Via Avedon Carol, this little item from Caltics:

Now it looks like they're moving to up the Hooverite ante, and two of California's powerful federal politicians are at the center of the debate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is joining 6 other Senators to demand that Speaker Nancy Pelosi approve a commission to recommend cuts to Medicare and Social Security - or else they'll refuse to vote to increase the US government's debt ceiling: ...

Look, I'm totally sure that paying to bail out the insurance companies by cutting Medicare won't have any real effects on old people who are going to die soon anyhow. Especially given this great news:

Senators from both parties on Tuesday put new pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to turn the power to trim entitlement benefits over to an independent commission.

Sens. Conrad, Gregg, Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) publicly vowed to vote against raising the debt ceiling if a budget reform commission bill doesn't come along with it.

Six others had previously made such threats, bringing the total to 13 senators drawing a hard line on the committee legislation.

“You rarely do have the leverage to make a fundamental change,” [shock doctrine!] said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who said he hasn’t ruled out offering the independent commission legislation as an amendment to the healthcare reform bill.

Yay!

They came, they sat, they chanted:

8 Protesters backing a universal health care system briefly occupied Sen. Joe Lieberman's office this morning.

Protesters were arrested, one by one, and dragged out of his office amid chants of "Everyone in and noone out, universal healthcare now!" and "Represent Connecticut, not AETNA!"

Activists hopefully moving the Overton Window - in our case leftward - because too many Democratic party politicians were too stupid to do that on their own at the start of the healthcare debate.

It's probably just me. But still, of course it makes me wonder. Just now, here at Chez Dyke, a lot of blogs aren't working for me. That is, I can load them, but the comment functions don't seem to be enabled. I'm no intertube expert, I have no idea how this sort of thing happens (or if it is just my old, funky Mac and my unwillingness to "upgrade" to the latest browsing platforms) but I'm always reminded at times like these:

Know the people you "meet" online, and be sure to make contact with them outside of the phone, computer, or other electronic device you usually rely upon. As in, know exactly where your friends live, what they do, where they work, about their lives. Once upon a time, it was normal for Americans to know their neighbors, "in person." Today? I do wonder if that is at all still true.

I'm not trying to be all CT or anything, so much as reminding people that our Revolutionary Technologies of the Future with Flying Cars...well, "we" don't really control all that. And that's on purpose. Any Revolution that relies on the Internets? Doomed, from the start. Just sayin.

AP actually does some reporting; turns out it's not really banksters who own Timmy; it's just a few banksters, among them our favorite, Goldman Sachs:

The calendars, obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act, offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the continued influence of three companies -- Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- whose executives can reach the nation's most powerful economic official on the phone, sometimes several times a day.

What the calendars show, however, is that only a select few can call the treasury secretary.