A few weeks ago, several individuals in the office where I work were all over the health care reform initiative as Socialist. They whined and complained ad nauseum about Obama, redistribution of wealth from their pocket to those not fortunate enough to have insurance, and on and on and on.

But then the light went on. And it wasn’t pretty.

My employer distributed the new insurance benefits packages for next year, and you would have thought

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Okay.

There’s been a lot of barking over the past couple of days from the left about the President, and most of it seems to boil down to his not being able to instantaneously convert America from what it has been for the past eight years into what he promised it would be.

He hasn’t reversed Bush’s secrecy policies. The country still isn’t 100% gay friendly. He hasn’t done this. He hasn’t done that. Blah-blah-blah.

Enough.

America is a one-hour society. If something can’t be resolved in an hour, people start tearing their hair out and shrieking that it’s taking too long.

So, here’s the deal:

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…if it ain’t got that swing, as Duke Ellington once put it.

And so it is when it comes to tonight’s gubernatorial elections. As the graph below from Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight shows…

…the Gubernatorial vote is not only a lousy indicator of where the electorate is as related to a future Presidential vote, it is no indicator at all (that’s what the flat red line means).

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Okay. I have to ask:

Why are all those folks who were screaming for the U.S. to get involved in the recent Iranian election aftermath sitting on their hands while Hamid Karzai walks away with an equally corrupt and fraudulent election in Afghanistan? Folks like John McCain and others who were quick out of the box to criticize the President for not doing more in Iran, but who are sitting on their hands while Hamid Karzai steals everything but the kitchen sink.

This is the kind of thing that drives people in the other countries of the world absolutely crazy when the United States starts wrapping itself in the flag and spouting all that talk about freedom and democracy.

On the one hand, Read more »

Through his bid to become an NFL team owner, Rush Limbaugh was seriously schooled by the NFL in the law of unintended consequences. The lesson plan for this particular class breaks down into three parts, as follows:

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The next time someone tells you they’re against gay marriage, don’t ask: “Why?”

Ask: “How?”

As in: Read more »

One of the dim bulbs on CNN said the mission cost $78 million. If NASA (a.k.a. the U.S. Government) would care to put $78 million in a bag and drop it in my back yard to see if there’s water there, I’d be glad to give them the coordinates.

I have an idea for the future of NASA: Dismantle it, tear down all the buildings, bulldoze the land, and put up a casino with a space exploration theme where people pay to play games like Planetary Slots (3 Earths pay out the grand prize), Lunar Lander Craps, Mars Mission Roulette and much, much more. It would be profitable for the government, stop the spread of the virus known as the human race, and contribute to the greening of space by reducing the amount of space junk.

If you really want to waste your time, here’s a place where you can read about the whole boondoggle.

Forget him.

Period.

He may be dead. He may not. Doesn’t matter.

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Two guys are standing in a parking lot. One says to the other:

"Here’s a car. It’s pretty state of the art as long as you stay on the highway. No off-road stuff, though. And here’s a credit card. It’s one of those rechargeable types where you call and have more money put on it as you need it. Now, get in the car and drive."

"Where am I going?"

"We’ll tell you later. Now listen. Any time you need to buy gas, need supplies, or need to have the car fixed, you have to use the credit card. Okay? No cash. No personal credit cards. Just this one."

"Do I need to get a receipt for what I buy with the card?"

"No. Don’t worry about it."

"What happens if I run low on money on the card?"

"You call me. I’ll convene a committee and we’ll decide how much more to put on the card."

"That could take a while. What do I do in the meantime?"

"Stay put until the committee decides how much more money to put on the card. And, by the way, you have to call in to the committee every so often to give them an update on your progress."

"Okay. But where am I going?"

"We’ll tell you later."

General David Petraeus, a fair General and a lousy politician, has said the United States will not repeat the mistakes of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Well, here’s a news flash for you, General: If we painted hammers and sickles on our tanks, a bystander would think the Soviet-Afghan war was still going on.

Don’t want to buy what I’m selling? Check this out, and this as well. 

I seem to be saying this a lot lately, but if the shoe fits…

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — George Santayana

In a recent article on The Huffington Post, Andy Myer asked “Why Is the Government the Health Care Bogeyman?”"

My comment was as follows:

“It ain’t rocket science, Andy my boy. The government is a fat, bloated, out-of-touch mass of bureaucratic pencil pushers who couldn’t decide on a plan to get themselves to the bathroom without spending a million dollars studying the route, another million developing the regulations to get them there, another million to publish those regulations, another million for people to enforce those regulations, another million for people to manage the people who enforce the regulations, another million to manage the people who manage the people who enforce the regulations, another million to study why people don’t follow the regulations because they can’t understand said regulations, another million to prosecute the people who don’t follow the regulations because they don’t understand said regulations, another million to rewrite the regulations to make them more understandable, rinse, spin, repeat.”

Sometimes, good fortune comes in the form of rejection. It may not seem so good at the time, but in the long run it proves to be just what the doctor ordered.

So it is with Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.

Although it was a feel good idea, and seemed like a good idea on the surface, there are a number of serious reasons why the United States in general, and Chicago in specific, had no real business contending for the Olympics in 2016:

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This time, that silly Sarah Palin is apparently somewhat quasi-troubled about the fact that the Defense Department only received a small portion of the stimulus package. She is, of course (and as usual) missing the point. So, boys and girls, let’s see if we can help Silly Sarah out. Read more »

There are many things I could say about Rep. Joe Wilson and his disgraceful outburst last night, but I think this says it intelligently, and says it all. Retired Colonel (Rep.) Wilson is a disgrace to his uniform and his rank. He not only owes a personal and sincere apology to the Commander-in-Chief. He owes an apology to every man and woman who has ever worn the uniform of the United States military. His behavior can only be classified as gross insubordination, and conduct unbecoming an officer.

It occurs to me that death panels have been hard at work in the U.S. health care system for quite some time. These panels tell you which procedures you can have and which one’s you can’t, in spite of what your doctor tells you. These panels tell you what your insurance company will pay for and what it won’t, in spite of what your doctor says you need. These panels will turn you away and watch you die.

These panels exist in

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Here is the full text of the President’s Back to School speech. It is an excellent speech, devoid of politics and definitely free of the indoctrination that so many of the prognosticating prestidigitators of the GOP and psychotically paranoid right were predicting.

I encourage you to take the time to read the speech. But, before you do, I want you to read the following quote from former President W. as a point of reference.

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." -Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

That fire you see burning outside your window is the American Dream. If you check various satellite photos, you can see it engulfs all of the United States. If you zoom in just a little bit, you can see Read more »

There are several serious problems plaguing the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. Problems that the United States has seen before in places like Viet Nam and Iraq. Problems that, if left unresolved, Read more »

Hey. AARP crowd. You’re being played.

Are you really stupid enough to believe that the government is going to fiddle with your end of life decisions? Are you dumb enough to believe that Senator Charles Grassley is anything except your run of the mill, truth twisting politician? Do you really believe he gives a rat’s backside about you or your problems?

Here’s the deal: There is a way you can lose in this health care debate. But, it’s not the way you think. Read more »

77% of Americans say "yes" to the choice of a public option. That’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for our so called "representatives" in Congress.

What say we put the Public Option on the 2010 ballot as a public referendum and take it out of the hands of the 5-year-olds who toddle the halls of the world’s largest daycare center (a.k.a. the U.S. Capitol building)?

By the way, my back-channel Wall Street sources indicate the U.S. Congress is the biggest consumer of diapers and pacifiers in the free world.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you favor a referendum on the public option and why, or why not.

Although I said I wasn’t going to say anything more about healthcare reform, there is a new development that compels me to resubmit this post for your consideration.

Here’s the deal: The polls were clear. They were sliced and diced, and the results were still the same: 72% of Americans wanted a Public Option.77% of Americans still support the choice of a Public Option!

Now, amidst a massive amount of throat clearing, hedging, and deer-in-the-headlights looks, We The People are being told that the Public Option is more or less dead. My congratulations to all you town hall screamers, GOP organizers, and health care and insurance company lobbyists. You have just managed to do the very thing the Constitution was designed to guard against.

You have taken over the United States of America. The revolution is over. You won.

Who would have thought that it would be a bloodless coup? Who would have considered that the people of the United States would go out not with a bang, but a whimper. Who would have thought that not one shot would be fired, not one body buried, not one building set ablaze?

You deserve kudos. You really do. Because, you understood more than anyone else that the U.S.Congress, and thus America, was for sale. You saw before the rest of us that the Statue of Liberty is not a symbol of freedom and democracy, but a street corner whore available to whoever has a buck to shove her way.

All you screamers and organizers and lobbyists deserve a lot for this, and I hope you get everything you deserve. As for me, you will not see another post here about health care reform.  Because, as I said: (Okay, I lied.)

The war is over.

Things like this make me wonder if the country is worth saving.

Just disgraceful.

There’s a dirty little secret to this health care reform debate. It’s something no one’s talking about. But, it’s out there just the same. Headed straight for a lot of us like an asteroid headed toward the planet.

Take a look at this chart put together by CalculatedRisk.

It shows how unemployment has tracked over time by education level.

See the red line? Read more »

What do you get when you cross a moron with an idiot?

A line was crossed yesterday. Crossed not by some flamboyant cowboy type, but by a plain looking guy in New Hampshire who decided to go to a town hall with a loaded gun strapped to his hip. A town hall where the President of the United States was scheduled to speak. The guy’s name is William Kostric.

Now, this isn’t going where you think it might go. In fact, this is going to an entirely different place.

It’s tempting to label all these people nut jobs, as many already have. But, of all the things you could do with these people, the last thing you want to do

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There’s a lot of yelling and screaming going on by the so-called tea-baggers and their supporters in the GOP and Congress about freedom of speech and Nazis. The problem with all of this is that the vast majority of these people don’t have the vaguest idea what they’re talking about. So, here’s the deal:

You have the right to free speech. You don’t have the right to be disruptive to the point that those who are in the room for a legitimate reason can’t hear or exercise their rights to free speech. Just as you can’t yell "fire" in a crowded theater, your right to free speech extends only so far as it does not interfere with my right to free speech and my right to hear someone else speak.

As for the Nazi thing that Mr. Beck and Ms. Bachmann and others are yelling at the tops of their collective lungs: They wouldn’t know an honest-to-God Nazi if one bit them in the ass. If this really were truly a Nazi thing, those protesters being bussed all over hell’s half-acre on behalf of the GOP would either have been gunned down on the streets or hauled off to concentration camps by now, never to be seen or heard from again.

Congresswoman Bachmann? Suddenly didn’t show up for work today. Mr. Beck? Oh, he was hauled off the set right in the middle of his show after being beaten silly on camera.

Townhall? Forget about it. This bill would be law by now. No debate, civil or otherwise. Want to protest the fact that no one asked your opinion or tried to explain the bill to you? Nothing was more effective for the Nazis than to blow a protester’s brains all over the sidewalk. Tended to change people’s priorities real quick.

Net/net: This ain’t even close to the Nazis, and I don’t think anybody really ought to be going there. It’s offensive. It’s ignorant. And it’s not even close to being reality.

After reading Bill Maher’s August 7 post on the Huffington Post, I decided to repost this article. I can’t tell if America is getting more ignorant, or if it was always that way and the internet and 24 hour cable has just brought it to light. Either way, it’s very disturbing. Read more »

Looks like Jesus saw these three coming 2000 years ago.

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Something very insidious and very clever has crept into the political landscape of America. It is the notion that the government can wage war on a concept, rather than on another government. Like the War on Drugs. Or the War on Climate Change. Or the War on Terror.

Terror is not something you can fight. Terror is, by definition,

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This article from the Huffington Post absolutely floored me. What the hell did anyone expect? Here’s a news flash for all you fat cats sitting on your asses inside the beltway arguing about the economy:

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I include this link from Crooks and Liars not because I think the video is noteworthy. I post this link because of the picture of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin.

When I first looked at the picture, that little kid’s song started to play in my head:

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Over at Donklephant, the question was asked as to why Glenn Beck hasn’t been fired by now.

As I say in my comment there, he hasn’t been fired because he is making money for his sponsors and the affiliates that carry him. Beck and Limbaugh and the rest of the talking heads, left and right, are media prostitutes. They will say whatever and do whatever to make sure their ratings stay up. Once the ratings fall, it’s all over.

The real question is:

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Okay, so I was happily deluding myself. At any rate, here’s how the game is played.

There is a slow but steady groundswell emerging to "do something" about Pat Buchanan and the other talking heads who sit on their electronic thrones and spout the bilge that is white supremacy, and it’s tempting to jump on the bandwagon and go along with all the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But, (and believe me, it pains me to write this), Pat Buchanan matters.

He matters because

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Think Progress is reporting that South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said in a July 17, 2009 interview with Gordon Liddy that he "aims to “break” the President by defeating health reform. He also said recently that he prefers to cause “pain” to his fellow legislators rather than working on reform".

After looking into things a bit, it appears that Senator DeMint may be more worried about causing himself some pain. According to OpenSecrets.org, he has received contributions from the Insurance, Health and Pharma groups to the tune of about

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As I mentioned in a comment on Centrist Pundits, the Senate vote on Sonia Sotomayor is a relatively harmless vote for Conservative Senators because:

1. The ideological balance on the Supreme Court still favors Conservatives 5 to 4.
2. For Conservative Senators who have large Hispanic voting blocks in their states, they lose nothing by voting for her.
3. For Conservative Senators who do not have large Hispanic voting blocks in their states, they lose nothing by voting against her.

It’s a Win/Win. My prediction: Judge Sotomayor will get between 75 and 80 votes in favor of her confirmation.

This Week’s Awards

1. Douchebag of the Week: Jon Gosselin. Look up train wreck in the dictionary, and Jon’s picture is right there.
2. Lewis Prothero Award: Glenn Beck
3. You Go Girl Award: Meghan McCain, for finally putting some clarity around the exact nature of Joe the Plumber.
4. MIA Award: The National Organization for Women, which seems to have gone on vacation while Sonia Sotomayor was being crucified by the Republicans. Where are those outraged calls of sexism now?
5. Beat A Dead Horse Award: CNN, for its continuing ad nauseum coverage of The Death of Michael Jackson.
6. Unrealistic Expecations Award: The LGBT. What exactly did you folks think Obama was going to do when he got in office? Raise his staff all Moses-like and make all of the politics around gay rights disappear? Listen, whether you want to hear it or not, it took 184 years for America to elect its one and only Catholic President, and 233 years to elect the one and only person of any race other than Caucasion to the Presidency. It also took 100 years from the time the Emancipation Proclamation was signed until the Civil Rights bill was signed, and there are still debates about voting rights. Here’s the deal: It may not take that long for LGBT rights, but it ain’t gonna happen tomorrow, either.

In the wake of the recent incident at the Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, I found myself wondering what good could come out of such a situation. The answer, of course, was “not much”. But, there was one thing: Read more »

That light you see at the end of the tunnel is a train. Moving full speed toward you. It doesn’t know you’re there, and it doesn’t care. It’s job is to keep moving. You didn’t set it in motion. You don’t even know where it’s coming from. But, Read more »

1. She has no experience competing head-to-head on the national stage with members of her own party.
2. Her penchant for quitting when the heat is on will come back to bite her.
3. She is inarticulate to the point that she sounds just plain stupid.
4. She is not quick on her feet, as evidenced by her disastrous interviews during the 2008 campaign.
5. She just isn’t very bright. Up until 2008, she has ridden her considerable political talent and charisma to get elected. But, that was Alaska. The playing field in the primaries will be broader and more level, and her lack of mental horsepower is going to stand out.
6. She tries to snow people with a kind of pretzel logic, and she’s lousy at it.
7. When things get dicey, she plays the victim. It makes her look duplicitous and manipulative.

With rumors starting to swirl about a new economic stimulus package, I would like to put forth an idea: HOW ABOUT DOING SOMETHING FOR ME!

Okay, now that I got that out of my system, here’s the deal: There are two categories of people with mortgages out there: Read more »

I started a piece on Sarah Palin, but AKMuckraker pretty much says it all. Thanks, AK.

I haven’t had a chance to digest the whole Sarah Palin resignation thing yet. My intial take after watching her entire statement is:

1. It sounded more like a campaign speech than a press statement.
2. One part of it was reminiscent of “you wont’ have Nixon to kick around anymore”.

At this point, there are only three thngs I can think of that might have caused her to do something like this: Read more »

Okay. Forget the affair. It’s a distraction along the midway on the way to the main tent. As I once heard someone from Europe put it: America has an eighth grade mentality when it comes to sex. So let’s face it, the affair isn’t the point.

Here you’ve got a guy who is responsible for the day-to-day workings of the State of South Carolina. A guy who was elected by the people of that State presumably because he seemed to have the leadership qualities and poise under pressure that is required of a Governor. So what happens? Read more »