Month: October 2009

He’s Black, She’s White

Anyone that has read my stuff knows that I live in the cultural wasteland known as the “Deep South”….and in the past I have said they need to erect a sign at the statelines that read “Welcome to the Deep South, set your clocks back a 150 years”.

Yes, it is the 21st century but that makes little difference to the people in the Deep South…the area that voted against a black man in an election…..Wylie Coyote could have won the state…but they are not racists!  Just ask them…they have a pretty good way of telling you that they are not a racist….but if you listen closely to their rants…they are racists….

CNN had a story that seemsd out of place in today’s world…but then it is the South….

Civil rights advocates in eastern Louisiana are calling for a justice of the peace of Tangipahoa Parish to resign after he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple.

The demands for Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace for Tangipahoa Parish’s 8th Ward, to step down came after he wouldn’t issue a marriage license to Beth Humphrey, 30, and her boyfriend, Terence McKay, 32, both of Hammond.

However, Bardwell told Hammond’s Daily Star newspaper that he was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship and that, in his experience, most interracial marriages don’t last.

“I’m not a racist,” Bardwell told the newspaper. “I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.”

Bardwell, stressing that he couldn’t personally endorse the marriage, said his wife referred the couple to another justice of the peace.

The bride says the case boils down to discrimination.

Humphrey told CNN that she called Bardwell on October 6 to ask about getting a marriage license, and was asked by his wife whether it would be an interracial marriage. Humphrey said she was told that Bardwell does not sign off on interracial marriages.

His concern is for the children of mixed marriages….I have heard this argument many times down here in the Deep South….like what culture would they raise they children…it is a cop out…raise them as an Americans….pretty simple, huh?

But the BS about  concern for the children reaches all the way back to the beginning of the country…Jefferson, who I have heard cursed the act of slavery but his only attack on the institution was to say:

There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the existence of slavery among us.  The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous, the most unremitting despotism on the one part. degrading submission on the other.  Our children see this, and learn to imitate…….”

Jefferson’s only concern was what effect the institution of slavery would have on children and yet historians would have us believe that he wrote the “slavery clause” that was later deleted from the DoI.  The defense will be, “things were different in those days”….a racist is a racist no matter what day it is…..

The justice used a tired old cliche to prove that he is not a racist…..”I have lots of black friends, they even use my bathroom and have eaten dinner with them”…..I paraphrase, but you get my drift…this is they type of thing every racist in the South will use in some form or another to prove that they are a racist.

You see things have not changed much in the Deep South in 50 years…some are just better at hiding their true self from the media….and then there are the ones like this justice….as obvious as hell!

Sen. Kerry Is Vindicated!

Remember back in the day, during the early days of our wars of the Bush admin when Kerry said if you do not go to school then they only hope for a job was to enlist in the army?  Remember?

Let us see, there is NO money for student loans, Obama is trying and may succeed, but there is NO money for those loans……there are NO jobs to speak of…the economy, especially the job market just plain sucks….what is a person to do?

The WaPo is reporting that the military is doing well with the economic downturn:

For the first time in more than 35 years, the U.S. military has met all of its annual recruiting goals, as hundreds of thousands of young people have enlisted despite the near-certainty that they will go to war.

The Pentagon, which made the announcement Tuesday, said the economic downturn and rising joblessness, as well as bonuses and other factors, had led more qualified youths to enlist.

The quality of recruits also improved, with about 95 percent reporting that they had received high school diplomas; last year, 83 percent of the Army’s active-duty recruits had diplomas, short of the goal of 90 percent. The active-duty Army this year admitted only 1.5 percent of recruits who scored in the lowest acceptable category on the standard qualification test; in recent years, that figure had reached nearly 4 percent.

Sen. Kerry while not high on my list as liberals, but he was telling the truth about the military and the Right tried to crucify him for the comment….made him look like a person who hates America….yada yada….you know the usual fear crap that the Right has become famous for in the past.

So many pundits are taunting this as something good….but it was predictable….no job…no school….lousy economy….join the Army…

Cheneys Go A Hunting

Nope not in Texas with some of their friends at one of those fenced in cages where the animals have little chance….but rather after the President……first Daddy Cheney would fire a shot or two at the prez…most times he missed the mark and then it came time for daughter Liz to step up and take out the bazooka for the prey, in this case the prez.  She has been all over the tube from FOX to MSNBC to CBS…predicting the demise of American security if the prez is not stopped from the path he is on……

Daughter Liz has formed an organization called “Keep America Safe”…shades of the old days when The Bush guys used fear daily to get their way in Congress and the arena of public opinion.

CNN has reported on her new group:

The new group, Keep America Safe, says its aim is to provide a cogent and organized rebuttal to a series of recent moves that expressly divert from the more muscular policies of the Bush administration. The group plans to tackle hot-button issues like the way forward in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending, CIA interrogation techniques, and the planned closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

“We have watched with concern and dismay as the Obama administration has cut defense spending, wavered on the war in Afghanistan, and launched investigations into Americans serving on the front lines of the war on terror, while at the same time expanding legal protections for the terrorists that plot to attack this country,” Cheney, along with the group’s two other founders, wrote on its Web site. “These policies, along with President Obama’s abandonment of America’s allies and attempts to appease our adversaries are weakening the nation.”

She can claim a small amount of knowledge on the foreign affairs stage for she worked in the State Department during her father’s days as VP…but a closer look at her time at State….we invaded a country for no good reason…..we came closer to attacking another country….deals with Russia were none existent…..Syria moved into the Hezbollah camp…..there was NO attempt to mediate the Middle East at all…and the standing of the US in the world became disastrous…..

I do not see where she would offer any sort of opposition to Obama’s policies, other than condemnation….I have yet to hear any alternatives coming from her or her father…..all they are doing is trying to cover their butts…for if Obama succeeds in his policies then they will be looked on unfavorable by history….

As with ALL neo-cons this is opposition to the man not his policies…..call it what you may…..but one word always surfaces…..I was going to ask what she was thinking but I am pretty sure that she is trying to pad her resume for her venture into the political arena…the more she pops her mouth the more face time she gets with media pundits and the more face time she gets the more she appears to be knowledgeable…it is all a political game….

Reach Out And Fall On Your Face

The GOP is trying desperately to rebrand itself…..(pause for laughter)……the RNC has launched a new website…..and it is amazing to say the least….I guess they are fed up with the label “the party of no”……go to http://www.gop.com and enjoy….

They are trying to reach out to the public for support….the site has heroes, Repub, from the past…a little history lesson….was a bit misleading when they offered they use an African-American who had stated many many times that he was NOT with any party…he did however support Nelson Rockefeller because they were friends…I guess in a stretch you could see that as a Repub hero…

They show Hispanics and African-American and women etc and say that YOU are our next leader…but sadly missing was the “REAL” GOP…old white guys…McCain, Romney, Huckabee or Pawlenty…I am sure that theywill correct this oversight as it is brought to their attention….but for now they appear to want only Hispanics, Blacks and women…..gee, how ill that play out?

The site falls well short of any inspirational message…..now that they have fallen on their face maybe they will go back to the drawing board and try again….this one is nothing but a trolling exercise for new wingnuts…

What Are They Cheering About?

Sen Snowe moved, by her vote, the finance committee bill onto the next level of negotiations…..what are you fools cheering about?

Snowe’s vote did NOTHING to further the health bill reform other than moving it out of committee….what part of that is something to cheer?  It has NOTHING in it that would cover the uninsured other than some pale BS about competition, but the bill does not even do that….the bill is just exactly what the insurance companies wanted.  They retain their massive profits and in turn will have access toi millions more customers.  In simpler words, it is NOT reform at all, but rather something I said months ago…a TWEAK!

Snowe’s arguments summarized a growing consensus among Democrats on Capitol Hill – and Republicans no longer in office – that a flawed bill that starts to overhaul the system is better than no bill at all.

Her vote gives political cover to moderate Democrats, puts Republicans on the defensive and gives Senate leaders the latitude to find 60 votes to overcome a GOP filibuster, rather than force health care legislation through the Senate with a special partisan procedure.

If you are one of those, like many citizens and many doctors that wanted a public option to be part of any reform, then you have NOTHING to cheer.

The Senate Finance Committee bill

Who’s covered: An estimated 94 percent of Americans. Illegal immigrants would not receive benefits.

Cost: $829 billion over 10 years.

How it’s paid for: Fees on insurance companies, drugmakers, medical device manufacturers. Additional tax levied on insurance companies. Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. A fee on employers whose workers receive government subsidies to help them pay premiums.

Individual mandate: Everyone must get coverage through an employer or on their own. Exemptions for economic hardship. The bill requires individuals and families to buy coverage if it costs no more than 8 percent of their income.

Employer mandate: Not required to offer coverage, but companies with more than 50 full-time workers would pay a fee if the government subsidizes employees’ coverage.

Insurance restrictions: No denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions. No higher premiums allowed for pre-existing conditions or gender. Limits on higher premiums based on age and family size. Limits on allowable co-pays and deductibles.

Changes to Medicaid: Income eligibility levels standardized to 133 percent of poverty ($30,000 a year for a family of four) for all parents, children and pregnant women. Childless adults making up to 133 percent of poverty ($14,400 for an individual) would be eligible for the first time. The expansion would be delayed until 2014.

This is not something to cheer…this was just a political move to give cover to those Blue Dogs that want to be part of the conversation….
There is a distinct odor of compromise….TWEAKING not reforming…just what the insurance companies were hoping for…that is why they spend millions putting congress people in their pockets.
And then there was the threat of premium increases, the newest threat from the insurance companies….but think about that……if they get their way with the reforms they will have a free reign to do that anyway…..so that was BS from the word GO.  BTW, they have already said that the increases next year would be sizable.

The Good News Is…………….

A lot of economists say that the recession is over……but few actually live on Main Street or even care what is happening to normal Americans.  I see NO end to the recession, the economic crisis, anywhere…jobs are lost, homes seized and investors making all the gains…..

CNN Money reported:

More than 80% of top economists believe that the recession that started almost two years ago is finally over. But most don’t expect meaningful improvement in jobs, credit or housing for months to come.That’s according to a survey released Monday by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). The group asked 43 top economists last month if they believe the battered U.S. economy has pulled out of the worst U.S. downturn since World War II. Those surveyed include economists from leading Wall Street firms and major corporations, as well as from highly respected universities and research firms.

Economists in the survey forecast that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3% in the three months that ended in September, though the official reading of gross domestic product won’t be out for weeks.

And all of the economists surveyed expect the recovery to be slow and painful, leaving many people and businesses feeling the effects of the downturn for years to come.

There you have it….the RECOVERY will be long and painful….that means Main Street will continue to take it in the ass until Wall Street decides that they have been fucked enough.

That means that the American worker will continue to lose their jobs and their homes and their health insurance…all the time investors will be rolling in the dough…..the only pain that the thieves on Wall Street will feel is that of any minor regulation the government may put on them….as with the recession and the economic crisis, they lose very little.

The people need to wake up and smell the pile of manure in front of them…..they WILL NEVER get a fair shake from the government…no matter which liar is elected and bought….

A Pale Reflection Of Intent

The vote is in!  The Baucus bill will get to the Senate floor for more debate….one Repub came along for the ride…..

I thought the intent of any health bill was to get the uninsured health care, to hold down consumers cost and to make the industry more responsive to the consumers needs….apparently I was mistaken because I see very little of that in the bills….

46 million Americans are uninsured!  Remember that war chant from the Left?  Alright, we can argue the actual number, but let us say that tens of millions of Americans are uninsured.  But with that said, how are we doing on correcting that situation?  We STINK!

If you have read the bills from the Congress then we will noticed that not one of them addresses ALL the uninsured.  Whatever comes out of the conferences and meeting and negotiation…nothing will cover ALL uninsured Americans.  That is right!  No matter what is done or what is agreed upon there will still be million, if not tens of million Americans that will still suffer from being uninsured.

Also all the bills now will just help keep high insurance costs and drug pay outs…..in other words, these so-called plans will be a godsend to them as far as their profits go.  Why?  We will be adding many more to the rolls of the insured and without thumb screws the health industry will continue the practices that are making them the most profitable industry.

The newest piece of….thinking……crap is the “opt out” proposal.  It is an attempt to find a comprise that will sound like a public option while protecting insurance companies and increasing their profit base……it is a worthless compromise to gain that elusive super majority of 60 votes…..it does little for those uninsured people that all say they want to help…….so far very few have actually done anything to help ALL Americans.

Unfortunately, universal health care was dead before it was born…..that would have solved almost all problems….but it was NEVER given a birth date.  The president will be happy, at this point, to have any bill that he can sign….the public option is a good beginning, but too many Americans will die without a universal coverage.

It will be fascinating to see just what abortion the Congress will give to the president and also to see how he reacts and then signs.

Too Big To Fail

Now there is a quaint little saying that burst on the scene with the banks goiung south because of their disastrous practices  It has been thrown around the media circuit like a cheap hooker on crack….but what does that really mean?

First of all, wiki defines it as this:

a phrase referring to the idea that in economic regulation, the largest and most interconnected businesses are so large that a government cannot allow them to fail because said failure would have a disastrous effect on the economy.This means that it might encourage recklessness since the government would intervene (e.g. by bailing out the company) in the event it was about to go out of business.[1] The phrase has also been more broadly applied to refer to a government’s policy to bail out any corporation. It raises the issue of moral hazard in business operations.

You know the names AIG, Goldman-Sachs, Wells Fargo, and the list goes on….but if they are that big, what can be done to stop this situation?

The newest Nobel winner for economics has said in Bloomberg:

There’s no easy way to deal with the question of institutions whose failure might pose a threat to the financial system, said Oliver Williamson, co-winner of this year’s Nobel Economics Prize.“There is no silver bullet,” Williamson, 77, said at a news conference yesterday at the University of California at Berkeley, where he is professor emeritus. “There is no instant answer that I or any of my students or any of my colleagues would be prepared to advance on that.”

Williamson is a founder of organizational economics — the study of how institutions are created and developed and how they affect growth. In research that may have applications to the financial crisis, he suggested that it is better to regulate large companies than to try to break them up or limit their size.

Before I go on, let me say about that statement— all the right wing pundits are all over Obama for not accomplishing anything to deserve the Nobel…..and now I ask….I would think the a Nobel economists would have a better answer than that….but what do I know?

If one believes in capitalism, and if one believes in the “free markets” then too big to fail is just absurd….if they make disastrous decision and commit disastrous acts, then they should succeed or fail on their own merits….government interevention or bailout only allows these companies to continue to make bad decisions and practices which in turn will allow all this misery to come again and again…..

Where Have The Moderates Gone?

As I wrote the title I could hear the 60’s folk song playing in my head……I digress…..there has been a lot of talk about moderate Repubs and their ultra right brethren….but who are the moderates in the GOP?  (I will give you a time for thought)…..

Sorry…I can wait much longer…..Sen. Collins and Snowe…that is the story, but I doubt that they are that moderate….more like independent thinkers within the GOP….the Senate lost a great liberal Repub when Hagel bowed out….in the House about the only one I can think of right now is Mary Bono of California….there maybe some others but I am not aware of them…..

Okay, I know you are wondering why I am bringing up RINOs at this time?…..and a damn fine question it is……you do realize that taxes are the revenue of the government, right?  We cannot keep cutting taxes and think that revenue for programs will go up……

Since the days of yore and Reagan the term taxes has been a major no-no…for the GOP lives and dies on tax cuts, but even conservatives, not the extremists in conservative clothing,  see the need for the need of taxes at some point when handling the economy.  Unfortunately, it was the moderates or liberal repubs that actually saw the need at times.  But their voice of reason is usually drowned out by the clap trap from the far right, which is now the GOP.

Take health care …..please….in a piece written by Matt Miller for Fortune magazine:

suppose I told you there was a way to square this circle, courtesy of a $500 billion health-related tax hike that could save the economy? And suppose I added that conservative economists would actually be okay with the idea? Too good to be true, you say? Well, welcome to what I call the “opening of the capitalist mind.”

Start with the fact that business now spends a stunning $500 billion a year, or 4 percent of GDP, on health-care benefits. Let’s say we shifted that cost to government – that’s right, relieved business of it entirely – and, to make matters simple, combined it with other public funds to give citizens a voucher with which they could buy a private health plan.

To pay for this without boosting the deficit, we’d raise taxes by an identical amount – not on business, of course, but on taxpayers broadly, via various gas or carbon taxes that would have the salutary side effect of helping cure our energy and environmental woes.

And to seal the deal for skeptical capitalists, conservative economists declare that this brand of tax hike should have no impact on growth. “In one scenario we call health expenditures government, and in another we don’t. What does it matter?” says Kevin Hassett, head of economics at the American Enterprise Institute and an advisor to John McCain. “It’s hard to imagine that would have the negative growth effects” normally ascribed to tax increases in the economics literature.

If conservative economists do have objections to this health shift, Hassett explains, they will be based on ideological notions of what government should be doing, not on whether swapping a giant current business expense for a tax devoted to the same purpose has any economic consequence. When the dust cleared, though, taxes and spending as a share of GDP would officially rise in the U.S. by four or five percentage points.

The moral of the story? We have reached a moment in the history of American capitalism where business’s traditional Me-Tarzan-you- Jane-taxes-bad mindset is one of the biggest obstacles to pragmatically rethinking our health-care and pension systems.

And make no mistake: If business doesn’t help Washington fix these essentials before long, rising worker anxiety will produce a protectionist backlash that could wreck everything capitalists believe in. Instead of reflexively resisting the idea of government and taxes, therefore, business leaders must now do some constructive, nonideological thinking if they want to serve corporate America’s self-interest – and the country’s. As I said, welcome to the opening of the capitalist mind.

All in all, the article has a few good points and I think they are worth a look…

Now back to the original question…..where have the moderates gone?  The moderates in the GOP had good ideas and were a necessity to the two party system…but they were replaced with name calling, lying and ruthless individuals that wanted not what was best for the country, but rather what was best for them and their addiction to power.

The good thing about the way Repubs are acting now is that the moderates of the party will wake up and take back the Grand Old Party from the worthless ilk that now control it.  Well, I can only hope…….

My Last Temptation?

I have forced myself to think about other stuff other than health care….but just when I was winding down……they drag me back in…tempting me…….

Honestly….I tried to stop posting and ranting about the health debate….but no matter how hard I try to turn my attention elsewhere…the idiots talk and I listen and then I go off the wall ……again……sorry….I cannot break the addiction…..I try….I really try……I am a sick puppy.

The Senate Finance Committee is winding down their circus known as the “mark-up” process and soon (we can only pray) something will be sent to the House and the whole magilla starts all over again.  Before my head explodes I need to point out a few things contained within the Baucus Bill.

We have all seen the drama coming from the Senate…..the defeat of 2 separate public option tries…..the death panels….the abortion stuff….the…..you get the idea……

First there is the penalty thing:

Under the senator’s plan — known as “America’s Healthy Future Act” — individuals who fail to pay the $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance could be charged with a misdemeanor and face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 fine.

Think about that for a moment…..(pause of thought)…….the IRS would be tasked with enforcing this if it is accepted…..think about that….it would be a Federal crime and if you were sent to prison it would be in a Fed pen…..got that?…..while in prison you would be eligible for free health care…..think about that….would not that be the government paying for your health care?…….think!……… Is that not what a single payer would be doing?

And there are the taxes that could go along with the Baucus bill.

Among the biggest last-minute changes was a vote to limit the impact of a new 40 percent excise tax on so-called Cadillac insurance plans sold to retirees and workers in risky professions such as mining. The levy would generate about $200 billion in revenue to help fund the broader health reforms.

The legislation initially would have subjected most insurance plans to the tax when they provide benefits in excess of $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. The amendment adopted today would raise those thresholds to $9,850 and $26,000 for retirees and workers in high-risk jobs.

Oh wait!  There is more, there is always more……..a new twist in the public option option.

Cantwell’s amendment directs states to create a “basic health plan” for families who currently have a hard time finding coverage: those who aren’t eligible for Medicaid, but who still struggle to afford insurance.

The measure would apply to people who make up to twice the federal poverty level — about $44,000 for a family of four.

The parameters of this proposed “basic health plan” are defined by the state government but the coverage is administered by private insurers. The plan is modeled after Washington’s twenty-year old Basic Health Plan:

In essence, what Washington state does is define a basic health plan–it sets the deductible, out of pocket limit, co-pays, drug cost sharing, and defines exactly what must be covered. Private insurers bid to be able to offer basically this exact same plan. A few private insurers are qualified; there are small differences in the basic health plan depending on the insurer the individual selects. Premiums are subsidized by the state to make the plans affordable.

Wait!….I hate to crap on the party but……..the thing that the Senator is proposing as a “public option”………is not that the job of the state’s insurance commissioner?  Point is….I think that is being done now….if not it should be…..

Senator Cantwell has said that she supports the public option……if so then what was this she offered up?  Is it truly a boon to the consumer or is it just a way to help preserve private profit?  To me it sounds more like a co-op (A Conrad proposal) than a true public option…in other words it helps the Insurance companies more than the people.

There you have the temptations that were offered up to me….that I had to comment on or my head would have imploded…..(some might even applaud the prospect of my head imploding).