(thanks to Raw Story for the pointer)
“Bill Kristol just said … that the government can run a first-class health care system and a government-run health care system is better than the private health care system.”
“You trapped me somehow,” a visibly uncomfortable Kristol responded.
Even with expectations lowered to an acceptable level,reality rears its ugly head. I now recognize that at the end of January the unfamiliar emotion I experienced was perhaps a species of optimism .Not unqualified optimism(can’t,wouldn’t admit to that)but a practical brand, “cautious optimism ” or maybe it was only the utter relief that eight years of the Bush regime had ended.Yes,that’s all it was.
That was six months ago and the papers today are not exactly a breading ground of hope.
Healthcare appears headed if not for failure at least to a severe watering down to the point of meaninglessness.
The health system overhaul largely rests on six senators who have tossed aside core Democratic priorities like a government-run plan
And this
As Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut assumes a central role in the debate over health care, the pharmaceutical industry has helped finance efforts to bolster his image back home as he braces for a potentially bruising re-election contest.
Big-time Wall Street banks have happily and with little new oversight taken up their high risk trading again.Goldman Sachs earlier was granted a change in official status by the feds that allows it access to Federal Reserve funds then ……
Goldman then applied to the Federal Reserve for an exemption to the rules, saying that it takes time to alter a business model. The exemption was granted in February — and Goldman went on to take even greater risks
Guantanamo is still sitting there almost as before.
The delays – involving those who cannot be tried – raise questions about whether the White House can close the prison by January, as President Obama pledged when he took office.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07…
Per today’s Rutland Herald:
If Mayor Thomas Lauzon had only trusted his gut Sunday, he wouldn’t have broken his ribs.
[…]
…Lauzon… gamely agreed to participate in a 21st-century re-enactment of the fabled fist fight over the naming of Barre during Sunday’s conclusion of the Barre Heritage Festival at Barre Town Middle and Elementary School.
Can we nominate the Vermont Mayor Lauzon “most likely to lose a hand trying to fix a lawnmower?”
At least there weren’t pies involved.
(h/t to Balloon Juice)
It is with great interest as well as concern that I watch the ever increasing massive head-explosion of the right-wing. Our real problem at this point politically is the portion of Democrats that still give the right-wing political clout, but nevertheless, it's important to keep an eye on the fringiest of the fringe. Hell, even the “birther” nonsense has gone mainstream, with Cranky-ass White Guy Lou Dobbs on CNN giving it credence.
Those of you who follow these things with interest are probably well aware that one of the ways the right-wing was able to hold power for so long was by convincing social conservatives to vote against their interest. You know the drill by now; vote to end abortion, get a capital gains tax cut. And so on.
But the latest, from a the right-wing nutter site, Human Events, must be seen as an example of not only right-wing gay hate, but a not-so-subtle synergystic word spew of defending defense industry pork under the guise of homophobia.
So who knew that fighter jets could stop the nefarious homosexual agenda? Below the jump for the madness…
You can read the entire Human Events email here. It's about a “special message from one of their advertisers”, an organization known as the “Pray in Jesus' Name Project“, which seems to be one of those groups intent on turning the U.S. military into an Army of God. A visit to their site has them making hay about the “Pentagon burning soldiers' Bibles”, giving one the perception that the Pentagon was forcibly burning soldiers' own personal Bibles. But of course, the truth of the matter, expanded on here, is that the said Bibles were in native Afghani languages, and were being used to prosteletyze, a big no-no.
So the latest pile from this group is targeting Sen. Leahy, for attaching hate crimes legislation to a defense bill, the one that will kill the unnecessary defense pork known as the F-22 fighter jet. Apparently, the nutter group fears the hate crime legislation, as they say it might somehow keep them from broadcasting their vile homophobia from the pulpit. They call the hate crimes legislation the “Pedophile Protection Act”. So, make sense of this:
Let's tell them to strip all homosexual rights from the Defense Authorization Act, please fund F-22's, or at least keep the Brownback Amendment which protects pastors reedom of religious speech.
Wow, that's a rather diverse agenda, no? There's even a picture of the Senator talking to a soldier, with the caption, “Leahy to soldiers: No funding unless you protect the homosexuals”. Somehow I suspect if I tried to confirm that he said that, I'd probably at most get a laugh out of it.
I wasn't able to track down if defense contractors have ties to this organization, but as far as I can gather, it seems to be pretty popular for fundie servicemen who more than likely do view our Middle Eastern misadventures as a modern-day crusade. Sure, it's fringy-as-all-hell, but disturbing, nevertheless, as right-wing fanaticism and the military do not usually make for a good mix when put together, especially if we're actually trying to undo the damage done by Bush and his God-brigade. I take little comfort in knowing what Jesus' warplane of choice is, either. Perhaps they're hoping to use it to bomb San Francisco and Provincetown in an upcoming secret bombing capaign. Good to know the cat's outa the bag now.
Just heard on MSNBC’s morning show … Howard Dean to be hosting (co-hosting maybe?) Countdown for the week starting tonight.
Suck on that, Sarah Palin … The Dean beat ol’ Betcha’ to the telie!
Catherine Nelson, vice president and general manager of The Times Argus, announced today that Steven Pappas has been named editor to replace Susan Allen.
Allen, who has served as the paper’s editor since 2006, is staying on with the 10,000-circulation newspaper, serving as its Montpelier reporter.
I wonder what the deal is, here.
This is one of those times when it’s really, really hard to remember why churches don’t pay taxes.
Just over at Pam’s House Blend on my regular blog scan, and here’s what Louise from Maine has to stir us up:
The anti-marriage folks in Maine, who, if you’re not following this, flog their bigotry by paying people from Michigan to gather signatures for a referendum against Maine’s Marriage Equality law, are out-fundraising the Equality Maine folks better than 2 to 1 between April 1 and July 5. Almost half the money came from Roman Catholic Churches or organizations (most of the rest from NOM — of “Gathering Storm” parody fame — and Focus on the Family, with just $400 from actual Maine residents. Of course, much of that time was before the law passed.)
The Diocese of Portland gave “Stand for [Het] Marriage Maine” $100k in actual money and over $10k in “in-kind’ contributions, Louise reports.
The Knights of Columbus forked over $50k. And Catholic Charities in Evansville, Indiana donated a thousand bucks, as did the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM.
As Louise aptly points out, aren’t these the same folks who are closing parishes and selling church properties? Aren’t these the same folks who say their parishioners’ donations go to charity work? to food and clothing and shelter for the poor and destitute? One might also wonder who is paying the salary for the Diocese spokesman who “has taken leave” to work for SFMM.
So the spokesbigot said the $100k was from a special fund donated to the Church for “this kind of activity.” And quite likely the donor got a tax deduction for it. And wouldn’t have if the donation had gone directly to the the anti-marriage PAC — as one commenter on the thread pointed out. Tantamount to money laundering.
Okay,maybe it’s time to not let people have tax deductions for donations to churches. The church may not have to pay taxes, but any donations they receive should be after-tax dollars.
The last time the Catholic Church was right about something, it was draft counseling in the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and Liberation Theology (when, for once, the Church was on the side of the campesinos and not the landowners — think Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador).
Just a few photos from the week, none of birds:
Mystery dragonfly:
Consider this an open thread.
Echinacia bloom, close-up:
Very large frog, with bug on shoulder (close-up here):
Toadstool, with water dripping off:
Mystery butterfly:
Mystery bug:
I’m not going to editorialize on this issue one way or another for a variety of reasons, but I found the following on YouTube this morning and thought it quite an interesting encapsulation of the conflict playing out on the ground. No doubt it will be fodder for interesting discussion.
So here is – from the YT description – video from “Near the end of the 2+ hour meeting between the community of Ira, Vermont and proponents of Vermont Community Wind Farm, an 80 MW “concept” of Per White-Hansen, with public relations person Jeffrey Wennberg”, presented without comment…
whoops you did it againyou continue to respond to the caricatures dancing around in your head instead of external reality. More proof: My understanding of the label “redneck” is not someone who has a love of cops, quite the opposite. I was not using labels at all and I certainly can’t understand how you could think I’d project the redneck label on to you. I actually attach a lot of anti-authoritarian qualities to the label “redneck.” Apparently you were responding to “the voices” and not me. You’ve done another double backflip projection with faulty premises thrown in as a flourish. what a mess, I’m done.
There it is in all its disgusted hostile glory: a reply I wrote but never posted. The sad online version of a letter never sent.
I’m glad I never posted it. I had noticed while reading the thread attached to Jack McCullough’s “You’re under arrest” that one member was making it very difficult to stay focussed on the facts of the case by creating hypotheticals, and questioning the veracity of undisputed facts. I called him on it in a very straightforward manner. He replied, I shot back with some snark, he got long winded and obnoxious, I wrote the above, thought better of it, and walked away with my head held high. Plenty of other members continued to school him and eventually the thread calmed down.
A conversation I had with Bill Simmon helped me walk away from the keyboard. Here he discusses a dilemma of political blogging: either it can become a like-minded echo chamber, or a futile effort to persuade the unpersuadable. We begin by discussing Seven Day’s designation of his candleblog as “non-political,” some background on the daysies reader’s pick awards, political blogging, a shout out to Dohiyi Mir. Then he shares a bit on how he and Steve Benen determine content for their radio and online show Poli Sci-Fi Radio. This segment closes out with a consideration of the Nerd Life.
As Green Mountain Daily gets more popular, it seems that we are experiencing an increase in antagonistic posters. I generally try not get involved with the nattering nabobs of negativism and instead offer support to commenters I agree with. But sometimes I get pulled into that “someone on the internet is wrong!” compulsion and tend to feel like “why’d I waste my time” afterwards. I’m impressed with how members here can engage the hostility dispassionately, or with humor, or with relentless debate. GMD has a strong and just community police squad and it helps maintain the integrity and legitimacy of this place as a lefty forum. So I understand the need to school a fool. But I’d still like to hear about how people deal with that “someone on the internet is wrong!” feeling, maybe some personal guidelines or philosophy on engaging antagonistic commenters. It is clear that people approach the question from many angles, and that is part of why this place gets so lively.
Thoughts?
