Obama Care!

To follow the developments in the “debate” surrounding government efforts to secure health care for the masses, to say the very least, is infuriating and highly disappointing on numerous levels. The crux of the matter is that big moneyed interests continue to be the most powerful force in American politics & government, and this does not look to be changing at any point in the immediate future. Their collective abilities to rile up the idiots, namely people whose existence is dependant solely upon being able to complain about anything and everything, and get their media cohorts to aggrandize and propagandize, will likely put an unceremonious end to whatever slim chance there was in the first place of getting any truly meaningful legislation passed.

Conservative Democrats, as usual, are instrumental in fudging what would otherwise be a strong bill, but assholes like Kent “I can kill the public option if I want to” Conrad, Evan “I’m not a Republican, I swear” Bayh, Max “I receive tons of cash from medical insurers” Baucus, Ben “I’m a joke” Nelson and so forth insist & persist in being assholes.

This notion of bi-partisan support is a total misnomer, for it truly makes no difference whether or not the Democrats get Republicans signed on – the Democrats need to get the aforementioned ones to stop being “centrist” and start doing what they know or should know is the right thing to do. The New York Times has a piece today about the “debate” in Arkansas pertaining to “centrist” Democrat, Blanche Lincoln, and the rock/hard place situation she finds herself in; being from a state where McCain beat Obama by twenty percentage points. This is a bad combination of poor journalism and a fearful, un-savvy, short-sighted politician. The journalist should not be implying that simply because Arkansas is a red state it automatically has no desire for affordable health care and neither should Blanche “I’m running for re-election in 2010” Lincoln. The Times can at times provide invaluable investigative journalism and will often contain worthwhile commentary from its editorial board and columnists (save William Kristol.. Ross Douthat annoys me too and I've spoken my fair share about good old Brooksie), but it also has the tendency to throw out these pieces where the so-called man on the street is really just sort of a shill for whatever corporate interests and lines that must be towed by The Times Company. I really liked the idea that The Times become a non-profit, in fact – the government should really do the same and then we actually might see significant progress, not just in health care but everywhere, instead of this never-ending charade that the government and the press are actually doing the bidding of the American people.

This malarkey about the republicans possibly going for the plan including co-ops is ludicrous! The term co-op itself is enough to drive most members of that party into some kind of rabid frenzy that would likely invoke imagery of Satan, Hillary &/or Bill Clinton, Obama as Pol Pot or whichever totalitarian dictator is in vogue this week, etc. etc.

Brooksie & MoDo

3/3/2009
I love how David Brooks is so dead set on calling himself a moderate (all the while admitting that the moderate/’centrist tendency has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid’) and then denouncing Obama, his economic stimulus and general policies as being all but pinko-commie. He writes about the so-called ‘ideological outrages’ of diluting welfare reform, skilled immigrant inflow and school voucher reduction. He talks about a nation where we’re all in it together, which sounds outstanding, where burdens are shared broadly, rather than inflicted upon a small minority. This is truly brilliant, because he’s talking about the rich and then making them sound like real hard luck cases – “minorities”- like it wasn’t they who put us all in this ginormous global economic mess we’re all now in together. He doesn’t want to rebuild the nation on a foundation of debt, but what ‘alternative vision’ have you, Mr. Brooks? A foundation of gum drops and lollipops?

3/4/2009

Then we have Maureen Dowd (let's call her 'MoDo' shall we?), who seems to often fluctuate between amusingly sensible to mildly (or even wildly) insensible; berating all the President’s men (and some of the women) about the omnibus spending bill being overly stuffed with pork. As a principle, I am opposed to pork – but the pork in this bill is considerably less than wicked spending bills of congress’ past ($7.7 billion of $410 billion vs. $49 billion or so of…). It is unrealistic to presume that one can just shut off the spigot entirely on such long running practices as these – she argues that Obama is trying to end the Iraq war, but he is certainly not attempting to end it right here and now (which is what Maureen is railing for re: pork). What she likewise does not mention, that while some earmarks do seem somewhat wasteful on the surface, many of them will indeed either create or sustain jobs in congressional members’ home states/districts. It is strange that she likens John McCain to King Lear and then makes essentially the same arguments as he! In her attempt to cite Shakespeare, she comes out looking quite the fool herself.

Letter To the Editor

To the Editor:

Re “Obama Admires Bush” by David Brooks (column, May 16):

It is curious that David Brooks feels so threatened by Barack Obama and his so-called liberal foreign policy proposals that he would resort to name-calling: “He’s not just Jimmy Carter, he’s Noam Chomsky!” (I’ve heard he’s also a smelly-head). I find it curious that Mr. Brooks seems so very insecure about the prospect of returning to the way the United States once conducted diplomacy a long, long time ago; actually TALKING to your enemy! (What a concept!) I will go out on a limb and presume that ever since 9/11, we can no longer employ the old tactics, which I might add – actually worked.

So thanks to Mr. Brooks’ in depth analysis, what we can deduce is that Obama is a really liberal liberal who would rather talk to his enemies than drop a bomb on them, kind of like W.’s wimpy father, H.W. I think Obama should be impeached before he’s even elected president!

(I guess it is not at all coincidental that a certain President W. and his clone, John McCain, are making the exact same argument, which begs the question: is the tail wagging the dog or vice versa?)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Sun Also Rises…

One can obviously tell a great deal about the agenda of a publication by what headline a certain newspaper chooses to lead with and today is a terrific example of such an instance. Matters like these are usually of the more trivial variety, but we have all seen this stunt before – yet in the case of at least one newspaper, there seems to be hope that it has learned its lesson. I am speaking, as I usually do, of The New York Times, which unlike its fellow New York paper, The Sun, did not blow out of proportion the Hamas attack on a commercial center in the Israeli city of Ashkelon. There is mention of speculation that the rockets have “Iranian fingerprints on it” – but certainly not to the degree of The Sun, which leads with: “Iran Role ‘Clearly Visible’ in Attack”. This story is of import dually because Israel is celebrating its 60th Anniversary of statehood and because our good president is joining in the festivities; otherwise these kind of attacks are almost commonplace and certainly do not warrant front page coverage. The New York Sun, however, is known to have a more conservative bent and therefore is considerably more likely to help the administration beat those war drums, unfortunately much like The Times did in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. ‘But I thought The New York Times is the most lefty newspaper on God’s green earth!’ Perhaps compared to other corporate media, yes – but that is what made it all the more surprising (and for the Bush administration, effective). I am therefore hopeful this same horrific propagandistic agenda will not succeed a second time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/opinion/10mcconnell.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


Mike McConnell has an editorial in today’s New York Times, which I have not yet read – but I have little doubt it will be a doozy! The mere title, “Help Me Spy on Al Qaeda,” and the text highlighted: “Congress needs to pass a law that improves foreign surveillance,” is damn near laughable if this guy wasn’t actually serious. Shouldn’t you be writing this for the Wall Street Journal or even The Washington Post, Mike? The aforementioned latter text mentioned itself is ridiculous because congress already has passed a law that already has improved foreign surveillance by your own assessment, Mike! First sentence: “The Protect America Act [PAA, as in PAA-lease!!], enacted in August [namely because, a) congress was facing the threat of not being able to take their vacation & b) doctored intelligence was being circulated that there was an imminent attack on Capitol Hill that for some reason might be prevented if the PAA was ratified ASAP] has lived up to its name and objective…” Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. I am frankly rather dismayed that The Times even bothers publishing anything from anyone in this the administration that lost ALL of its credibility. I presume they extend the courtesy because they were, after all, the publication that broke the other big news story of last week that will in all likelihood play out over the tenure of this already scandal-ridden administration’s term. It does not seem like much of a stretch that said administration will attempt to usurp as many more powers as it possibly can in its extraordinarily weakened state. I believe I have said as much in the past, but it is important to keep in mind that a weakened opponent is potentially that much more dangerous, as there is increasingly less for them to lose.

Times.

The New York Times (subject of numerous past entries) continues to be something of a quandary, or contradiction – if you prefer.

Looking back over the past six or so years, The Times has published and exposed some of the most important stories regarding the absolute disregard by the Bush administration for the rules and laws held sacred by this nation for nearly 250 years. At the same time they joined the rest of the corporate media in ever so loudly banging the war drums to invade Iraq (on a separate note: apparently outgoing British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, knew ahead of the invasion that the United States had devised absolutely NO plans for after the execution of the now infamous ‘Shock & Awe’ campaign) and generally turn a blind eye on numerous other egregious constitutional offenses.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=17745

In any event, what I am now choosing to harp on (something I have harped on in the past, so forgive me for being a broken record) is The Times burying the lead story, as Air America’s Rachel Maddow calls it. Now I honestly feel badly for both houses of congress (the Democrats in particular), for they have more Bush admin-related scandals to investigate than bribes taken by Duke Cunningham! Nevertheless, we have an Associated Press article that states “E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee [RNC]…”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WHITE_HOUSE_E_MAILS?SITE=PASCR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

In classical Bush admin form, when previously asked how many White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts, the White House claimed there were only 50. Apparently they confused the question with how many records were being nefariously hidden.

I'm positive you have not heard the last from me, New York Times!

We Really Don’t Need The Times In These Times

Hey New York Times, perhaps you haven’t heard but some rather high-ranking members of congress are calling for the resignation of U.S.A.G. Alberto Gonzales. Well Specter only hints at it, really, as does Mr. [Clean] Biden, but our boy Schumer minces no words on the matter. Even if it is not deemed a front page story, although I certainly believe it to be, at least bury it somewhere in the National section – you know, where other such important issues and events have gone to die. I should mention that the incomparable Paul Krugman did write a characteristically blistering op-ed piece (page A23), but he makes no mention of these recent remarks; only alluding to impeachment at the article’s end. I realize that the Sunday morning talk shows do not tend to garner a great deal of attention from those other than the hardcore politico junkies, but when prominent senators from the judiciary committee start throwing the ‘I’ word around re: the Attorney General, that seems like news fit to print. The Times and its credibility has obviously been considerably hobbled since their Iraq War cheerleading, Judith Miller and Jayson Blair, but one would presume that after these egregious journalistic blunders the Sulzbergers would go the extra mile to help restore the formerly sterling image of this beacon of daily papers.