Corrente

Gardening brag

2008-09-05T19:28:22-04:00

“He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.”

How it's done

2008-09-05T18:46:50-04:00

Hilariously brutal snark on McCain, Palin, McCain+Palin, and the Republican National Convention.

And not one word about a 17-year-old girl’s uterus or sedated special needs babies! How refreshing.

NOTE This fan’s favorite. Yeah, there’s a huge clutch of 17-year-old and baby snark below, but it’s all in the form of over-the-top headline plus image, which is a long blogospheric tradition — especially when the teebee images move the snark firmly into the “fair game” tradition. It’s the prose that gets to me; and the “sedated” part that moved matters out of the “fair game” category for me. Not sure why, but others felt the same. I also note that the “out of bounds” snark is down on the page, and the other snark higher up. Maybe it takes Biden, not an Obama reproof. Who knows?

Sister sutures her insured brother's hand at her kitchen table. "I couldn't get an appointment," he says

2008-09-05T17:13:36-04:00

Americans Who Have Insurance —But Still No Access To Care, Part I:

A friend who lives in Boston complained, not long ago, about not being able to find a physician. In Boston? “Come on,” I said. “This is like claiming you couldn’t find a liquor store.”

“They’re all oncologists and cardiologists,” he grumbled. “Last week I cut my hand badly enough that it needed stitches. I have good insurance. But I couldn’t get an appointment with my family doctor—or any of my friends’ doctors. I didn’t want to spend hours in the ER. So I wound up going to my sister’s house. She sewed it up at her kitchen table.”

So what did he pay the insurance company all that money for, then?

See how the insurance companies’ business model of denying care works?

Friday Joke Exchange

2008-09-05T16:49:21-04:00

What did the ocean say to the beach?
Nothing. It just waved.

Happy end of the week! Was Labor Day this week?? Whoa, almost doesn’t feel like it anymore…

But some places, there’s summer happening. So I’m off to swim…

The water cooler or the camp circle is yours, everyone. Know any good jokes?

The Resentment Strategy and The GOP's Cheerful Viciousness

2008-09-05T16:26:05-04:00

IMO, the convention was a sick farce, a neo-Orwellian “celebration” full of anti-intellectualism, jingoism, anti-liberalism and aggressive tribalism.

the crowd was ugly, and… it was pretty obvious that they didn’t get Obama’s memo about post-partisanship / unity.

some interesting commentary from Krugman…

John McCain, promised President Bush, would stand up to the “angry left.” That’s no doubt true. But don’t be fooled either by Mr. McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

What’s the source of all that anger? Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you.
Can Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin really ride Nixonian resentment into an upset election victory in what should be an overwhelmingly Democratic year? The answer is a definite maybe.

That said, the experience of the years since 2000 — the memory of what happened to working Americans when faux-populist Republicans controlled the government — is still fairly fresh in voters’ minds. … But the Democrats can’t afford to be complacent. Resentment, no matter how contrived, is a powerful force, and it’s one that Republicans are very, very good at exploiting.

and Greenwald…

With last night’s cheerfully vicious speeches from Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, the Republicans did what they always do in order to win elections: they exploited raw cultural divides while mocking, belittling and demonizing Democratic leaders. Yet again, they delivered brutally effective and deeply personal blows to the Democratic presidential candidate grounded in the same manipulative and deceitful yet very potent themes they’ve been using for the last three decades.
Ever since Ronald Reagan’s election, this is what the Republicans do every four years. They render issues irrelevant and convert campaigns into cultural wars and personality referenda.

But the idea that Americans instinctively recoil from negativity or that there will be some sort of backlash against Republicans generally and Palin specifically because of how “negative” their convention speeches were is pure fantasy. Cultural tribalism and personality attacks of those sort work, especially when they’re not aggressively engaged.
These “character” issues end up mattering largely because Democrats, in election after election, allow wars over “character” to be waged in a largely one-sided fashion.

Every four years, the GOP unleashes unrestrained personality attacks on Democrats and exploits cultural resentments.
And every four years, Democrats seems shocked and paralyzed by all of this and desperately delude themselves into believing that mean-spirited “negativity” and nastiness will alienate voters, while the media swoons at the potency of these attacks.
Every four years, Democrats tell themselves that such attacks don’t work and are counter-productive. And every four years, that belief is disproven.

Palin says "no" to VP job three months ago

2008-09-05T15:02:24-04:00

She was against it before she was for it. Palin appeared on CNN to talk about polar bear endangered status.

From CNN’s Glen Beck transcripts — Aired June 2, 2008 - 7PM ET

BECK: Have you — have you considered or have you been talked to or anybody said anything about you running with John McCain?

PALIN: There‘s a lot of rumor and speculation about — not just me, though, a lot of governors who may be tapped, at least for consideration. There are rumors out there.

BECK: Well, would you — would you go to — I hate to ask you this — would you go to that den of vipers in Washington if you were asked?

PALIN: You know, if I had to make such a decision today, it would be, no, there are a lot that Alaska could be, should be doing to contribute more to the U.S. and I think that I can help do that as governor of the state staying here.

Campaign Updates and Media Headlines 9/5/08

2008-09-05T12:25:05-04:00

Buck Fush

McCain vows to fight, fight, fight for better America (McClatchy)
ST. PAUL, Minn. — John McCain cast himself Thursday night as a lifelong fighter for his country who’s ready to lead new battles for dramatic change as he accepted the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

CBS/NYT Poll: McCain Pulls Even With Obama (Political Wire)
The presidential race between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain is now even with each getting 42% in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll conducted Monday-Wednesday of this week. Twelve percent are undecided according to the poll, and one percent said they wouldn’t vote. A poll conducted just last weekend found Obama ahead by eight points, 48% to 40%. Key finding: McCain has also closed the enthusiasm gap some with Obama, but it still exists.

There’s Something Missing in St. Paul (by Lawrence Kudlow)
On CNBC last night Jack Welch, GE’s CEO from that firm’s salad days in the ’80s and ’90s, pointed out the dangers of a three-house Democratic sweep. He says it’s dangerous for both the stock market and the economy. And he wants to know why the St. Paul Republicans aren’t running against Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. Welch made the point that the last time the Democrats had control of all three houses in Washington the Jimmy Carter administration was in charge. That was a time of economic and stock market malaise. However, when Washington was divided — as was the case when Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were in the White House — the economy and the stock market took off.
My, my, Jack Welch agrees with me on the split government possibility. That puts him in pretty rarified company. I wish I had his income!—Caro

Audacity Deficit (by Anglachel)
Aside from being an accomplished presenter, what [Palin] brings to the table is something we haven’t had in our Republicans of late, the ability to channel powerful resentments with an admixture of charm. She is in the Reagan mode (though no where near as polished and deadly) not like Nixon, DeLay, Gingrich, Buchanan, and the other angry white men on the Right. She is going right after Obama and doesn’t bother with Biden… Palin has not been off the front page of the New York Times for a week and always with more coverage than Obama. Biden barely registers as present.

As if on cue: Welcome Back, Dad (by Michael Reagan)
In one blockbuster of a speech, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resurrected my Dad’s indomitable spirit and sent it soaring above the convention center, shooting shock waves through the cynical media’s assigned spaces and electrifying the huge audience with the kind of inspiring rhetoric we haven’t heard since my Dad left the scene. This was Ronald Reagan at his best — the same Ronald Reagan who made the address known now solely as “The Speech,” which during the Goldwater campaign set the tone and the agenda for the rebirth of the traditional conservative movement that later sent him to the White House for eight years and revived the moribund GOP.

Click here for more political and media news headlines.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

Chills

2008-09-05T11:26:23-04:00

Go read welcome to the frozen economy.

Whichever candidate can address the frozen feeling most effectively is going to win. And it’s not at all clear to me which candidate will do that.

NYC Single Payer Action Alert

2008-09-05T10:34:37-04:00

9/6 MON: non-profit & single-payer healthcare leafleting

Please join the Coalition Against Privatization at the Labor Day Parade, Saturday September 6, 2008 at 9:30am.

CAP members will be using the Labor Day Parade as an outreach opportunity to distribute leaflets to marchers and on-lookers about the for-profit conversion of GHI and HIP, as well as healthcare as a human right and single-payer bill HR 676. Join us for the festivities!

To help with this action, join CAP at 9:30am at the corner of 44th St. and 5th Ave. Parade begins at 10:00 am.

If you are able to go to this, please post about your experience.

Letters to the Palm Beach Post: Doctors support single payer

2008-09-05T10:25:56-04:00

Doctors support single-payer plan

American health care is now largely delivered via a government-subsidized private health insurance industry operating parallel to and within Medicare. A recent nationwide poll of physicians published in the Annals of Internal Medicine utilizing the AMA physician database demonstrated that 60 percent of doctors support a single-payer national health plan based on the most efficient and effective Medicare system.

This national health plan currently before Congress (HR 676) would provide medical care and low-cost prescription drugs to all Americans - including the 47 million uninsured and 50 million underinsured citizens - while maintaining the private-practice quality of physicians, hospitals, clinics and therapists.

Have you written a letter to the editor in support of Medicare for All?

California and the battle for single payer

2008-09-05T10:22:05-04:00

California Health Bills Heading to Governor’s Desk Need Your Help

Getting The Word Out About Single Payer

Polish prosecutors probe Bush gulag at last

2008-09-05T09:29:50-04:00

Reuters:

The Polish prosecutor’s office is investigating allegations that there was a CIA prison in Poland where al Qaeda suspects were questioned and guards might have used methods close to torture, the prime minister’s top adviser said on Friday.

I suppose this is happening now because the Bush administration has, er, disposed of the prisoners? Because the birds have all flown? One more little problem cleaned up before the perps enter the dreaded private sector?

The Washington Post reported for the first time in 2005, quoting unnamed CIA sources, that CIA prisons existed in Europe. A U.S. human rights group, Human Rights Watch, later said Poland and Romania hosted the prisons.

“There definitely was cooperation between Polish and American secret services,” a source close to the secret service told Reuters. “But whether there was torture at the base, hopefully we will learn about that soon.”

Foreign and local media speculated that the base was operational between 2002 and 2005, while Aleksander Kwasniewski was president and Poland was run by the leftist governments of Leszek Miller and Marek Belka and then a rightist administration under Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

All Polish political parties have played down speculation about the existence of a CIA prison. Under Polish law, a Pole who was party to an agreement allowing the CIA to torture suspects could be sued in the regular courts or even in the State Tribunal, a special court for government officials.

“We demanded official information from the prime minister about the prisons in June, but we never got it,” said Dawid Szescilo of the Polish unit of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

“This is the third government that has banned (the release of) any information about the case, and public opinion should be given knowledge of all of this.”

And so the foul poison of the Bush administration’s lawlessness continues to spread, helpfully normalized by the Ds in a strong “post-partisan” move.

The key question is not the existence of the gulag, which is known, but how many thousands of prisoners there were, and where the bodies are (whether living or dead).

And the key investigative technique should be to talk to the techs.

Or possibly the pilots. It would be interesting to know if there were any flights over large bodies of water in planes with cargo doors that could open.

A woman's work is never done

2008-09-05T08:58:32-04:00

NYT headline evocative of Stepford and Fembots: “Obama to dispatch female surrogates”

Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and creating a rapid-response team to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said on Thursday.

Our hero didn’t show much interest in the task at hand. So leave it to the gals to clean up this mess!

Update: NYT has retitled the article on their own site to “Obama Camp Turns to Clinton to Counter Palin,” as noted by Ann Althouse (DCOW ). (h/t Arthur, via e-mail).

The title of the msnbc.com version remains the same.

Nazgul

2008-09-04T22:20:08-04:00

A cold voice answered: “Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye.”

A sword rang as it was drawn. “Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.”

“Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!”

Riot masks on the horses, too. Impressive.

Photo of MN riot police via BAGnews.

Obama: Surge "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."

2008-09-04T22:08:47-04:00

On FOX.

I don’t see how we can know, because the press and both parties are almost completely corrupt, so we’re flying blind. But see here or here or here. If we stop paying the militias, what happens?

Of course, the right war is in Afghanistan anyhow.