeover of health care, but a choice, for those who want it. Freedom without options is just a word. Please make freedom tangible for Americans of all political convictions and walks of life.

Respectfully,

When Your Local Government Is Out To Screw You

I hate traffic light cameras. Where I live, I can think of a couple that I studiously avoid in order not to get caught in the lottery-like process that is crossing the intersection before the camera goes off. Turns out that many municipalities are tweaking the lenght of the yellow light to trap as many motorists as possible into getting caught running a red. And, they are doing it at the expense of driver safety.

It always comes down to this: we get the government we deserve, even at the local level.

Boycott FedEx

Chris Hedges's recent article explains why you should join him (and me) in boycotting FedEx.

FedEx is just one of countless American (and global) companies that view labor as a necessary evil to be kept to a minimum and to be reduced to serfdom.

Reading the article sparks one unavoidable question: Could what happened to Dean Henderson have happened in any civilized country? The answer is no, because civilized countries have universal health care (for my less sophisticated readers universal does not equate government-run.)

Stephen Colbert Savages Sarah Palin, F***ing Retard

Watch this. It's okay if you pee your pants.

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Remembering Howard Zinn

Ralph Nader has ideas on how best to honor the memory of Howard Zinn, who passed away recently.

No Hell Hot Enough

There is no hell hot enough for health insurance companies like Anthem Blue Cross and the politicians that aid and abet them.

Things like these are a good reminder that Democrats (as a whole) are not much better than Republicans when it comes to fighting against moneyed interests on behalf of the people.

This is a sad, sad indictment of the commingling of business and politics and a good indication of the insanity of the electorate.

Splendid Ed Schultz Rant From Connecticut Free Clinic

First off, I'll say that I am not Ed Schultz's greatest fan. Often I consider his style unnecessarily abrasive, but his heart and mind seem to be fully behind health care reform. He has been an outspoken advocate of single-payer healthcare and/or the public option. Well, today Ed Schultz was in Hartford, where the National Association of Free Clinics was holding a one day-event to provide free visits, vaccinations, antibiotics and exams for over one thousand CT residents unable to afford or obtain health insurance.

Broadcasting from the Hartford Convention Center, Schultz went into an impromptu rant about the lack of compassion and decency that Congress and the President have shown to the people who suffer for the United States' unwillingness to treat all of its sons and daughters not equally but fairly in the face of health adversity. It is not often that you see someone so passionate and so compassionate use his mic and the cameras in front of him to shed light on the desperate plight of so many and on the national disgrace that many insist on calling the best health care in the world.

As a bonus, Ed Schultz called Sen. Lieberman a coward (for not standing up for the people of Connecticut and, presumably, for never accepting to defend on camera his indefensible obstructionism against the public option.) I will go one step further and call Sen. Lieberman what he is: an accessory to second-degree murder. He along with all those who stalled health care reform by threatening to filibuster any bill that contained the public option.

Watch.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A Possible Way Out Of Negative Equity

Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), suggests that many homeowners who are burdened by negative equity (owing more on their home than their homes are worth) is to walk away from their mortgages and rent instead.

According to Baker's analyses, not only would homeowners themselves benefit by such a move, but the economy at large would benefit as well.

Unfortunately, the present administration (and any administration that will follow) is much more interested in keeping struggling homeowners in chains to the banks than in helping reverse the economic downward spiral that has middle class and poor Americans in its grips, and will continue its destructive policies for a long time to come.

What the architects and the beneficiaries of the New World Order understand is that they benefit the most by creating a modern slave economy, and they are fully intent on prosecuting any policy that will accelerate this enslavement process.

Accurate Comparisons

Devilstower at the Daily Kos draws an interesting comparison between the present State of the Union with the State of the Union in another not so distant time.

A Fitting Tribute To A Great Man, Howard Zinn

On the pages of the New York Times, Bob Herbert eulogizes Howard Zinn, the man, and his legacy to the world. It is well worth a read, to remind us not only of what we have lost, but of how much we have gained through Zinn's presence and work.

Perhaps the best demonstration of Zinn's gigantic stature as a historian, activist and principled human being came via Dave Horowitz, who said the following of his intellectual superior on the increasingly distasteful NPR: "There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect," as well as "Zinn represents a fringe mentality which as unfortunately seduced millions of people at this point in time. So he did certainly alter the consciousness of millions of younger people for the worse."

The contempt that a dishonest and deceitful intellectual midget like Horowitz has for Zinn is proof that the latter has done things right on this earth.

A Slogan In A Suit

For the second time in a handful of days David Michael Green, professor of political science at Hofstra University, has written a rather vitriolic dissection of President Obama's performance.

I will quote the passage from Green's post that captures the essence of my sentiments with regard to the two-party system:

What the last thirty years make increasingly clear is that the Democrats have simply become a sort of halfway holiday from the worst excesses of the GOP, a kind of spring break from the serious business of wrecking a superpower.

As a way of getting the president's attention Green's post is probably a failure, but as a vehicle for venting the frustration of thousands of people who do not regret their vote for Obama only because the alternative was far worse it does the job well.

Must See TV

All three segments in tonight's episode of the Bill Moyers Journal are well worth watching.

Monica Youn and Zephyr Teachout, on the influence of corporate money on politics after the Supreme Court's ruling in Citezens United..
Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO on jobs, the relationship between labor and the White House, and the future role of unions.
Finally, a tribute to Howard Zinn, historian, activist and national treasure who passed earlier this week.

Bad Apple

What has no webcam, no multitasking ability, no HDMI, no Flash, no USB ports and costs $500 (without 3G)? Meet the iPad.

No, thanks. I'll stick my netbook, which costs half the money and already does what I need it to do.

The Passing Of A True Original

Howard Zinn, historian and activist, has died. The world is more than a little emptier today, but better for Zinn's legacy.

You can read about Zinn here, and watch Democracy Now's tribute here.

The State Of The Union Is... Gullible

Robert Koehler, editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer, is right on target when he says the the source of corporate power is the people's gullibility.

Glenn Greenwald's Perspective On Alito's Behavior At SOTU

A few minutes ago, I posted a link to UCLA Professor Adam Winkler's analysis of Justice Alito's reaction to President Obama's rebuke of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.

Then I came across this post by Glenn Greenwald, who offers a compelling perspective on what Alito's outburst means for the Supreme Court's (lack of) credibility in the eyes of reasonable people. It is well worth reading.

Air America Radio: The Latest Chapter In A History of Squandered Opportunities

Read this very important article by Danny Goldberg on the demise of Air America Radio.

Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi Dissect Democrats' Stupidity

No introduction or comment necessary. It's all in the video below.

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UCLA Law Professor Addresses Justice Alito v President Obama

During last night State of the Union address, President Obama rebuked the Supreme Court's recent ruling on Citizens United v. FEC, provoking an unseemly, if contained, reaction by Justice Alito, who was caught muttering "That's not true."

Professor Winkler, who teaches at the UCLA School of Law and is an expert on constitutional law, sheds a little light on the incident.

Chris Matthews's Foot In Mouth Disease

Chris Matthews succumbed to his true self, once again, during MSNBC's analysis of the State of the Union address: "You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour." He must have realized immediately the idiocy of what he said because he blabbed on and on about the president and race, trying to undo the undoable. (See Think Progress.) Keith Olbermann laughed nervously, gallantly declining to draw attention to Matthews's statement, while Rachel Maddow lowered her head in pity.

I am not saying that Matthews is a racist, just that he is an idiot who plays a pundit on TV.

Stephen Colbert's Wit and Logic Stun Once More

And now that I have gotten your attention, I promise that I will post right here the video from his ruthless dismantling of the hypocrisy of the Roberts' Court ruling on Citizens United as soon as it becomes available, some time tomorrow morning.

Incidentally, I surrender. Stop reading The Daily Fuel and just use your time to watch AND study basically everything Stephen Colbert has ever said. He is a true genius. I can only hope that linking to his views will redeem me from all the silly, vain ideas I ever wrote here.

UPDATE:
And here is the gem I was talking about...

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I've Heard It (Almost) All Before

As written earlier, in the middle of the President's State of the Union Address, President Obama talks a great game (mostly).

The best moment for me was the President's rebuke of last week's Citizens United ruling, and watching Justice Alito mutter "that's not true" when the President--in so many words--accused the court of judicial overreach; activism, you might even call it.

The problem for me, and--I suspect--for most Americans, is that I have already heard it all before. It's not that during the campaign first and during his first year in office the President has not laid out his view of where America needs to go in the future. It's that with every utterance, with every repetition of these ideas, and in the face of Washington reality, the view is less and less compelling.

Some will say that President Obama is not really to blame (and polls seem to confirm this view) because the real problem is not the President but Congress. There is some truth to this view, and until we change the political system in this country, until we manage to oust or change these two parties that treat us like their fiefdom, and the corporatocracy that feeds them, nothing will change substantially. But the fact remains that the Oval Office is where the buck should stop. And deflecting the blame away from the President himself does not change the fact that there are many mistakes the President either made or facilitated, and many promises he has broken.

Ultimately, whether you liked tonight's State of The Union Address comes down to this:
If you believe that the way to rescue the economy was to pour money into failing and criminal banks instead of rewarding the good ones;
If you believe that picking guys like Geithner, Summers, and Rahm Emanuel, and that confirming Ben Bernanke as Chair of the Fed is the right thing to do;
If you still believe that the answer in reversing unemployment lies in a better educated workforce, in spite of the fact that the real problem is that the market economy and the principles of globalization that nobody in power criticizes require that jobs go to the CHEAPEST educated workforce (to be found in some other country);
If you believe that health care reform means finding a way to give insurance companies more business no matter the cost to America;
If all these things ring true to you, then probably you got your kicks from the President's speech.

Me? I've heard it all before. Great speeches impress me to a point. But nothing makes a stronger impression on me than reality and facts, and both have a way of deflating any enthusiasm I might feel for concepts well expressed and badly betrayed.

President Obama Talks A Great Game...

And?

The State Of The Union Is NOT Strong

"There is no doubt that Obama and his party represent the lesser evil, but it is deeply disturbing to have to defend the leaders of our nation in those terms."

That's Robert Scheer on Truthdig, making the same argument I made to my wife last night.

Oregon Voters Are Communists!

I am not even sure that Fix News will want to draw attention to this little tasty nugget of news, but Oregon voters just voted to increase taxes on the wealthy. Good for Oregonians!

Incidentally, the "tax hike" increases taxes on wealthy Oregonians (defined as single filers making over $125,000 a year and joint filers making over $250,000) by a rather measly 1.8% (2% for those making twice the given amounts). Never mind that the tax increase affects only the wealthiest 2% of Oregonians. That will be more than enough for assorted conservatives and teabaggers to scream of a socialistcommunist state, surely.

Again, good for Oregon and its brave citizens!

Krugman Blasts Obamanomics

"Appalling on every level" is how Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman describes the Obama administration's allegedly upcoming spending freeze.

And other notable economists and pundits are no kinder.

Is The Obama Administration About To Go "Full Retard"?

If alienating progressives, watching from the sidelines during the whole health care reform fiasco, bailing out the banks that failed instead of rewarding the ones that didn't while ignoring the plight of the new homeless, escalating the war in Afghanistan, keeping Guantanamo open and continuing many despicable (and counterproductive) policies of the Bush administration were not enough, it now seems that Obama and his advisers may have opted to go "full retard" (to quote the highly funny Tropic Thunder) by freezing discretionary spending for the next three years--in the middle of a recession. In other words, instead of taking the good lessons from FDR and building on them, he would seem to have chosen to follow the bad ones instead, presumably to see if they get him different results. This is at least what Jed Lewison and Eugene at the Daily Kos are guessing, and preparing themselves for.

I, on the other hand, am hoping--though without holding my breath--that the spending freeze will be achieved by cutting things like corporate welfare, abstinence only sex ed (isn't that an oxymoron?), aid to red states/counties whose governors/congressmen blast federal spending while taking advantage of it, etc.

We will find out as early as Wednesday during the State Of The Union address, I guess.

(And now, to cheer you up after such depressing possibilities, I am embedding the "Never go full retard" clip from Tropic Thunder.)

Roberto Saviano's NYT Op-Ed

Roberto Saviano is a corageous Italian reporter and author whose book, Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System, is an insightful and despairing look into the world of camorra, the mafia organization that has its grasp on the economy and the politics of Naples and surrounding areas.

The New York Times has published an op-ed that sheds much needed light on the condition of African immigrants in Italy. They are commonly seen and regarded as criminals by locals, Saviano says, when they should actually be seen as the exploited labor force they are. That is the often the plight of immigrants and minorities across the world, and it seems that their hosts are incapable of learning from history and from past mistakes.

Finally, Someone Said It

Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction. That is the title of Chris Hedges's latest column and it contains the following, accurate statement about the Supreme's Court shameful ruling in "Citizens United":

The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.

Much Needed Perspective On "Citizens United"

Mitchell Bard has an interesting post about the Supreme Court's ruling on "Citizens United v. FEC". Its main points:

a) It is absurd to compare the power of unions to the power of corporations: There is no comparison. Period.
b) Wanna talk about judicial activism? Then take a look at what the Roberts court has done in just a couple of years.

You can read Bard's post here.

Ed Brayton Misses The Point

I agree with (and often quote) Ed Brayton from Dispatches From The Culture Wars much of the time, but in this post I think he misses the point of the gravity of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Says Ed:

I know a lot of liberals are very upset by yesterday's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v FEC, but frankly I think it's much ado about little. The standard reaction seems to be: "Oh my god, corporations can now spend tons of money to influence the outcome of elections." But I've got news for you: They already do that. They always have. And the campaign finance laws did not prevent it.

And then he goes on to say this:

The fact is that the campaign finance law that the court struck down was never really intended to reduce corporate influence over elections in the first place. It was designed to give the illusion of reducing corporate influence over elections.

This, of course, is true. It's not that corporations did not already spend millions and millions of dollars to influence the result of elections.

The problem with Thursday's ruling is that it further reinforces the opinion that money is a natural means of securing free speech, and that corporations are entitled to the same free speech protections in the political arena as individuals do without being exposed to the same liabilities that are attached to physical persons. Corporations cannot be put to death, they cannot be imprisoned, they do not have post bail, and so forth. This creates a class of supercitizens that the Founding Fathers would not conceivably have endorsed. In fact, all evidence points to the contrary: Founding Fathers feared the rise of corporation against the interest of the nascent Union. How supposed originalists like Scalia and Thomas failed to see this is a testament not to their dedication to preserving the original intent of the Constitution but to the degree of their subservience to the particular interests they represent.

Ruth Marcus on "Citizens United"

Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post attacks the "shoddy scolarship" of this week's Supreme Court campaign financing decision.

One Angry Rant

David Michael Green's latest post is one long, angry rant against President Obama's first year as president. It's a bit much even for me, but some of the points Green makes are undisputable, for example this one about the president's enemies:

Start by not even realizing they are your enemies. Then, treat them with greater respect than your friends, even though they’ve run the country over a cliff. Defer to them at every opportunity. Consult with them even as they insult you to your face. Allow them to run Congress, even though they have small minorities in both houses. Never force them to vote against simple, popular legislation. Never call their bluffs. Never associate them with the destruction they’ve caused. Never label them the treasonous hypocritical liars that they are. Help them to resuscitate the comatose near-corpse of their political party, just before it’s about to die, so it can rise up and savage you.

The rest of Green's post is here.

Supreme Shame

Please read this excellent editorial from the New York Times on the poisonous rationale and the disastrous effects that yesterday's Citizens United v. FEC is certain to have on our already corrupt political process.

Changing Subject, Briefly

Here is a provoking article by Ingrid Newkirk, published by the Guardian, on animal rights and how to be pragmatic about them.

(For full disclosure I will admit that I am a bit selective about animal rights, which is why find this article so thought-provoking.)

Dude, Like... Who Is Marta Cokely?

I know it's Coakley and not Cokely, but that's because I am almost 45. If you were 18-29 last Tuesday in Massachusetts, chances are you did not know and couldn't care less if it was Coakley, Cokely or Chokely. In fact, less than 15% of voters ages 18-29 turned out to vote, and the Democrats lost a Senate seat they held for almost 60 years. That does not bode well for the mid-terms, and Democrats only have themselves to blame.

The Day Democracy Died (UPDATED)

In a stunning display of judicial activism, the kind that conservatives are prone to decrying, today's outrageous Supreme Court ruling sounded the death knell for democracy in the United States.

Corporations and unions (but corporations especially), with all their financial might, will be able to buy political favor in ways to date unprecedented. Their ability to influence the electoral process has been blown to unimaginable proportions by the Courts' corporate servants with today's ruling.

This is not a Republican vs. Democratic issue (though Republicans, in their role of defenders of corporate interests, are likely to benefit, at least initially): It's an American issue.

Events like these warrant a popular revolt, preferably a peaceful one, but a revolt indeed.

UPDATE 1
It is impossible to overstate the destructive import of the Roberts' Court decision. Some are already calling it the worst decision handed by the Supreme Court since Dred Scott, and that is a very high bar to pass. I will keep adding updates to the original post, below.

Here are two important opinions from Jason Linkins and Dahlia Litwick.

UPDATE 2
Senators Snowe (R-ME) and McCain (R-AZ) have expressed their disappointment with today's Supreme Court decision on unlimited corporate funding for political advertising

UPDATE 3
Greg Palast has a very troubling take on the Citizens United ruling.

UPDATE 4
In a somewhat rambling post on the Daily Kos, Potatohead nails the problem with today's SCOTUS Citizens United ruling:

Giving corporations this complete freedom of speech, "money as speech", without also constraining them as we the people are constrained by our needs and the natural world, does nothing more than grant any of us, who have sufficient wealth, [the right] to act above the law, doing harm without accountability, and stand above others, violating equality of law, and violating the social contract, checks and balances necessary for an equitable social justice.

That's what this ruling did. It says that really ugly people can invoke a corporation, do harm through it, profit from that, then place all accountability on the corporation, where our means for legal remedies are largely ineffective.

This is a mistake.

59 Votes (via Daily Kos)

Markos Moulitsas poses the following question at the Daily Kos: "what did 60 get us last year?"

Exactly.

My Bet? Democrats Are Going To Learn The Wrong Lesson

Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat vacated by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, has conceded to her Republican opponent, Scott Brown. With Coakley's defeat also goes the 60-vote majority that Democrats have held since the 2008 election. I bet that the lesson Democratic pundits, pollster and party leaders will come to the opposite conclusion of the one they should have reached: They will conclude that the Massachusetts election shows that Democrats must move to the center to keep their seats in 2010. The truth is the opposite.

In 2008, Democrats, starting with then candidate for the presidency, Sen. Obama, promised us change. Change we could believe in, no less. Since then, banks have filled their coffers with taxpayers money, they have decreased loans, and returned to the practice of awarding their management sick bonuses. Promised health care reform has been diluted to the point of irrelevance, but not without ensuring that the cost of health care will continue to rise, that Big PhRMA will continue to set prices as it pleases and that insurance companies will continue the practice of rescinding policies (thanks to the loopholes artfully inserted in the bill by insurance company servants in Congress.) The wars started by President Bush continue, Guantanamo remains opens and a new front in the "war on terror" is likely to ultimately open in Yemen, in spite of President Obama's denials (it's not like he has not broken promises he made in the past.) Lobbyists and their friends in Congress, including a number of Democrats, are fighting tooth and nail to declaw the regulatory agency that Elizabeth Warren is trying to establish in spite of special interests attacks.

And now, finally, after months and months of disappointments, one after another, the Coakley defeat, in a race for a Senate seat that Democrats have held since 1952--if memory does not fail me. Time for Democrats to understand that no votes can be taken for granted, that activism does not run on broken promises, that results--not dashed hopes--fuel the people's desire to give of their time, their energy, and their dwindling financial resources to a political cause.

In 2008 I helped many Democrats in many races. Since then I have written several letters to elected representatives and to the White House, begging them not to appease the worst elements in the Party (Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln, etc.) and to serve the best interest of the American people instead and forgo a supermajority vote on health care. The sixty vote requirement to pass legislation in the Senate is a creation that favors not bipartisanship but corruption and Democrats have been playing into the hands of their opponents by pursuing a sixty vote strategy to pass health care reforms. Seeing as my pleas went unheeded, I sat the Massachusetts election out, like many disillusioned others. No phone banks, no donations, nothing to help.

Now that the filibuster-proof majority is no more, I am just too curious to see if Democrats will get my message and if they will understand that they need to grow a pair instead of giving in to turncoats and DINOs like Baucus, Nelson and Lincoln. They need to show their true colors, and I fear they will.

Republicans Are Dangerous, Democrats Are Plain Ridiculous

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, or between the "throne" and the sewer. In any case, I share Jon Stewart disbelief and rage. How can you not?

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Thomas Sowell Gives Intellectuals A Bad Name

I never liked Thomas Sowell and I skewered his pedestrian attacks Obama and Democrats in a few posts on this blog.

I was therefore glad to see that Ed Brayton at Dispatches recognized the poor quality of Sowell's reasoning in a recent post. The problem is that because Sowell is recognized as an intellectual and an anti-conformist thinker (regardless of the fact that he is a poor example of both) he holds sway among the gullible and the uncritical members of his audience. Kudos to Ed for exposing the nonsense that Sowell spews.

Rudy Giuliani Is A Despicable Hack

Granted, he is not the only one. Despicable hacks abound among conservatives, particularly when it comes to recent history revisionism. Rudy Giuliani is perpahs the most conspicuously despicable because he made a career off of 9/11 revisionism.

Representatives from the media, however, are even more despicable when they fail to challenge even the most outrageous falsehoods and lies, like the one Rudy Giuliani told a complacent George Stephanopoulos of ABC. This one.

Jump Off The Sinking Ship

Or, as Roger Lowenstein puts it, Walk Away From Your Mortgage!

Local Hypocritical Idiots

Enter Mike Coffman, Republican congressman from Colorado, who broke his ankle on Christmas morning, received taxpayer sponsored health care to fix it, and then went on to rail against the "trillion dollar takeover of healthcare" concocted by a "radical liberal agenda that threatens our freedom".

Idiot, ass, and hypocrite. Shame on the Denverites who elected him.

John Oliver Looks Back On Better Times

The bad thing about The Daily Show is that it is on vacation more often than an Italian bank employee. The good thing is that when cast members come back to work, their batteries recharged, they never cease to skewer hypocrites with their wit.

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In the next segment, Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi join wits to destroy the idiocy of Brit Hume and his recommendation for Tiger Woods.

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I Say: Go For It!

A while back I wrote that Rahm Emanuel should be fired. It looks like that might not be necessary after all, if the WashPost is to be believed.

The guy wants to run for mayor of Chicago? I say go for it, and get out of the American people's way.

Terrorists Are Smarter Than The Politicians That Are Supposed To Stop Them

The Obama administration announced that all citizens from certain countries (14)trying to enter the United States will be frisked, patted down and will have their baggage searched. A chorus of "it was about time!" lifted from Capitol Hill and surrounding areas. Obviously those who cheered the administration's decision (including countless conservatives who scream for profiling) count on terrorist being too dumb to get a passport from a different country or fake ID once they get to the U.S.

And these are the people we count on to make us safe?

I am sitting on my couch, waiting for the first terrorist with a French or German passport who blows up an airliner or a building (sit on your couch long enough, and anything will happen). That's how long it's going to take to show how completely and easily duped some people are.

This (Among Other Things) I Can't Understand

Someone explain this to me:

• Republicans spent 18 months campaigning against then Senator Obama being "the most liberal member of the Senate", more liberal than Ted Kennedy. Remember?
  
• Then, campaign over, 53% of Americans vote for president Obama over John McCain.
  
• And then, when all is said and done, we are always reminded that we live in a predominantly conservative country.

[Bullshit alert blares]

Either the American people are smarter than the political strategists that tried to dupe them, and they realized that President Obama was never the raving liberal that Republican strategists made him out to be, or they are not, and therefore we can infer that they are perfectly fine with electing "the most liberal member of the Senate"; ergo, this cannot be a predominantly conservative country.

You can choose, but you can't have it both ways, can you?

The Lost Decade

If you think you are worse off today than when the year 2000 started, well... yeah, you probably are! And 2009 may stand out as the worst year in a pretty shitty decade for the common man.