Sorry, but I just realized how laughable it would be to expect honesty from
our theoretical corporate overlords now that they can funnel cash into elections
without consumer judgment:
I wouldn't mind GOPers so much if they didn't consistently act like there was
a definite end to everything.
On a similar note,
Anne Laurie points out Krugman's take on our current "structural"
problems with unemployment:
There is no shortage of jobs that need doing in America, from repairing
our crumbling infrastructure to digitizing millions of pages of public records
to adding desperately needed hands in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes.
Many unemployed and underemployed Americans already have the necessary skills,
and many more are capable of acquiring those skills—if the people at the tip
of the economic pyramid were as interested in preserving our shared community as
they are in preserving every last scrap of their hoarded power and resources.
That's another example of a great, big effin' IF...
Especially when
a jackass of a sheriff's office abuses the state to this level according to
a report:
Excerpts of the reports, obtained by TPMMuckraker, show officials from
Arpaio's office made trips to Orlando, D.C., Honduras, Tempe, Belize, Alaska
and Puerto Rico on the county's dime and racked up other questionable
expenses, like $741 at Sardella's Pizza and Wings. The county was also charged
$350 for a hotel room upgrade for one official's spouse. One employee went on
multiple extradition trips without submitting receipts for the $62,750 he or
she spent -- including $1,341 on Disney World Yacht Club Resort food and
entertainment.
Others expenses charged to the county, according to the report, include
$1,684 for a portable generator for parade lights on an army tank; $635 at
Buca di Beppo when members of the Honduran National Police were in town; and
$500 on a carriage ride.
The Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget unveiled the first
evidence of misuse of public funds by Arpaio's office to the county Board of
Supervisors on Wednesday, which the Arizona Republic
reported were the result of hundreds of hours of staff research.
The punchline comes with the real number for Arizona's public to chew over:
A further review found that misspending dated back to at least 2006 at a
rate of $16 million per year and that retroactively, Apraio's office may have
misspent up to $80 million.
I've emphasized the number for effect, of course. I wonder how the
Arizona teahadists will react to a report like this? Do they wonder where
all of their tax dollars are going? I can only hope so.
So, does the big, tough, fascist jackass have any control over the office
that he was duly elected to lead, or will he come out and say that he had no
idea this was happening?
Or will his example be used by the teahadists as prime examples of government
waste?
Can't trust the government with our money, y'know...
Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in
America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable
than it actually is, according to a new study.
Or, as the study's authors put it: "All demographic groups -- even those
not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the
wealthy -- desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo."
That much should be even more obvious now (The study was conducted FIVE
years ago!) that the inequality has "ballooned" since then, but
the real punchline is later in the article:
The respondents were presented with unlabeled pie charts representing
the wealth distributions of the U.S., where the richest 20 percent controlled
about 84 percent of wealth, and Sweden, where the top 20 percent only
controlled 36 percent of wealth. Without knowing which country they were
picking, 92 percent of respondents said they'd rather live in a country with
Sweden's wealth distribution.
So you're probably one'a them EUROPEEN soshulists if you're reading this...
...and so are more than 9 out of the first 10 people you run into today!
If you happened to catch
Keith Olbermann's
Special
Report on "small
business" last night, you know that small business is more often
than not actually a small business, but a tax-lawyer special effect to shield
corporate profits from the actual fair taxes some corporate behemoths should be
paying.
In an extraordinary coincidence of timing, it seems the GOPers have put out
another Contract
on America that's cowardly been renamed a pledge, but
the idea is the same:
In terms of specific proposals, Republicans propose to permanently
extend all the tax cuts due to expire at the end of this year, give small
businesses a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income, require Congress to
review any new federal regulations that add to the deficit. The plan also
calls for federal spending to be rolled back to pre stimulus levels, which the
GOP says will save $100 billion in the first year.
So...they want to add
$700 BILLION to the deficit, give the
Koch brothers more money than they will ever need (again), cripple even more
food safety rules, and kill any chance of recovery the economy has at this
point.
Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" (1987) was a wake-up call about the
financial train wreck the Street was headed for. Had we only listened. Or
perhaps we listened too well, and Gordon ("Greed Is Good") Gekko became the
role model for a generation of amoral financial pirates who put hundreds of
millions into their pockets while bankrupting their firms and bringing the
economy to its knees. As "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" begins, Gekko has
been able to cool his heels for many of the intervening years in a federal
prison, which is the film's biggest fantasy; the thieves who plundered the
financial system are still mostly in power, and congressional zealots resist
efforts to regulate the system.
Just a couple of nights ago, I posed the question via
Twitter:
From the review, I'm going to guess that he doesn't:
I wish it had been angrier. I wish it had been outraged. Maybe Stone's
instincts are correct, and American audiences aren't ready for that. They
haven't had enough of Greed.
Posted with extraordinary gratitude to Melissa with thanks.
READ IT HERE because I'm simply providing this slice for effect:
The Republican Party has traded again and again on
the conjured idea of an American golden era, circa 1945 to 1960, after boys
who were ripped from the arms of their virginal sweethearts and sent to
another continent to fight a great war against tyranny and despair, had
returned home as men, as heroes, and set to work, every last one of them,
making babies with doting wives and grabbing the American Dream with both
hands in the dawn of suburbia. Scientists in white lab coats and square,
black-framed glasses toiled away to make American astronauts the first on the
moon, and to fill all the pretty new homes behind perfect white picket fences
with fancy, new-fangled household gadgets to make life easier and more fun.
Teenagers hung out at sock hops and neon-lit diners, girls longing for
lavaliers and boys wondering how to get laid. Elvis' pelvis was considered a
scandal, and Marilyn Monroe a bombshell. Dad had a pension and the promise of
a gold watch at the end of a long career with a single firm, and Mom had a
Frigidaire. And everyone was happy.
Vote for us—and we'll give you that.
It's an empty promise built on an illusion, carefully constructed to conceal
that America's so-called golden age was imperfect like any other, and perhaps
even more so than most.
(MORE)
The truth of that era is expanded on in her post, but I feel the need to the
children of the people that went off to fight the great war against tyranny and
despair came home to raise a generation of people that includes a great many
wonderful people.
A lot of whom feel gratitude for the nation they were given a realize that
there has to be growth to be built as well as maintenance to be done for the
nation to continue to be great.
...a Quinnipiac University poll this year showed nearly two-thirds of
those with household incomes of more than $250,000 a year support raising their
own taxes to reduce the federal deficit.
So not all of the wealthy are angry about tax hikes. But that doesn’t
mean they just want bigger government. What they want is better government –
and investment in growth.
Anyone arguing about that? I'm not even arguing about that.
It's funny what you can learn from the past if you bother to pay attention:
“What American businesspeople know, and have known since Henry Ford
insisted that his employees be able to afford to buy the cars they made, is
that a thriving economy doesn’t just need investors; it needs people who can
buy the goods and services businesses create.”
I would only add that people can buy those goods and services more often when
they have (bleep) jobs...
Sometimes this stuff annoys me. Jackhandles taking credit where none is
due, but hearing the crowd's reaction to Corker's introduction makes the clip
worth every second of viewing:
That's just the teaser title of the post. I will say that if you're a
fan of great podcastery, you
already know the voice bringing life to his Sneetches.
If the CFPB can succeed at leveling the playing field, we can go a long
way toward repairing a gaping hole in the budgets of millions of families.
But nobody has ever thought or argued that the consumer bureau can fix
everything. Lost jobs, stagnant incomes, rising costs for college, dwindling
retirement savings—there’s a lot of work to be done.
A great big IF is OK with me because I remain confident in Warren's abilities
and to show he humanity she brought a good story:
When she was 16, my grandmother, Hannie Reed, drove a wagon in the
Oklahoma land rush. Her mother had died, so she was up front with her little
brothers and sisters bouncing around in the back. When I was growing up, she
talked about life on the prairie, about marrying my grandfather and making a
living building one-room schoolhouses, about getting wiped out in the Great
Depression. She was hit with hard challenges throughout her life, but the
moral of her stories was always the same: she would solve her problems one at
a time by pulling up her socks and getting to work.
It’s time for all of us to pull up our socks and get to work.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has repeatedly insisted that she's only
focusing now on helping to elect GOP candidates around the country. But a new
CBS/New York Times poll finds that even conservatives don't buy that argument.
According to the poll, two out of three voters overall say they believe
Palin's endorsements are motivated by the desire to stay "in the public eye,"
while just 18 percent believe she's acting out of the desire to "elect
conservative candidates." Among conservatives alone, a majority — 53 percent —
think she's doing it for the attention, while 29 percent say she's trying to
help GOP candidates.
At this point in the movie, the grifter is usually brought to justice and the
audience applauds.
Unfortunately, life rarely resembles the movies...
Rove
cowers as soon as Limbaugh barksAs soon as Limbaugh thundered
that he, not Rove or anyone else, would say who is "electable" and who is not,
Rove backpeddled faster than a vampire backing away from sunshine.
Here’s how it would work. A city, county or state facing insurmountable
pension costs would appeal to the Department of Treasury for relief. As a
first step, it would have to adopt standard accounting practices to accurately
portray its current and expected financial health, including realistic
projections of its investment returns and the discount rates on its debt.
Sensible to this point but then it starts to go astray:
Second, the applicant would have to take action to assure it can meet
the debt service on its bonds, including placing a permanent cap on its
pension liabilities. This means raising the retirement age, increasing
employee contributions and preventing employees from manipulating their
salaries in the last years before retirement to increase their pensions; it
would also mean restructuring the fund’s health-care spending, which has been
a significant drain.
There's that hint of the pensioners being parasites here, with their "retirement"
and salary manipulation and don't forget that health care spending.
But the last step in the coup de grace for me:
Finally, the fund would have to move all new employees to 401(k)
retirement plans, which have fixed employer contributions and therefore reduce
future taxpayer liabilities.
Because the market is perfect and never goes south, right? The
"ownership society" has been so good to EVERYONE, isn't that right?
I was visibly surprised (take my word on that, I guess!) that privatizing
Social Security wasn't his fourth demand, frankly...
I found it especially funny to read this "advice" when I got to the bottom of
the page and read this amazing tidbit of a co-author's experience to be giving
such advice:
Alexander Rubalcava is the president of an investment advisory firm.
Amazing, right?
The market remains hungry and ever shall be, methinks.
...one third of Americans believe the Obama administration has
raised taxes. Fifty percent think taxes have stayed the same, but only 8
percent think taxes have gone down.
Did I mention that the poll was to show us that about 83% of us are
fraking idiots?
It's not as bad as that, however, since you were already aware of the
idiocy of the 27%ers.
Believe me, the last thing a Vikings fan like me would ever think to
support is something called a "Cheddarbomb."
But while the Packers may be our rival, I'd do just about anything to
help out my friend Russ Feingold.
His football allegiances aside, Russ is one of the most courageous and
dynamic progressives in the Senate -- and he's facing a tough fight this
November. Russ's opponent is spending millions of his own dollars attacking
him.
If you care about civil liberties, you want Russ Feingold in the Senate.
If you care about fair elections, you want Russ Feingold in the Senate. If you
care about keeping political courage as part of the Democratic Party platform,
you need Russ Feingold in the Senate.
Silly football reference aside, Russ is one of a handful of reasons to still
put up with Wisconsin in the first place.
President Barack Obama may appoint Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law
professor who scolded U.S. banks while overseeing their bailout, as the
interim head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as early as
this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
An appointment as interim head of the agency could allow Warren, 61,
to bypass a confirmation battle in the Senate, where Republicans have
raised objections to her possible nomination.
It gets really funny when you consider what the GOPers have to say about
it:
Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the banking
committee, said the leader of the agency should go through the
confirmation process.
“Someone that’s appointed to that job should be vetted, examined,
investigated and have his or her qualifications for that job weighed by
the Senate,” Shelby told reporters.
Asked if he could vote to confirm Warren if she were Obama’s
nominee, Shelby said he “would like to see a more objective person in that
job. Elizabeth Warren, obviously, is not an objective person when it comes
to the consumer issues.”
Objective he says. Is objective a code word for bought & paid for?
Maybe a person looking out for consumers would be a
good person to head a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
or is it just me?
Partially the 24-hour news cycle we live in now and the need to make
everything count every day but we the "race" being run here is to the bottom and
leading us there is the news-like broadcast named fox:
Not actually a fan of election season, and especially not a fan of the billion
instant thumbsucker pieces about What It All Means once the votes, or some of
them anyway, have been counted. No matter what happens this election, it will
be proof that we are a center right nation, that voters rejected Obama's
extreme liberalism, and that Obama should resign and, no matter what the
constitution says about such things, appoint Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and
Joe Lieberman to a ruling council. Turns on the tire swing for everybody!
Don't misunderstand me on this point: fox news runs the red meat train 24/7
and they continue to make their money off their
narrative.
That does not mean that I have to endorse their idiocy.
I was once naive enough to think
flat-earthers
were the epitome of idiocy in a world that knew the earth was round back
when the Greeks
figured it out.
Thanks to
mistermix, I am past that thought today:
Make your reservation now for Galileo was Wrong: The Church was
Right, the “First Annual Catholic Conference on Geocentrism”.
I'm sure that answers "feel" right because science is hard.
And I'd like to apologize for the world only having some 40 years left if
I'm lucky.
The whole shebang fades away when I quit breathing doesn't it?
I don’t like a lot of things the Democrats have done, and Obama has sure
pissed me off on any number of issues, but the other guys are CRAZY.
And he doesn't mean CRAZY in a good way, you know. These guys no longer
care about running the government because that would interfere with their GOPer
teahadist standings...
"To hold rallies of any nature on Sept. 11 would be inappropriate
and disrespectful to all of us who see 9/11 as a day outside of politics."
Thanks to some people actually affected by the horrific events 9 years
ago tomorrow.
Der Spiegel also knows what some idiots will do on Sept. 11:
Far to the northwest in Alaska, meanwhile, former vice presidential
candidate Sarah Palin and right-wing TV zealot Glenn Beck are planning a
large-scale event on Sept. 11. They want to gather in a hall in Anchorage
to celebrate America -- precisely on the anniversary of the attacks.
If you don't think the grifter and Mr. Goldline are in it for the money
by now, there's nothing I can do for you...
The lunatics have always been on the street corners, and Rachel brings us
what should be the normal view of sanity in case you've forgotten what sanity
looks like:
If my brain allowed me to worship, Rachel would be fairly high of my list of
idols, frankly. I think she got me with the "existential angst" line,
personally...
Lest you think the scammers don't know their prime target demographic, here's
how to rally the gullible, according to their (NOT linked for a reason!)
website:
Our enemies (far left radicals)
are better organized, better financed, and more aggressive than we are.
These far left radicals won’t let anything stand in their way to pass
their radical agenda’s, and that includes your freedom. Limb by limb our
freedom is being taken from us right before our very eyes. We must act now
to stop these liberals before they destroy our great nation!
The good news is there are more of us than
there is of them, it's now time for us to come together in harmony,
and join the fight with our voices (word of mouth), and our finances.
It’s going to take a massive
amount of finances to counter the Liberal agenda.
It helps to remember how the teahadists see themselves as victims of the
Kenyan usurper.
It also helps to read the lines above in the same voice as a bedwetter
RWNRadio panic room commercial.
Of course, he uses numbers and shiny graphs to make his point and where's the
fun in that? Especially when:
Conservative economic policies just don't work and it's incredibly
obvious right in front of our faces. Knowing that obvious things are right in
front of our faces and knowing that conservatives really, really don't want us
to see those things, it's instructive (and sometimes entertaining except for
the tragic consequences) to watch how conservatives try to distract us.
Anyone for a
Pam-Geller-inspired
freakout over the First Amendment?
Anyone?
How about a book burning? (You know, of course, who else burned
books...)
Little did I realize this at the time I tweeted, frankly. I was
just whining about the monsoon-like morning we were experiencing - again -
up north.
But then I looked over Andrew's article:
For decades, scientists have predicted that disastrous weather,
including heat, drought and deluges, would occur with increasing frequency
in a world heated by the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases. While
some may be tempted to label this summer’s extremes the manifestation of
our climate meddling, there’s just not a clear-cut link — yet.
True enough, I thought. My thought, long ago, was that warmer
weather brings about more moisture in our atmosphere. That leads to
wilder swings in temperature, at least according to my readings about
studies of aged ice cores that had taken place as we were learning more and
more about our earth in the late '70s and '80s. (Grandma passed along
an extensive collection of National Geographics and I took advantage
of them. Reading about science, not the pictures, dammit!
Perverts!)
Of course, what did I know?
At least this makes sense to me:
In the end, there are two climate threats: one created by increasing
human vulnerability to calamitous weather, the other by human actions,
particularly emissions of warming gases, that relentlessly shift the odds
toward making today’s weather extremes tomorrow’s norm. Without addressing
both dangers, there’ll be lots of regrets. But conflating them is likely
to add to confusion, not produce solutions.
And thinking that the tons of greenhouse emissions during our current
period of industrialization has no effect, whatsoever, is simply foolish.
The earth has been stable long enough for us to evolve to this point, random
weather extremes and all, but it could change rapidly for a lot of people in
this world...
...and, inexplicably, things get expensive when time does pass for
people condemned to die in prison:
Gray heads cost more than $70,000. Taxpayers pick up the bill for
wheelchairs, hearing aids, eye glasses. A fourth of all sick calls among
Florida's 100,000 state prisoners are generated by old folks. That percentage
of the prison population accounts for a third of the chronic diseases, a third
of the hospitalizations and 40 percent of the surgeries. They consume a fourth
of the pharmaceuticals.
Think things will get better?
Not before they get worse:
The numbers will only escalate. By 2030, a third of state prisoners will
be of the elderly kind. The state prison system, saddled with so many
mandatory life sentences, is evolving into a very expensive nursing home.
The funny (to me!) part of this is that I'm sure 27% of the population at
large would simply take any and all healthcare away from the prison system.
Well, first of all, he did the stimulus package. You know, let's
remember what he inherited. He inherited a banking industry or an economy
that that was about to fall off the end of the cliff. He inherited a
recession.
So he's brought us back. He's brought sanity back to the financial
system here. He has brought the economy back somewhat. He's created more
jobs in this recession than George Bush did in eight years as president
with a surplus. So he's done that.
It's so easy to forget how deeply into the ditch the GOPers were (ARE)
willing to drive this nation's economy. The teahadists are already
down there.
Finally had time to watch
A Face in the Crowd and was impressed with Andy Griffith's talent.
At the same time, the cautionary tale enclosed therein is a good one.
Again, I have to recommend
The Man from Earth.
I'm just saying. That one is good enough that I will be listening to
it as background dialogue as I work tonight, thanks to being able to stream
it from Netflix while I'm on a decent connection.
On another note, I'm currently attempting to figure out how I want to do
archiving here, so things may be strange for a little while.
To keep an audience you have to feed the beast. I think it was Dan
Froomkin who said to me that if you're gone from the internet for the day
you're gone forever. Exaggeration, of course, but there's truth to it.
I would love to feed the beast more often at this point, but I seem to
refuse making it any easier on myself to do so.
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of
the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of
American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the
contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of
our country.
As I said, a nice thought.
Too bad all unions are evil (now) and American workers are lazier than ever
(now). So lazy that they deserve to have their jobs shipped overseas.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to celebrate my Labor Day Holiday by going
back to work Sunday night. This is not a complaint. It's a simple
statement of fact.
According to polls, Americans are in a mood to hold their breath until
they turn blue. Voters appear to be so fed up with the Democrats that they're
ready to toss them out in favor of the Republicans -- for whom, according to
those same polls, the nation has even greater contempt. This isn't an "electoral
wave," it's a temper tantrum.
Temper tantrums,
bullies, and everything we learned in
kindergarten
still applies:
These are the things I learned:
Share everything. *Everything except for
MY STUFF!
Play fair. *Losers and suckers don't try
to bend every rule in the book, remember!
Don't hit people. *Unless you've decided
to go on in this life as an asshole, that is...
Put things back where you found them.
*Unless there's more money to be made by ignoring those things...
Clean up your own mess. *NO!
Don't take things that aren't yours.
*How do you expect me to have the nicest stuff?
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
*NEVER APOLOGIZE. That's losertalk...
Wash your hands before you eat. *Unless
you're in a hurry!
Flush. *Not if you're in a hurry!
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
*As long as they're mass-produced for McD's!
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
*Squeeze that in where now?
Take a nap every afternoon. *Effete
European Soshulist!
When you go out in the world, watch out for
traffic, hold hands and stick together. *Traffic should watch
out for ME!
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in
the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody
really knows how or why, but we are all like that. *Just gimme
a billion more Styrofoam cups!
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the
little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we. *So
why not kill them all right away, anyhoo?
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the
first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK. *Actually
that term is now WATCH YOUTUBE!
Everything you need to know is in there
somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and
politics and equality and sane living.
My reaction/observations on these learnings are bolded on the list.
Seriously.
A lot of people need to grow up.
You'll be able to tell who they are by the screeching about a column
like this.
Because I cannot live with the overwhelming frustration of politics all
the time, The
Man from Earth was Netflix'd recently.
To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from the mailer:
Renowned sci-fi writer Jerome Bixby penned the script for this
thought-provoking film starring David Lee Smith as John Oldman, a college
professor who reveals to his colleagues that he's actually a centuries-old
caveman. And so begins a captivating philosophical meditation on
immortality, the last work from screenwriter Bixby, who earned career
accolades for his contributions to such genre-defining shows as "Star
Trek" and "The Twilight Zone."
I can't really say more than that, but the experience was a lot more than
that.
Legend has it that, as he put down his pen, Johnson told an aide,
"We have lost the South for a generation", anticipating a coming
backlash from Southern whites against Johnson's Democratic Party.
Emphasized because President Johnson was a Democrat bemoaning the fact
that a lot of racial bigots were going to flee a party that passed the 1964
Civil Rights Act.
And if the bigoted idiots fled, as predicted, from Johnson's party, can
anyone figure out where they went to?
Surprising, but I happen to agree with all the thanks KO gives here.
I would add that Dick deserves thanks for thinking that we would be
greeted as liberators by a people watching their nation falling apart.
I would like to thank Dick for
not giving a
damn what the American people think.
And I would really, truly, like to thank whomever persuaded Colin Powell to
lie to me at the UN. His was the one voice I trusted in that
administration.
Amanda Marcotte explaining the grifter and why Democrats can't have one:
Politicians like Palin understand that their base is insecure and needing of
distracting fantasies, and so it's just a matter of providing them. But the
emotional needs of the liberal base are far harder to sum up and provide with a
few photo ops.
See? Every once in a while even Slate
leads me to a decent article...
Pew finds that 18% of Americans believe President Obama is a Muslim.
A new Newsweek poll, taken after the controversy over the New York mosque,
places that figure at 24%. Even if he's not a Muslim, Newsweek finds, 31
percent think it's "definitely or probably" true that Obama "sympathizes
with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law
around the world."
When the focus is narrowed to Republicans, a Harris poll finds 57
percent of party members believe he is a Muslim, 22% believe he "wants the
terrorists to win," and 24% believe he is the Antichrist.
Roger Ebert points out the obvious that many people refuse to see:
The time is here for responsible Americans to put up or shut up. I refer
specifically to those who have credibility among the guileless and credulous
citizens who have been infected with notions so carefully nurtured. We cannot
afford to allow the next election to proceed under a cloud of falsehood and
delusion.
Roger Ebert singles out the blowhard:
Limbaugh in particular must cease his innuendos and say, flat out, whether
he believes the President is a Muslim or not. Yes or no. Does he have evidence,
or does he have none? Yes or no.
It is a nice thought, I admit.
When the swine realize that their only hope is more discord, they won't stop.
Our very own
Timmeh can't get out of the state fast enough for my taste:
Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty Tuesday ordered all state agencies to not to submit
applications to any health care funding from the federal government related to
the health care overhaul.
Because it seems that the "beast" is still alive and not ready to be drowned,
I suppose.
It seems.
As a bonus, Timmeh tried to get some street cred with the teahadists:
“Obamacare is an intrusion by the federal government into personal health
care matters and it’s an explosion of federal spending that does nothing to make
health care more affordable,” Pawlenty said in a news release.
That's the magic word in my mind. As soon as anyone mentions Obamacare,
their words and opinions drop any meaning at all with me.
It's turned into a discussion with an infant in my mind and I'm wondering if
someone needs a change since they seem so cranky...
I caught bits and pieces of the speech tonight as it interfered with my
normal MSNBC nap and, to be honest, there wasn't much he could say at this
point. I'd have to strongly agree with
Gene, overall, about the general sense of frustration our president
inherited.
Of course, the self-congratulatory was also good:
Earl --
Tonight marks the end of the American combat mission in Iraq.
As a candidate for this office, I pledged to end this war responsibly. And, as
President, that is what I am doing.
Since I became Commander-in-Chief, we've brought home nearly 100,000 U.S.
troops. We've closed or turned over to Iraq hundreds of our bases.
As Operation Iraqi Freedom ends, our commitment to a sovereign, stable, and
self-reliant Iraq continues. Under Operation New Dawn, a transitional force of
U.S. troops will remain to advise and assist Iraqi forces, protect our
civilians on the ground, and pursue targeted counterterrorism efforts.
By the end of next year, consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi
government, these men and women, too, will come home.
Ending this war is not only in Iraq's interest -- it is in our own. Our nation
has paid a huge price to put Iraq's future in the hands of its people. We have
sent our men and women in uniform to make enormous sacrifices. We have spent
vast resources abroad in the face of several years of recession at home.
We have met our responsibility through the courage and resolve of our women
and men in uniform.
In seven years, they confronted a mission as challenging and as complex as any
our military has ever been asked to face.
Nearly 1.5 million Americans put their lives on the line. Many returned for
multiple tours of duty, far from their loved ones who bore a heroic burden of
their own. And most painfully, more than 4,400 Americans have given their
lives, fighting for people they never knew, for values that have defined our
people for more than two centuries.
What their country asked of them was not small. And what they sacrificed was
not easy.
For that, each and every American owes them our heartfelt thanks.
Our promise to them -- to each woman or man who has donned our colors -- is
that our country will serve them as faithfully as they have served us. We have
already made the largest increase in funding for veterans in decades. So long
as I am President, I will do whatever it takes to fulfill that sacred trust.
Tonight, we mark a milestone in our nation's history. Even at a time of great
uncertainty for so many Americans, this day and our brave troops remind us
that our future is in our own hands and that our best days lie ahead.
Thank you,
President Barack Obama
Sane, sensible, and as reverent as our troops deserve.
If it had been left up to me, however, I would have hired Rachel to deliver
this:
