Dear President Obama:
A lot of people are upset with you right now. Not me, but a lot of people.
And here’s why …
On your first day in office, you should have overhauled the entire legal system, financial system, education system, healthcare system, rooted-out and fired every incompetent person with a government job, repealed DADT, saved the country from the looming economic crisis, rebuilt the crumbling infrastructure, investigated every government department and made whatever changes were necessary, re-established respect for our nation with every foreign leader and their people, put every American back to work, solved the immigration problem, fixed the mortgage crisis, reversed global warming, lowered crime, housed the homeless, fed the hungry, cured the sick, raised the dead from their graves, righted every wrong – and just generally un-do every single thing that has ever been done incorrectly, unjustly, inefficiently or ill-advisedly by your immediate predecessor, as well as every administration going back to George Washington.
On your second day in office, you should have done even more.
The problems with you, personally, are pretty overwhelming. You talk too much, but not enough. You make too many public appearances – what are you hiding from? You’re all talk and no action – except when you act, and then one has to wonder exactly what it is you’re not talking about, and why.
And for God’s sake, don’t go blaming the MSM for your woes. We all know they were all up in W’s face, 24-7, for eight years. Hey, you think the birthers are on your last nerve? That was nothin’ compared to how the librul media wouldn’t shut up about Georgie’s missing military records, lying us into war, wiretapping without warrants, torture – hey, you name it, they were on his case. If it wasn’t for runaway brides, missing blond teenagers and Terry Schiavo, the man wouldn’t have had a minute’s peace from the relentless hounding of every newspaper and TV news outlet in the nation. So kwityerbitchin’.
You promised change – and as far as I can see, a year and a half into your first term, you still haven’t changed everything yet. The colour blue is still known as b-l-u-e, the Equator is still where it’s always been, and American Idol is still on the air – so much for your empty rhetoric.
As for hope – well, where do I begin? I’d hoped to wake up to world peace, the announcement of a cure for every disease, and lookin' twenty years younger while sportin' a rack that would make Pamela Anderson cry. I didn't. And it's all your fault.
But now we come to the latest bone of contention, your total ineptitude in handling the BP oil leak. Here’s where you run out of excuses.
You should have thrown BP off the job immediately, and sent in a bunch of really smart guys who know how to fix this problem. I know from reliable sources that this is easily done, that the appropriate personnel are at-the-ready. Why you are standing in their way is anybody’s guess. Or you could have simply turned to the internetz, where people on message boards with absolutely no experience, education, or expertise in the area of deep-well drilling have all kinds of solutions that you should be testing, analyzing and weighing as viable options that will be immediately successful – so just pick one, why don’t ya?
Why haven’t you just done the right thing – by breaking the law and seizing BP’s equipment and assets? The last president didn’t give a fuck about the law – why should you? Don’t worry about those who would yell and scream that you have no right to do so. They only say that when it’s the other guy who’s in the WH, not one of their own – which is kinda what they said when it was the other guy in office, and not theirs, and took the opposite position – but I digress.
It comes down to this, Obama: Why aren’t you in the Gulf, pluggin’ that hole? Why aren’t you in DC, tending to business? Why aren’t you on TV all day, every day, explaining what it is you’re doing – and why aren’t you holding everybody’s hand while you’re doing it? Why are you acting calm and controlled in the face of disaster – don’t you get how serious this is? Why are you not acting like a raving lunatic – don’t you know how reassuring that kind of behavior is? Why aren't you clearing brush somewhere, like a chosen-by-God president does?
It's being said that this is your Katrina, sir. And despite the differences in the circumstances, as well as the response, that must be the case - because Anderson Cooper said so, and he had his shirt-sleeves rolled up when he said it. For a lot of Americans, that's pretty much all it takes. Even those who claim that the MSM is not to be trusted will change their tune when AC's cufflinks rise above the wrist - or when Bobby Jindal yells for sandbags - and plenty of 'em, boys, keep 'em coming.
You are being perceived as too weak, too strong, too self-assertive, too self-effacing, too loud, too soft-spoken, too patient, too quick-to-anger, too analytical, too spontaneous, too fast on your feet, too slow to understand, too outspoken, too silent, too dumb to deal with this disaster of mammoth proportions – and way too smart for your own damned good.
So why don’t you just cut that out? Why don’t you just display some leadership*? (*definition may vary – but vague enough to mean, uh, whatever)
Like I said, Mr. President, some people are really upset with you right now. And not only are they willing to tell you that whatever you’re doing, it’s completely wrong, they’re also more than happy to tell you that __________ (their preferred candidate here) would have done a much better job.
And, like I also said, I’m not one of them.
Keep doing what you’re doin’, Mr. Prez – we’ve got your back.
Despite what you may read on the internetz about so-called real Democrats, real progressives, and real liberals, your real base is here to stay.
--- NanceGreggs
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
A Letter To The President
Dear President Obama,
As you know, we are a nation of 300+ million impressionable but fretful bunch. We understand that there is a possibility that no one knows exactly how to stop the spill that is killing our oceans, which may be why it hasn't been stopped yet (as no one is actually foolish enough to believe that you would just simply allow this to happen, cause politically that's not a win), but you are supposed to look like you know how to get this done, and right fucking now, we are not getting enough of this kind of an image from you.
Please note that this oil volcano erupting IS political (even if you think it isn't), and as CIC head honcho you need to "look" like you are in command (see Jindal on CNN for pointers) as this situation, no matter what you are actually doing, has to look like it is under control (even if that's not really true) because what is most important right now are your approval ratings. So instead of doing what can be done and needs to be done backstage, your ass needs to get in front of the Television cameras right fucking now, and you need to engineer a bush-like bullhorn moment.
If you recall when Morgan Freeman played President in that movie where the Asteriod was heading towards the U.S., things didn't end well for him, especially after the asteriod struck.
See, this may be the part you aren't getting.....you don't have to really know how to stop the spill, nor do you really have to implement a plan, you just have to look like you are in charge...say, like a fake cowboy holding a bullhorn standing on some type of rumble (in your case a Boat in the oil will do fine.....hey! You could look like Washington crossing the Delaware you know!) After that, you should lasso up some BP executives and twist their arms behind their backs and force them to say on national Teevee that they really knew how to stop the spill but they just aren't willing to, (because in their hearts of hearts, once this shit happened, they really wanted the American people to rise up against Offshore Drilling).
It's really not that hard you know! All you need are cameras, and I know you've got some of those in your posse, cause I saw you on camera during the middle of the day, talking about the spill in the rain (but politically, that was ages ago...and plus, you didn't have any props, cause rain don't count!)
Of course if CNN and the rest of the media tries to say that you are just in it for the photo op (and I'm sure they will....but don't worry about that, cause we've got your back--well maybe, maybe not) and that you still don't have an answer (since no one actually seems to to date), you can always order the nukes based on some theories and look really tough and bad and mean (and some of us have been waiting for you to look just like that that for ages)! That's what Americans love; heros who are looking like they are doing tough stuff.
So hurry the fuck up, cause the Internet is having a heart attack worrying about how this "looks" for you politically (some are practically salivating in fact), cause there ain't shit else that the Internet can do right now.
So, Mr. President, This is how you get up to 90% approval ratings!
Of course, if you were Reagan, nothing would be your fault anyways, so a speech would do. I know, I know, you have given speeches to date on the oil spill, but they weren't televised at prime time so they don't count (cause if we don't see it, it ain't happening). So perhaps you could give a speech like Reagan did rallying Americans to be strong after the Challenger tragedy.
Of course, Carter didn't have any luck, and considering how Democrats treated him at the time,
he certainly didn't do enough....
(Remember Iran?
That was the end of that,
And of course THAT'S why we ended up with Reagam
Of course, the last Democratic President, well...remember when he did nothing?
(Can you say Rwanda?)
That turned out ok, but only because the something he didn't do had something to do with a faraway land....while what we are talking about here affects Americans and nature and so even if this is a catastrophe of unmeasurable proportion, you need get busy looking like you are managing this nightmare shit....cause that's why we elected you; to be in control of shit, even if the shit is out of control!
So please, start looking like you are doing something, cause "Looking like" is more powerful to most Americans than anything that you could ever actually "do".
We have an election in November, and we need you looking Presidential, strong, in control and keeping our shit together. That's your job, and you need to get it done right fucking Now!
What should you do? I don't know, but do something to make you look like you are doing something, even if you are already doing something, cause we aren't seeing it, and if we aren't seeing it, than we can't be sure that you are doing it, and at the end, that's what counts here in America!
Fed Up American
Monday, May 24, 2010
Hope and Change
I'm just sick, mentally and getting physically, as I'm sure everyone here is.
What the fuck is going on in this country?
Oh dear me, I thought that electing a Democrat last election would "solve" some problems. Guess not!
Obama was not my first choice, or second, but I supported him. Gave my hard earned dollars to his fucking campaign, hoping for some semblance of leadership.
Realizing that the problems stemmed from a previous administration, gave patience. Allowed patience to my patience. Practiced Zen.
Meditated on the HRC koan.
Thinking something is better than nothing. Still will have no health insurance, maybe have to pay for it. Low wages good. ???
Hey so what? It "did fix" some things. Excuse me, I have to have a sip of my Kool-Aid. AHHHH!! That's better! Refreshing, to say the least, mind-numbing at best.
Silly, Silly, Silly me.
Mine eyes were blinded by the coming of the Change.
Please don't get into a rant here on "just what he has done", about the changes that have been put into place. Some are just rouge and lipstick. Policies that needed to change.
Policies that any good, logical administration would have instituted - after rule by the Neo-Cons. Need I say more? You are all intelligent people. They are policies that, you would have changed.
Come on Obama, give us daily, ok, maybe weekly updates on the Gulf, on the stupid, fucking, money sucking wars that you continue, on unemployment, on job creation, on anything.
Just not the radio address, that many don't or cannot listen to. Give us the full treatment, just as you did for your campaign, e-mails, videos, t.v. commercials, t.v. addresses.
Updates, transparency. Talk to us, just talk to us. Lead.
Let us know what your doing and thinking. Let us know what we can do. Implore to us, plead to us, educate us, enjoin us, just don't leave us alone.
I had to find out online, that I could go to collect hair to help suck up the oil in the Gulf.
I went to at least twenty salons and a few people that do hair in their "basement". All but two signed on and sent or are sending the collected hair to the Gulf.
Not a real big deal, a minute in each salon at most, spent less than 3 hours of my time. Got their email, sent information, simple.
Obama, why didn't you ask us to do that? More would have signed on. Foot soldiers for a cause. Lead us, please! Lead us. Lead.
Talk to us about the simple stuff that infiltrates the blogs, address the issues that bother us. Your people, the ones that elected you, The ones that also gave you money.
Tell us about the Teaparty people, bring them down.
Tell us about your outrage about BP and the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico. And on and on, (put your favorite cause here).
Get mad, sound mad, spank someone, let us know your pissed, defend us, join our side.
Where are you?
Lead us, please.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Let's Watch The republicans Heads Explode
Within hours of Rima Fakih being crowned Miss USA, Debbie Schlussel took to her computer and started bitchin’ – because that’s what Debbie does best. More accurately, it's the only thing Debbie really does.
Ms. Schlussel begins her most recent tirade by saying of Ms. Fakih, “As I’ve noted before, her slutty behavior doesn’t mean she’s any less supportive of or supported by Hezbollah and Shi’ite Muslims everywhere. Just like the 9/11 hijackers drank alcohol at the Pink Pony and gambled in Vegas–both no-nos in Islam–Muslims are allowed to engage in taqiyyah. And that’s exactly what this is. Plus, this low-class pageant contestant is simply a sharmuta.”
Debbie’s real problem is the fact that she herself is ugly. It’s not the kind of ugly that comes of having a less-than-perfect nose, asymmetrical features, or a bad complexion. It’s the kind of ugly that emanates from within, and its ravages are all too obvious.
It starts with the eyes. They take on a vacuous look, reflective of self-imposed stupidity, years of not bothering to inform one’s self beyond RW talking points. The area around the eyes then starts to darken and bag, the result of too many sleepless nights spent trying to connect every Muslim to terrorism, poring over websites in hopes of finding some connection, no matter how tenuous or blatantly ridiculous, to rail about.
That’s when the lines start to appear, and deepen over time, caused by squinting at everyone you meet in order to determine their ethnic background, to better “see” the colour of their skin and evaluate their worth based on the whiteness thereof.
The mouth begins to droop downwards, and begins to take on the look of the permanent sneer, the better-than-you smirk, the lopsided grimace of the RW idiot we’ve all seen far too often. Eventually the mouth, overworked by the spewing of hatred and bigotry, becomes incapable of a sincere smile. Wrinkles form around the lips, etched by the sad realization that no one of any intelligence is interested in hearing what emanates there from.
The jaw becomes slack and weakened in appearance, not due to bad genes or a family trait, but due to a decided lack of character. The cheekbones lose the natural glow of youth, and take on the pallor of death – along with the unnatural colour of jealousy, the sickly hue of envy.
Eventually the Ugly seeps into the brain. It causes the victim to have delusions of relevance, and eventually leads to a complete break with reality. At this point, the Ugly sufferer begins to believe there is a conspiracy behind every event, every news story – even every beauty pageant.
Once in this state, the Ugly takes over completely. It cannot be reasoned with, nor diminished. It takes on a life of its own. It causes the afflicted to froth at the mouth in a way reminiscent of a rabid animal, and spit venomous accusations about the “fix being in”, and an atmosphere of political pandering to Muslims being the sole explanation for an exceptionally beautiful, dark-skinned, non-Christian Lebanese-American winning a beauty contest over her blond, blue-eyed, lily-white competitors.
I found it especially interesting that Ms. Schlussel used the word Sharmuta to describe Ms. Fakih, an Arabic word to describe “a whore, hooker, bitch or slut.” It reminds me that projection is also an early-stage symptom of The Ugly, often accompanied by a sense of outrage that the Ugly sufferer is not getting the attention she feels is her due.
While I’ve focused my opinion of The Ugly on Ms. Schlussel, she is by far not the only victim of this widespread disease. But the fact that she serves as an appropriate poster girl for its effects couldn’t be more obvious.
I remember the first time I heard it said that while beauty may be skin-deep, Ugly goes right down to the bone. At the time, I thought it was a phrase fraught with meanness, a comment intended to denote that the lack of physical comeliness was somehow worthy of being opined upon, as though those considered not to be beautiful was in some way a matter of choice on their part.
I am now prompted to somewhat revise my opinion on the matter. While beauty may not be a matter of choice, being Ugly, in the Debbie Schlussel sense of the word, is a matter of choice. And she IS about as ugly as it gets.
Ms. Schlussel begins her most recent tirade by saying of Ms. Fakih, “As I’ve noted before, her slutty behavior doesn’t mean she’s any less supportive of or supported by Hezbollah and Shi’ite Muslims everywhere. Just like the 9/11 hijackers drank alcohol at the Pink Pony and gambled in Vegas–both no-nos in Islam–Muslims are allowed to engage in taqiyyah
Debbie’s real problem is the fact that she herself is ugly. It’s not the kind of ugly that comes of having a less-than-perfect nose, asymmetrical features, or a bad complexion. It’s the kind of ugly that emanates from within, and its ravages are all too obvious.
It starts with the eyes. They take on a vacuous look, reflective of self-imposed stupidity, years of not bothering to inform one’s self beyond RW talking points. The area around the eyes then starts to darken and bag, the result of too many sleepless nights spent trying to connect every Muslim to terrorism, poring over websites in hopes of finding some connection, no matter how tenuous or blatantly ridiculous, to rail about.
That’s when the lines start to appear, and deepen over time, caused by squinting at everyone you meet in order to determine their ethnic background, to better “see” the colour of their skin and evaluate their worth based on the whiteness thereof.
The mouth begins to droop downwards, and begins to take on the look of the permanent sneer, the better-than-you smirk, the lopsided grimace of the RW idiot we’ve all seen far too often. Eventually the mouth, overworked by the spewing of hatred and bigotry, becomes incapable of a sincere smile. Wrinkles form around the lips, etched by the sad realization that no one of any intelligence is interested in hearing what emanates there from.
The jaw becomes slack and weakened in appearance, not due to bad genes or a family trait, but due to a decided lack of character. The cheekbones lose the natural glow of youth, and take on the pallor of death – along with the unnatural colour of jealousy, the sickly hue of envy.
Eventually the Ugly seeps into the brain. It causes the victim to have delusions of relevance, and eventually leads to a complete break with reality. At this point, the Ugly sufferer begins to believe there is a conspiracy behind every event, every news story – even every beauty pageant.
Once in this state, the Ugly takes over completely. It cannot be reasoned with, nor diminished. It takes on a life of its own. It causes the afflicted to froth at the mouth in a way reminiscent of a rabid animal, and spit venomous accusations about the “fix being in”, and an atmosphere of political pandering to Muslims being the sole explanation for an exceptionally beautiful, dark-skinned, non-Christian Lebanese-American winning a beauty contest over her blond, blue-eyed, lily-white competitors.
I found it especially interesting that Ms. Schlussel used the word Sharmuta to describe Ms. Fakih, an Arabic word to describe “a whore, hooker, bitch or slut.” It reminds me that projection is also an early-stage symptom of The Ugly, often accompanied by a sense of outrage that the Ugly sufferer is not getting the attention she feels is her due.
While I’ve focused my opinion of The Ugly on Ms. Schlussel, she is by far not the only victim of this widespread disease. But the fact that she serves as an appropriate poster girl for its effects couldn’t be more obvious.
I remember the first time I heard it said that while beauty may be skin-deep, Ugly goes right down to the bone. At the time, I thought it was a phrase fraught with meanness, a comment intended to denote that the lack of physical comeliness was somehow worthy of being opined upon, as though those considered not to be beautiful was in some way a matter of choice on their part.
I am now prompted to somewhat revise my opinion on the matter. While beauty may not be a matter of choice, being Ugly, in the Debbie Schlussel sense of the word, is a matter of choice. And she IS about as ugly as it gets.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
No Care Is Health Care?
Health insurers see a great big loophole in the recently passed health care reform legislation, and, being businessmen first, health care providers last, they plan to drive their Hummers right through it.
According to Robert Pear at the New York Times:
Insurers are eager to classify as many expenses as possible in these categories, so they can meet the new test and avoid paying rebates to policyholders.
Thus, insurers are lobbying for a broad definition of quality improvement activities that would allow them to count spending on health information technology, nurse hot lines and efforts to prevent fraud. They also want to include the cost of reviewing care by doctors and hospitals, to determine if it was appropriate and followed clinical protocols.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/health/p...
Insurers would like us to think that they deny policies in order to prevent fraud. In recent years, they have attempted to portray health care providers as 1) greedy, 2) lying 3) bastards.
Takes one to know one.
The AMA analyzed insurance company denials back in 2008 and:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Medical-Billing-...
Think about this. One third of your health care is called “unnecessary” by the nation’s private insurers. Corrupt health care system? No, clever bookkeepers at Blue Cross. They know that the high cost of filing a claim with an insurer will make doctors, hospitals and other providers think twice about resubmitting a denied claim, even if the treatment was the correct one for the patient.
Here is how the math works:
That one in three number is just an average. Some insurers (such as Pacificare in California) deny an even higher percentage of claims.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/26/californ... /
So what? If you are a health care consumer, you could care less if your provider gets paid, right? Your hospital will not reinsert your diseased gallbladder, because Aetna decided not to cover your surgery---
On the other hand, many providers are allowed to bill patients for services that insurers refuse to pay. Emergency care often falls under this category. Imagine getting a $5000 ER bill for treatment of your son’s asthma attack, because your insurance company decides not to pay. It is now up to you to beg, plead and threaten your plan into changing its mind. Or say you wake up with chest pain in the middle of the night. Your dad died of a heart attack at around your age. You call an ambulance and get taken to the closest hospital.
You are admitted to the ICU and a bunch of (expensive) tests are ordered, which show that you do not have a bad heart, you have a hiatal hernia. You are sent home on Nexium. And, a few weeks later, the hospital starts asking how you intend to pay off your $80,000 bill, since Anthem has decided that heart burn was not an indication for hospital admission.
Sometimes, denial can lead to more than big bills. They can kill.
But some of those denied care died as a result. Nataline Sarkisyan was but one. She was 17. She needed a new liver. Cigna said no until enough nurses and enough of the family’s friends and neighbors – and a few thousand concerned citizens – protested loudly enough to make some news coverage. Then Cigna reversed itself. Even in the face of Nataline’s impending death, Hanway did what he felt was best to do to minimize damage to Cigna – not to save a teenager’s life. The negative PR became a bit much. Wendell Potter, who worked as Cigna’s communications director at the time, has said since that he watched the whole mess unfold and was one of the people advising Cigna’s leadership to reverse the denial.
But the reversal came too late. Nataline died. December 20, 2007. And for her mom and dad, no Christmas will ever be the same. The Sarkisyan’s buried their only daughter while wrapped in the love and support of their Armenian community, the nurses of the California Nurses Association and thousands of bloggers and others who tried to somehow ease the unimaginable.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2010/january/deni...
The provision of the health care reform bill which requires insurers to pay out a certain percentage of their revenues for actual medical care is designed to stem this abusive---and lucrative--- practice. However, if insurance companies can count the money they spend keeping you from getting necessary care as money spent providing you with necessary care , they will quickly expand this part of their operations. Indeed, if they lose the ability to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they will attempt to recoup those losses by requiring their members to jump through hoops in order to get health care.
And hoop jumping can be pretty hard for those Americans most in need of medical services.
According to Robert Pear at the New York Times:
The law requires insurers to spend a minimum percentage of premiums on health care services and “activities that improve health care quality” for patients.
Insurers are eager to classify as many expenses as possible in these categories, so they can meet the new test and avoid paying rebates to policyholders.
Thus, insurers are lobbying for a broad definition of quality improvement activities that would allow them to count spending on health information technology, nurse hot lines and efforts to prevent fraud. They also want to include the cost of reviewing care by doctors and hospitals, to determine if it was appropriate and followed clinical protocols.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/health/p...
Insurers would like us to think that they deny policies in order to prevent fraud. In recent years, they have attempted to portray health care providers as 1) greedy, 2) lying 3) bastards.
Takes one to know one.
The AMA analyzed insurance company denials back in 2008 and:
(they) found that doctors spend 14 percent of the fees they receive from insurance companies and Medicare on the process of collecting those fees, adding more than $200 billion (about ten percent) a year to the nation's healthcare costs . Sadly, about 30 percent of over 5 billion claims generated annually, are rejected, and surprisingly, only 50 percent of the rejected claims are ever resubmitted.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Medical-Billing-...
Think about this. One third of your health care is called “unnecessary” by the nation’s private insurers. Corrupt health care system? No, clever bookkeepers at Blue Cross. They know that the high cost of filing a claim with an insurer will make doctors, hospitals and other providers think twice about resubmitting a denied claim, even if the treatment was the correct one for the patient.
Here is how the math works:
Let us assume $130 for initial charge, $55 - allowed amount, $29 - service cost, $6 - claim preparation and mail, and $25 - claim rework cost. If the claim is paid in full after contractual adjustment ($75), practice total costs would add to $35 and income - $20. But if the payer denies a part of the claim, say, $30, then the provider has a choice between leaving it alone and losing $10 on the entire incident or reworking it and then taking a chance of losing even more - $35, in case of a repeat denial, or losing $5 if the payer chooses to pay the previously denied part of the claim.
That one in three number is just an average. Some insurers (such as Pacificare in California) deny an even higher percentage of claims.
http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/26/californ... /
So what? If you are a health care consumer, you could care less if your provider gets paid, right? Your hospital will not reinsert your diseased gallbladder, because Aetna decided not to cover your surgery---
On the other hand, many providers are allowed to bill patients for services that insurers refuse to pay. Emergency care often falls under this category. Imagine getting a $5000 ER bill for treatment of your son’s asthma attack, because your insurance company decides not to pay. It is now up to you to beg, plead and threaten your plan into changing its mind. Or say you wake up with chest pain in the middle of the night. Your dad died of a heart attack at around your age. You call an ambulance and get taken to the closest hospital.
You are admitted to the ICU and a bunch of (expensive) tests are ordered, which show that you do not have a bad heart, you have a hiatal hernia. You are sent home on Nexium. And, a few weeks later, the hospital starts asking how you intend to pay off your $80,000 bill, since Anthem has decided that heart burn was not an indication for hospital admission.
Sometimes, denial can lead to more than big bills. They can kill.
Under Hanway’s leadership, Cigna also did what for-profit insurance companies do so very well to enhance the profits that become multi-million dollar bonuses. They denied care to thousands upon thousands of policyholders, and the company profits were protected.
But some of those denied care died as a result. Nataline Sarkisyan was but one. She was 17. She needed a new liver. Cigna said no until enough nurses and enough of the family’s friends and neighbors – and a few thousand concerned citizens – protested loudly enough to make some news coverage. Then Cigna reversed itself. Even in the face of Nataline’s impending death, Hanway did what he felt was best to do to minimize damage to Cigna – not to save a teenager’s life. The negative PR became a bit much. Wendell Potter, who worked as Cigna’s communications director at the time, has said since that he watched the whole mess unfold and was one of the people advising Cigna’s leadership to reverse the denial.
But the reversal came too late. Nataline died. December 20, 2007. And for her mom and dad, no Christmas will ever be the same. The Sarkisyan’s buried their only daughter while wrapped in the love and support of their Armenian community, the nurses of the California Nurses Association and thousands of bloggers and others who tried to somehow ease the unimaginable.
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2010/january/deni...
The provision of the health care reform bill which requires insurers to pay out a certain percentage of their revenues for actual medical care is designed to stem this abusive---and lucrative--- practice. However, if insurance companies can count the money they spend keeping you from getting necessary care as money spent providing you with necessary care , they will quickly expand this part of their operations. Indeed, if they lose the ability to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they will attempt to recoup those losses by requiring their members to jump through hoops in order to get health care.
And hoop jumping can be pretty hard for those Americans most in need of medical services.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Like It Or Not...
While you’re sitting there listening to Limbaugh, or watching Beck – while you’re carrying a mis-spelled placard around with words like No amnety! or Make English our Offical Language, or some other slogan that slaughters the language you allegedly hold so dear – while you go teabaggin’ with your equally ill-informed neighbors, leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind about how ignorant you are – while you’re railing against the immigrants who are ruining the community you live in – while you’re tossing around words and phrases you think denote your superiority over non-White, non-Christians that actually demonstrate your inferior intellect, it’s going to happen.
Your son is going to meet some slope-eyed gook in his high school science class, and think she’s the most beautiful, articulate young woman he’s ever met. He’s going to dream about taking her to the prom – and eventually, he will. And your ravings about it will fall on decidedly deaf ears. He’ll start wondering why you’re such a bloviating idiot, incapable of seeing in her everything that he sees, plain as day.
Your daughter is going to go away to college. She’s going to room with a dorm-mate she finds fascinating and witty. When she finds out her roommate is a lesbian, it’s not going to change her affection or admiration for her one iota. She’s going to question exactly what it is about this lovely friend, and people like her, that you find so offensive. She’s going to start finding you and your ideas to be more offensive than anything her roommate has ever said or done.
Your youngest brother is going to follow in the footsteps of his father, his grandfather, and his uncles, and join the military. He’s going to be stationed somewhere in the Middle East. He’s going to become best friends with an Iraqi translator who shares his love of the same books, the same music, the same art. He’s going to wonder why you think his new friend is so vastly “different” because they don’t practice the same religion – when, in fact, they are so similar in so many respects. He’s going to realize that you’re a narrow-minded jerk – and a lot less of a “good Christian” than you’ve always professed yourself to be.
Your favorite cousin is going to “come out” at a family reunion. He’s going to introduce his partner to everyone in attendance, and proudly so. Some of your family members will embrace the idea – some won’t. But those who do will start seeing you as a mindless homophobe, and will be grateful that their favorite cousin didn’t wind up with someone as blatantly narrow-minded as you take pride in being.
Your best bud at work is going to invite you to a meeting about joining a union. He’s going to explain to you why unions exist to protect workers’ rights, while you go on and on about socialism and communism (and all the other terms you don’t understand, but spew anyway by rote), and how the country is going down the toilet because workers are demanding safe working conditions and an honest wage. He’s going to realize you’re too deafened by talking points from the very people who don’t care whether you earn enough to look after your family to hear the facts that are in your own best interest.
Your wife is going to stop attending the church you and she have been members of for as long as anyone can remember, (at first with some sense of reluctance, and later with great enthusiasm), because she’s come to realize that the preaching of politics from the pulpit is as un-American as it is un-Christian.
She’ll remember that Jesus said to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. She’ll remember that Jesus admonished his followers to look after the poor, the homeless, the sick, and the helpless in His name – and she’ll recognize that these simple truths have been supplanted by political persuasion that preach the exact opposite behavior as being “Christian values” to be adhered to.
She’ll start wondering when the man she has shared a bed with for all of her adult life became too far removed from Christ’s teachings to recognize that they are being turned into something abhorrent, something so contrary to their purpose. She’ll recognize that the man she looked up to for years has turned out to be someone to be looked down upon – an easily-manipulated sheep, as opposed to the manly shepherd she once thought she’d married.
It is going to happen. And this is how.
The world, and the nation we live in, changes every day – sometimes by inches, often in movements too small to be detected in the great scheme of things.
But it is changing – one citizen at a time, one moment-of-truth at a time, one life-long friendship at a time, one realization at a time, one mixed-race baby at a time, one inter-faith marriage at a time, one welcome to the community regardless-of-where-you-came-from at a time, one I-love-you-no-matter-what-comes-our-way at a time, one I-will-stand-with-you-and-uphold-your-rights at a time, one Nation Indivisible by those who would divide us for their own purposes, whatever their purposes might be.
To say that it’s going to happen is to predict the inevitable. It is happening as we speak.
And it is as righteous and pre-destined as it is wondrous to behold.
This country has, from its inception, been shaped by those who refused to be identified with one religion, one ethnic background, one political persuasion, one opinion, one language, one culture, one perception, one way of thinking, being, or believing to the exclusion of all else.
The tapestry we have become is enhanced by its many colors, and strengthened by its many threads.
And so shall it always be.
.
.
.
Your son is going to meet some slope-eyed gook in his high school science class, and think she’s the most beautiful, articulate young woman he’s ever met. He’s going to dream about taking her to the prom – and eventually, he will. And your ravings about it will fall on decidedly deaf ears. He’ll start wondering why you’re such a bloviating idiot, incapable of seeing in her everything that he sees, plain as day.
Your daughter is going to go away to college. She’s going to room with a dorm-mate she finds fascinating and witty. When she finds out her roommate is a lesbian, it’s not going to change her affection or admiration for her one iota. She’s going to question exactly what it is about this lovely friend, and people like her, that you find so offensive. She’s going to start finding you and your ideas to be more offensive than anything her roommate has ever said or done.
Your youngest brother is going to follow in the footsteps of his father, his grandfather, and his uncles, and join the military. He’s going to be stationed somewhere in the Middle East. He’s going to become best friends with an Iraqi translator who shares his love of the same books, the same music, the same art. He’s going to wonder why you think his new friend is so vastly “different” because they don’t practice the same religion – when, in fact, they are so similar in so many respects. He’s going to realize that you’re a narrow-minded jerk – and a lot less of a “good Christian” than you’ve always professed yourself to be.
Your favorite cousin is going to “come out” at a family reunion. He’s going to introduce his partner to everyone in attendance, and proudly so. Some of your family members will embrace the idea – some won’t. But those who do will start seeing you as a mindless homophobe, and will be grateful that their favorite cousin didn’t wind up with someone as blatantly narrow-minded as you take pride in being.
Your best bud at work is going to invite you to a meeting about joining a union. He’s going to explain to you why unions exist to protect workers’ rights, while you go on and on about socialism and communism (and all the other terms you don’t understand, but spew anyway by rote), and how the country is going down the toilet because workers are demanding safe working conditions and an honest wage. He’s going to realize you’re too deafened by talking points from the very people who don’t care whether you earn enough to look after your family to hear the facts that are in your own best interest.
Your wife is going to stop attending the church you and she have been members of for as long as anyone can remember, (at first with some sense of reluctance, and later with great enthusiasm), because she’s come to realize that the preaching of politics from the pulpit is as un-American as it is un-Christian.
She’ll remember that Jesus said to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”. She’ll remember that Jesus admonished his followers to look after the poor, the homeless, the sick, and the helpless in His name – and she’ll recognize that these simple truths have been supplanted by political persuasion that preach the exact opposite behavior as being “Christian values” to be adhered to.
She’ll start wondering when the man she has shared a bed with for all of her adult life became too far removed from Christ’s teachings to recognize that they are being turned into something abhorrent, something so contrary to their purpose. She’ll recognize that the man she looked up to for years has turned out to be someone to be looked down upon – an easily-manipulated sheep, as opposed to the manly shepherd she once thought she’d married.
It is going to happen. And this is how.
The world, and the nation we live in, changes every day – sometimes by inches, often in movements too small to be detected in the great scheme of things.
But it is changing – one citizen at a time, one moment-of-truth at a time, one life-long friendship at a time, one realization at a time, one mixed-race baby at a time, one inter-faith marriage at a time, one welcome to the community regardless-of-where-you-came-from at a time, one I-love-you-no-matter-what-comes-our-way at a time, one I-will-stand-with-you-and-uphold-your-rights at a time, one Nation Indivisible by those who would divide us for their own purposes, whatever their purposes might be.
To say that it’s going to happen is to predict the inevitable. It is happening as we speak.
And it is as righteous and pre-destined as it is wondrous to behold.
This country has, from its inception, been shaped by those who refused to be identified with one religion, one ethnic background, one political persuasion, one opinion, one language, one culture, one perception, one way of thinking, being, or believing to the exclusion of all else.
The tapestry we have become is enhanced by its many colors, and strengthened by its many threads.
And so shall it always be.
.
.
.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
GOP Votes Against Protecting Home Buyers
by BooMan
Wed May 12th, 2010 at 11:46:12 AM EST
This morning the Senate approved the Merkley-Klobuchar amendment to the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. The amendment is pretty common sense and very consumer friendly, which is why 36 Republicans opposed it.
Senator Merkley explained the intent of his amendment on his website:
The Merkley amendment will ban mortgage lenders and loan originators from accepting payments based on the interest rate or other terms of the loans. It would also prohibit a loan originator from receiving compensation from any party other than the borrower if they have already been compensated by the consumer. In addition, it will require lenders to verify borrowers’ ability to repay their loans from income and assets other than the home’s value. To help homeowners better afford the up-front costs of their mortgage, the legislation will still allow homebuyers to finance their closing costs as part of their loan...
Under the current rules, mortgage lenders and loan originators are allowed to steer families into high-cost and riskier loans, even when they qualify for affordable loans. A Wall Street Journal study found that 61 percent of the subprime loans that originated in 2006 went to families who qualified for prime loans. This practice was a key driver of the housing bubble and, ultimately, the foreclosure crisis that has devastated communities across the nation.Although the amendment was co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts, it was only able to attract three additional votes (Collins, Lugar, and Grassley) from the GOP. I don't know if there can be any clearer indication of where the Republicans stand. They voted against banning no-doc mortgages, and they voted against prohibiting loan originators from ripping consumers off by giving them higher interest loans than what they should get based on their credit risk. Incredible. Whose bidding do you think the Republicans were doing this morning?
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
republicans Are Insignificant Morons
It seems that every time I see footage of Teabaggers, or hear them interviewed, they seem bewildered that the vast majority of the citizenry is not listening to their message and swelling their ranks.
So I thought I’d end the befuddlement, and spell it out for them.
You chose the name Teabaggers. After the hilarity ensued, you finally figured out what the term meant. Instead of simply changing your moniker and moving on, you blamed the left-wing media (as though such a thing existed) for having coined the phrase in an attempt to embarrass you. Ergo, you are liars – and the vast majority of Americans do not wish to be associated with liars.
You gather together and rant incessantly about government spending currently being out of control. You were silent when the previous administration squandered the surplus they’d inherited, plundered the treasury, and ran up the nation’s debt to unprecedented heights. Most Americans recognize that closing the barn door after the horse is long gone is, to put it bluntly, an exercise in insanity, as well as futility.
You are adamant about the government keeping “their hands off” programs, like Medicare, that have always been government-run. Most Americans know the difference between programs that are run by the government and those that aren’t. Your position gives them the impression that you don’t know what the f*ck you’re whining about – and they’re right in their assessment.
You look ridiculous – no, really, you just do. You show up at your poorly-attended events dressed like idiots, and believe in your own self-importance because the mainstream media covers your gatherings. Did it ever occur to you that part of the reason you get wide coverage is because you look like idiots – and oogling a bunch of teabag-festooned jerks will draw a TV audience anxious to guffaw at the end of a workday? Most Americans don’t want their allotted fifteen minutes of fame to be a YouTube video showing them wearing a few dozen teabags on their hat, or Size 6 American-flag stretch-pants trying to contain a Size 18 ass.
You can’t spell, punctuate, or put together a coherent sentence on your protest placards. Ignorance of proper English is not the problem here; the problem is the fact that you take pride in such ignorance, and castigate those who can grasp the language for being snobbish “elitists”. Most Americans don’t want to be seen as stupid – much fewer of them want to be seen as wallowing in stupidity as though it were a badge of honor.
You are bigots and homophobes, and your words and actions prove it on a daily basis. Most Americans (I know this comes as a shock, so steady yourselves) are NOT.
You rail against the intrusion of government into the everyday lives of citizens. And yet when Arizona recently passed a law that encourages the enforcement thereof to be predicated on intrusion into the lives of citizens – by insisting they be able to “prove” their citizenship at any given moment, in even the most casual of circumstances – you were nowhere to be found. Most Americans against government over-reaching DON’T mean “unless your skin color is darker than mine, in which case you are to be considered ‘less American’ than the next guy.”
You are obsessed with the message that you are being over-taxed – despite the fact that your taxes have been lowered under the Obama administration. Most Americans choose to inform themselves before decrying a situation which doesn’t even exist.
And last, but certainly not least – on top of your abject stupidity, your ignorance of how the government works and what it funds, your propensity to argue “facts” not in evidence, and your inability to speak/think coherently – you don’t even have the intellectual wherewithal to discern the difference between participating in a “grassroots movement” and being played by those with a political agenda that is diametrically opposed to your own best interests.
Despite what may sometimes appear to be the case, most Americans just aren’t as dumb as you are.
I hope that clears things up.
So I thought I’d end the befuddlement, and spell it out for them.
You chose the name Teabaggers. After the hilarity ensued, you finally figured out what the term meant. Instead of simply changing your moniker and moving on, you blamed the left-wing media (as though such a thing existed) for having coined the phrase in an attempt to embarrass you. Ergo, you are liars – and the vast majority of Americans do not wish to be associated with liars.
You gather together and rant incessantly about government spending currently being out of control. You were silent when the previous administration squandered the surplus they’d inherited, plundered the treasury, and ran up the nation’s debt to unprecedented heights. Most Americans recognize that closing the barn door after the horse is long gone is, to put it bluntly, an exercise in insanity, as well as futility.
You are adamant about the government keeping “their hands off” programs, like Medicare, that have always been government-run. Most Americans know the difference between programs that are run by the government and those that aren’t. Your position gives them the impression that you don’t know what the f*ck you’re whining about – and they’re right in their assessment.
You look ridiculous – no, really, you just do. You show up at your poorly-attended events dressed like idiots, and believe in your own self-importance because the mainstream media covers your gatherings. Did it ever occur to you that part of the reason you get wide coverage is because you look like idiots – and oogling a bunch of teabag-festooned jerks will draw a TV audience anxious to guffaw at the end of a workday? Most Americans don’t want their allotted fifteen minutes of fame to be a YouTube video showing them wearing a few dozen teabags on their hat, or Size 6 American-flag stretch-pants trying to contain a Size 18 ass.
You can’t spell, punctuate, or put together a coherent sentence on your protest placards. Ignorance of proper English is not the problem here; the problem is the fact that you take pride in such ignorance, and castigate those who can grasp the language for being snobbish “elitists”. Most Americans don’t want to be seen as stupid – much fewer of them want to be seen as wallowing in stupidity as though it were a badge of honor.
You are bigots and homophobes, and your words and actions prove it on a daily basis. Most Americans (I know this comes as a shock, so steady yourselves) are NOT.
You rail against the intrusion of government into the everyday lives of citizens. And yet when Arizona recently passed a law that encourages the enforcement thereof to be predicated on intrusion into the lives of citizens – by insisting they be able to “prove” their citizenship at any given moment, in even the most casual of circumstances – you were nowhere to be found. Most Americans against government over-reaching DON’T mean “unless your skin color is darker than mine, in which case you are to be considered ‘less American’ than the next guy.”
You are obsessed with the message that you are being over-taxed – despite the fact that your taxes have been lowered under the Obama administration. Most Americans choose to inform themselves before decrying a situation which doesn’t even exist.
And last, but certainly not least – on top of your abject stupidity, your ignorance of how the government works and what it funds, your propensity to argue “facts” not in evidence, and your inability to speak/think coherently – you don’t even have the intellectual wherewithal to discern the difference between participating in a “grassroots movement” and being played by those with a political agenda that is diametrically opposed to your own best interests.
Despite what may sometimes appear to be the case, most Americans just aren’t as dumb as you are.
I hope that clears things up.
TEAR DOWN THIS WAR!
Many of us progressives now in our 60s and 70s spent years of our young lives in "The Sixties" trying to stop the U.S. war in Vietnam. Many in this cohort were beaten, jailed, lost jobs, suffered discrimination. We were, after all, considered "unpatriotic" and "traitors" by government leaders and their rightwing supporters.
We didn't end the war on our own, of course, much as we would have liked to believe that. Mainly, it was the Vietnamese themselves who were responsible for that outcome as they battled U.S. forces to a quagmire standoff and then took over the country when the massively unpopular South Vietnamese government collapsed.
But our anti-war activism was at least partially responsible for altering the-government-knows-better-than-you-do attitude of our parents' generation. Our "Movement" also helped educate the new generation as to the truth of what was happening in Southeast Asia and in the rest of the world as U.S. forces, representing the corporatism at the heart of Western society, supplanted the old European colonialists in Vietnam and elsewhere.
Whenever I speak about those anti-Vietnam War days -- as I began to do again after the illegal, immoral war was launched against Iraq in 2003 -- I surprise myself by how emotional I still am about the tumultuous "Sixties." ( www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/past-prese... ) Its impact is strong. The past truly is never past, and isn't even the past. In talking about the war and the mass-movement opposition to it in "The Sixties" (in my reckoning, from the civil rights era of the late-'50s/'60s roughly to the mid-'70s), long-buried feelings leap out.
>THE CIVIL WAR IN THE SIXTIES
I revisited my old anti-war haunts in the Pacific Northwest some years ago and found my body trembling as those old sense-memories washed over me. Another time, after seeing the movie "Born on the Fourth of July," I was trying to explain to my teenage son about why so many of us had been so engaged trying to get the war stopped -- and I was barely able to talk coherently, I was sobbing so much.
That was such a painful period in my life (also a gloriously liberating time as well, of course) and in the lives of so many others in this country. Not to mention how the war affected the Vietnamese, who may have lost close to two million loved ones in that conflict. (The irony: Today, we have good trade relations with communist Vietnam.)
The U.S. was nearly torn in two by the Vietnam War and the opposition to it. It was a kind of cultural/political civil war, aided to a large degree by the presence of the military draft. That civil war was ugly and painful, affecting nearly everyone in the country. It's difficult to describe, for those who weren't there, the chaotic and often bloody nature of the politics of that day.
HAVE TO FIGHT THE SAME FIGHT AGAIN?
And here we are again, with two more wars inherited from the CheneyBush Administration but willingly adopted by the new administration. In Iraq, Obama promises to withdraw U.S. combat forces by next year, but, significantly, hedges with if "the situation on the ground" permits. In Afghanistan, the U.S. has doubled-down on a war that cannot be won (it's estimated there are 200,000 U.S. troops there now).
It seems that the only thing American governments learn from history is that they don't learn from history.
In Iraq, Obama has begun re-positioning U.S. forces away from the urban battlegrounds in preparation for the promised pre-2012-election troop withdrawals. The U.S. situation in Afghanistan more and more resembles the history of America in Vietnam four decades before.
THE PARALLELS THEN & NOW
The parallels between Afghanistan and 'Nam are not exact, of course, but the main points are remarkably similar:
* In Vietnam, the U.S. was fighting a native insurgency that it barely understood. In Afghanistan, the U.S. is fighting a native insurgency -- laced with arcane political, clan and familial complexities -- that it barely understands. (Need it be stated? The U.S. has precious few who speak the local languages; indeed, because they are gay, it fired a whole passel of intelligence agent in Iraq/Afghanistan/D.C. who did speak the languages.)
* In Vietnam, the U.S. had taken over from the colonial French, who were being defeated by the native insurgency led by Ho Chi Minh. In Afghanistan, the native insurgency had battled earlier British colonial control and later the Soviets. Both were forced to depart their stalemated wars, unable to afford the political and financial costs.
* In South Vietnam, the local government propped up by the Americans was venal, corrupt, brutal, well-versed in the arts of torture. A succession of military regimes came and went, and none of them earned the respect or support of the civilian population. In Afghanistan, we are propping up a venal, corrupt government that barely controls its capital, with many of the provincial governments run by drug lords (one of them the brother of the president) and warlords; this time, it's the U.S. that is often the torturer.
* In Vietnam, the U.S. administrations' experts warned all the presidents over the years ( www.crisispapers.org/essays/ellsberg.htm ) that it could not win that war. Despite overwhelming firepower and technological supremacy, the best that could be hoped for in this type of guerrilla conflict, these experts noted, was endless stalemate: a prohibitively costly quagmire. The various Presidents "stayed the course" anyway, and paid the price: The U.S. had to retreat from Vietnam in disarray, and is similarly likely to have to leave Afghanistan with nothing that can be called a "victory." Even President Obama has publicly acknowledged the likely military stalemate in that nation, a country that in no way can be considered a vital national interest to the United States.
(Remember Bush's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, saying U.S. forces couldn't find anything in Afghanistan worth bombing?)
STICKING WITH CORRUPT LEADERS
U.S. policy in Afghanistan rests upon the continued strong presence of President Hamid Karzai. True, his most recent election was a corrupt electoral farce, but he's Our (Made) Man in Kabul and Obama will stick with him -- until the U.S. realizes it must cut him loose and push him under the bus. Much as the U.S. did to President Diem and subsequent Vietnamese rulers during that war.
One is left wondering why the new U.S. president didn't announce a staged withdrawal from Afghanistan after hearing from all his experts. Obama doesn't believe the neo-conservative B.S. that victory is possible in this war, so why keep sending in more and more troops to fight it? Is he trying to strengthen his "national-security" creds by going all macho, thus giving the rightwing little opening to attack him as a weak-kneed commander-in-chief? Is he saving the withdrawal speech until after the 2012 election? Is he a true believer in, and supporter of, the military-industrial complex that pulls the strings in Washington -- the same movers and shakers who might financially support his re-election campaign? Is he trying to wipe out the Taliban before the U.S. pulls out?
Certainly, not much good news is coming out of Afghanistan. Taliban leaders are killed, and the Taliban grows more leaders, gains new recruits. A recent poll of Pashtun areas revealed that 80% of these men are angry, a doubling of this response from one year ago, and only 9% are angry at the Taliban. Guess where their anger is directed: yep, the U.S./NATO occupiers. (By the way, you probably haven't read about this in the mainstream press, but there are reports that the Times Square bomber says his anger about Predator drone attacks in his native Pakistan, killing so many innocent civilians, is what led him to make his car-bomb. In other words: U.S. policy, not "hating our freedoms.")
Everyone, seemingly including President Obama, knows how this Afghanistan misadventure will turn out. Either the U.S. will leave voluntarily soon, on its own staged-withdrawal schedule, or America will be forced to retreat from Afghanistan later, like the Brits and Soviets did (and as the U.S. did from 'Nam), as yet another major world power forced to admit it could not tame the poor, downtrodden fighters in this destitute South Asian country .
CUT LOSSES, GET OUT A.S.A.P.
Let's do the tallying: This is an unwinnable war. There is no vital U.S. national interest there. America continues to alienate Muslims all over the world by our occupation of, and brutal behavior in, yet another Islamic country. The U.S. is proving to be a top recruiter for the Taliban and Al Qaida by our policy. The U.S. is propping up provincial regimes in Afghanistan that are dependent on drug-trafficking. America time and time again winds up slaughtering innocent men and women and children in Afghanistan -- how many slaughtered wedding parties does the U.S. need to have on its resume? -- thus losing the battle for "hearts and minds" on the ground. We need the billions this war is costing us at home.
And, perhaps most important domestically, the U.S. is losing its sense of itself as a moral country. Much as we would like to believe so, we are not seen as, and we are not in fact, the good guys here. It's well past time for President Obama to realize that he made a bad mistake, and exit as quickly as practicable.
Would the U.S. look bad? Yeah, for a few minutes. Unless the policy changes, imagine what America will look like years from now after many thousands more U.S. troops and Afghan civilians are killed and maimed before our country comes to its senses and gets the hell out of there.
Just get out. Now.#
Copyright 2010 by Bernard Weiner.--BW
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Monday, May 10, 2010
Patriotism Is Alive And Well
For the last 330 Wednesdays, a group of elderly women (and a couple of elderly men) have met on 5th Avenue to protest the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The demonstrations began Jan. 14, 2004 and are still going strong.
On a gorgeous afternoon, the avenue was crowded. Most people walked by briskly without giving the protesters a glance. One or two slowed down long enough to call the demonstration misguided. But more than a few expressed approval. A young woman went down the line telling each protester, “I really appreciate what you’re doing.” Another woman, Anna Ungaro, was in town from Jersey City and had free time before an appointment. She joined the group.
Tourists stopped to take pictures, as if the grannies were just one more New York attraction. Ms. Heinz could have lived without that. “It’s hard to have people pat you on the head,” she said. “We get people saying we’re cute. This isn’t about being cute.”Damn straight. Some of these people can barely stand, yet they’ve been showing up in the same spot for six years. When was the last time you saw a group of young people working this hard — being this patiently persistent — about peace? Then again, when was the last time you heard a 23-year-old say, “I don’t want to say at the end of my life that I didn’t stand up for peace and justice.”?
Here’s to hoping activism doesn’t skip a generation.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
republicans Are A Joke
It would almost seem appropriate to label this the week the GOP jumped the shark – and I say “almost”, because as things are unfolding, every week is now jump-the-shark week where our friends are concerned.
I wonder if they realize how difficult it is to reach across the aisle, when the aisle is continually littered with people rolling in it, doubled-over with laughter.
With so much you’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me eye-rolling going on among the saner among us, it’s hard to imagine that our dumber-than-dumb GOP counterparts were once in control of a nation – unless, of course, you look at the state of the nation, and realize that we are where we are due to that not-so-long-ago fact.
Hmmm, where to begin …
Well, when in doubt, I always like to start with the topic of Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Republican Christian Values, a subject that never seems to go out of style – or run out of suitable material.
This week’s contestant (Come on down!) is Straighter-Than-Thee, Thou, or Anyone Else George Rekker, co-founder of the Family Research Council, anti-gay spokesman, and self-appointed saviour of those who require savin’ from the evils of the homosexual lifestyle. Since being caught by witnesses, and in photos, returning from a ten-day European jaunt with a “traveling companion” he found on the Rentboy website, Mr. Rekker’s story has changed more times than the Bible has been rewritten.
Honestly, I can understand Mr. Rekker’s confusion. I’m sure that millions of vacationers who require someone to “haul their luggage” wind up on websites that advertise the smoothness of their eager-to-please luggage-haulers’ asses, not to mention their cut/uncut status. It’s a dangerous world out there – and one wouldn’t want to be stuck in Europe for ten days with someone who didn’t fit the bill, so to speak.
Then there’s Karl Rove’s latest remarks about the GOP comin’ back – and comin’ back strong! Yeah, a ha, whatever.
It’s all pretty much in-the-bag now. All the GOP has to do to win big in November is (a) raise money from the middle-class who are holding on to every dime (because the Republicans have told them their taxes have gone UP, and will go up even more under Obama), (b) convince the saner elements of the heretofore party loyalists that they have better “go slow, start over” healthcare reform ideas that they simply forgot to implement during their years in power, (c) explain how you can barter your way to bypass surgery even if you don’t raise chickens in your backyard, (d) can safely place the nation in the hands of intelligent, well-informed people with names like Palin, Bachman, and BUSH (oh my!), (e) get all of those illegal-looking Hispanic voters on board, and the appropriately designated (f-as-in fuck) admonishment to look to the political leanings of good Christian leaders, who have championed right-wing causes for years as shining examples of Republican moral standards - which clearly set them apart from homosexual predators who peruse websites like Rentboy when in need of a traveling companion who will “haul luggage”, undoubtedly with Christ in their hearts.
If one is looking for the jump-the-sharkiest move in a jump-the-shark week, one need only know that Michael Brown has now been repeatedly tapped to opine on Obama’s handling of the current oil spill disaster in the Gulf. FOX-News defended their choice of Heckjovajob as the appropriate spokesperson on the topic because he knows whereof he speaks when it comes to disaster response being FUBAR. Well, no argument there – Brownie’s your guy. Just wonderin’ how his reminding the nation of how fucked up things can become when a Republican so-called president appoints a know-nothing/do-nothing idiot to head a vital organization like FEMA is going to help with that aforementioned GOTV initiative Rove is so confident about – but hey, what do I know?
Then there’s Joe “The Ho” Lieberman – and anyone who buys that not a Republican, but an Independent label isn’t reading this; they’re too busy trying to figure out why they haven’t received their fifteen million dollars from that nice man in Algeria who contacted them via email, or how they can move the Brooklyn Bridge – which they bought outright, fair-and-square – to their trailer park.
Joe-Ho is advocating the Terrorist Expatriation Act (TEA), which would amend current law to allow the State Department to revoke the citizenship of Americans they deem to be members of foreign terrorist organizations.
We all know Joe – we went to high school with him, or his counterpart. He was the guy who decided that “here come da judge” was the sure-fire phrase of the moment years after Laugh In went off the air – in the same way Joe has decided that the Teabagger movement is the wave of the future and he’s goin’ to catch it before it fades into obscurity – or weeks after it already has, whichever comes last.
Of course, no shark-jumpery would be complete without another boneheaded statement from JohnBoehner Bonehead himself, who recently opined that the Times Square wannabe bomber incident showed that “we got lucky, but luck is not an effective strategy for fighting terrorism.”
He’s so right. Too bad we didn’t “get lucky” when Dubya was in office pre-911. Had he heeded the warnings of the intelligence people around him about “increased chatter”, or the wording of the August 2001 briefing (obscurely entitled with something about Bin Laden being determined to strike in the US), who knows how “lucky” we would have been?
From the You Can’t Make This Shit Up desk here at one of the many Stuff You’ll Never Hear About On MSM News Broadcasts websites, I am over – but never out.
.
.
.
.
I wonder if they realize how difficult it is to reach across the aisle, when the aisle is continually littered with people rolling in it, doubled-over with laughter.
With so much you’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me eye-rolling going on among the saner among us, it’s hard to imagine that our dumber-than-dumb GOP counterparts were once in control of a nation – unless, of course, you look at the state of the nation, and realize that we are where we are due to that not-so-long-ago fact.
Hmmm, where to begin …
Well, when in doubt, I always like to start with the topic of Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Republican Christian Values, a subject that never seems to go out of style – or run out of suitable material.
This week’s contestant (Come on down!) is Straighter-Than-Thee, Thou, or Anyone Else George Rekker, co-founder of the Family Research Council, anti-gay spokesman, and self-appointed saviour of those who require savin’ from the evils of the homosexual lifestyle. Since being caught by witnesses, and in photos, returning from a ten-day European jaunt with a “traveling companion” he found on the Rentboy website, Mr. Rekker’s story has changed more times than the Bible has been rewritten.
Honestly, I can understand Mr. Rekker’s confusion. I’m sure that millions of vacationers who require someone to “haul their luggage” wind up on websites that advertise the smoothness of their eager-to-please luggage-haulers’ asses, not to mention their cut/uncut status. It’s a dangerous world out there – and one wouldn’t want to be stuck in Europe for ten days with someone who didn’t fit the bill, so to speak.
Then there’s Karl Rove’s latest remarks about the GOP comin’ back – and comin’ back strong! Yeah, a ha, whatever.
It’s all pretty much in-the-bag now. All the GOP has to do to win big in November is (a) raise money from the middle-class who are holding on to every dime (because the Republicans have told them their taxes have gone UP, and will go up even more under Obama), (b) convince the saner elements of the heretofore party loyalists that they have better “go slow, start over” healthcare reform ideas that they simply forgot to implement during their years in power, (c) explain how you can barter your way to bypass surgery even if you don’t raise chickens in your backyard, (d) can safely place the nation in the hands of intelligent, well-informed people with names like Palin, Bachman, and BUSH (oh my!), (e) get all of those illegal-looking Hispanic voters on board, and the appropriately designated (f-as-in fuck) admonishment to look to the political leanings of good Christian leaders, who have championed right-wing causes for years as shining examples of Republican moral standards - which clearly set them apart from homosexual predators who peruse websites like Rentboy when in need of a traveling companion who will “haul luggage”, undoubtedly with Christ in their hearts.
If one is looking for the jump-the-sharkiest move in a jump-the-shark week, one need only know that Michael Brown has now been repeatedly tapped to opine on Obama’s handling of the current oil spill disaster in the Gulf. FOX-News defended their choice of Heckjovajob as the appropriate spokesperson on the topic because he knows whereof he speaks when it comes to disaster response being FUBAR. Well, no argument there – Brownie’s your guy. Just wonderin’ how his reminding the nation of how fucked up things can become when a Republican so-called president appoints a know-nothing/do-nothing idiot to head a vital organization like FEMA is going to help with that aforementioned GOTV initiative Rove is so confident about – but hey, what do I know?
Then there’s Joe “The Ho” Lieberman – and anyone who buys that not a Republican, but an Independent label isn’t reading this; they’re too busy trying to figure out why they haven’t received their fifteen million dollars from that nice man in Algeria who contacted them via email, or how they can move the Brooklyn Bridge – which they bought outright, fair-and-square – to their trailer park.
Joe-Ho is advocating the Terrorist Expatriation Act (TEA), which would amend current law to allow the State Department to revoke the citizenship of Americans they deem to be members of foreign terrorist organizations.
We all know Joe – we went to high school with him, or his counterpart. He was the guy who decided that “here come da judge” was the sure-fire phrase of the moment years after Laugh In went off the air – in the same way Joe has decided that the Teabagger movement is the wave of the future and he’s goin’ to catch it before it fades into obscurity – or weeks after it already has, whichever comes last.
Of course, no shark-jumpery would be complete without another boneheaded statement from John
He’s so right. Too bad we didn’t “get lucky” when Dubya was in office pre-911. Had he heeded the warnings of the intelligence people around him about “increased chatter”, or the wording of the August 2001 briefing (obscurely entitled with something about Bin Laden being determined to strike in the US), who knows how “lucky” we would have been?
From the You Can’t Make This Shit Up desk here at one of the many Stuff You’ll Never Hear About On MSM News Broadcasts websites, I am over – but never out.
.
.
.
.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Who's Interested?
... in The Vast Wasteland of MSM News
I am interested in hearing about the events of the day. I am not interested in the opinions of those who read accounts of those events off a teleprompter, as though doing so somehow qualifies them to speak with authority on any issue. In fact, as has been proven time and again, these people usually know absolutely nothing about those topics on which they somehow feel compelled to opine.
I am interested in facts. I am not interested in a version of the facts, a selection of the facts, nor anyone’s interpretation of the facts, any more than I am interested in hearing some of the facts while others are edited, skewed, or omitted in their entirety as is convenient.
I am interested in hearing facts that have been vetted and verified before they are stated as facts. I am not interested in hearing outright lies being stated by anyone, especially an elected representative, while a bobble-headed “news person” sits there idly, unwilling or unable to challenge the veracity of what is being presented as the truth.
I am interested in knowing the sources behind purported facts, and the reliability thereof. I am not interested in knowing what some people, those in a position to know, someone close to the situation, or an unconfirmed source have been allegedly heard to have anonymously stated.
There are certain things in which I will never have any interest, under any circumstances whatsoever. These include (but are not limited to) Dick Cheney’s assessment of Obama’s policies, Michael Brown’s evaluation of Obama’s handling of the current BP oil spill disaster, or Sarah Palins’s opinion about anything.
As a qualification of the aforementioned, I would only be interested in what those people have to say should they decide to take responsibility for their lies, deceit, hypocrisy, and constant dissemination of misinformation, or to apologize for their crimes against humanity and their country. As for some people still being discussed incessantly by the current crop of newscasters, my only interest in hearing about them would be in the form of an obituary notice.
I am interested in the people who actually contribute to the direction of my country, and the shaping of world events. I am not interested in people whose fifteen minutes of fame were exhausted months, or even years ago – and whose only current claim to fame is the fact that the mainstream media continues to give them airtime as though they are somehow relevant.
I am interested in the accurate coverage of events reflective of the thoughts and attitudes of my fellow Americans, as well as my global neighbors, to whit: I am interested in knowing that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide protested the invasion of Iraq; I am not interested in knowing that three dozen people showed up for a Teabagger event.
Further to that idea, I am interested in real news about real events. I am not interested in events that are initiated by those who are supposed to be reporting the news, not creating it.
There was a time when I was interested in what those on “the other side of the aisle” had to say about the party in power. However, being as it’s the same side of the aisle who gets the lion’s share of the airtime, regardless of who is in power, such interest has become pointless.
For these reasons, I no longer watch the “news” as it is presented (distorted) by journalists (teleprompter readers), sold as a commodity that requires tweaking to satisfy corporate owners/sponsors, jazzed-up with sci-fi-inspired graphics, and packaged for consumers like a reality show – that somehow lacks the component of actual reality.
I am interested in hearing about the events of the day. I am not interested in the opinions of those who read accounts of those events off a teleprompter, as though doing so somehow qualifies them to speak with authority on any issue. In fact, as has been proven time and again, these people usually know absolutely nothing about those topics on which they somehow feel compelled to opine.
I am interested in facts. I am not interested in a version of the facts, a selection of the facts, nor anyone’s interpretation of the facts, any more than I am interested in hearing some of the facts while others are edited, skewed, or omitted in their entirety as is convenient.
I am interested in hearing facts that have been vetted and verified before they are stated as facts. I am not interested in hearing outright lies being stated by anyone, especially an elected representative, while a bobble-headed “news person” sits there idly, unwilling or unable to challenge the veracity of what is being presented as the truth.
I am interested in knowing the sources behind purported facts, and the reliability thereof. I am not interested in knowing what some people, those in a position to know, someone close to the situation, or an unconfirmed source have been allegedly heard to have anonymously stated.
There are certain things in which I will never have any interest, under any circumstances whatsoever. These include (but are not limited to) Dick Cheney’s assessment of Obama’s policies, Michael Brown’s evaluation of Obama’s handling of the current BP oil spill disaster, or Sarah Palins’s opinion about anything.
As a qualification of the aforementioned, I would only be interested in what those people have to say should they decide to take responsibility for their lies, deceit, hypocrisy, and constant dissemination of misinformation, or to apologize for their crimes against humanity and their country. As for some people still being discussed incessantly by the current crop of newscasters, my only interest in hearing about them would be in the form of an obituary notice.
I am interested in the people who actually contribute to the direction of my country, and the shaping of world events. I am not interested in people whose fifteen minutes of fame were exhausted months, or even years ago – and whose only current claim to fame is the fact that the mainstream media continues to give them airtime as though they are somehow relevant.
I am interested in the accurate coverage of events reflective of the thoughts and attitudes of my fellow Americans, as well as my global neighbors, to whit: I am interested in knowing that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide protested the invasion of Iraq; I am not interested in knowing that three dozen people showed up for a Teabagger event.
Further to that idea, I am interested in real news about real events. I am not interested in events that are initiated by those who are supposed to be reporting the news, not creating it.
There was a time when I was interested in what those on “the other side of the aisle” had to say about the party in power. However, being as it’s the same side of the aisle who gets the lion’s share of the airtime, regardless of who is in power, such interest has become pointless.
For these reasons, I no longer watch the “news” as it is presented (distorted) by journalists (teleprompter readers), sold as a commodity that requires tweaking to satisfy corporate owners/sponsors, jazzed-up with sci-fi-inspired graphics, and packaged for consumers like a reality show – that somehow lacks the component of actual reality.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Desperate republicans
We’ve been treated to it all week by the news media, folks – a never-ending attempt to label the BP oil spill disaster as Obama’s Katrina. And I’ve got to give the right-wingnuts credit where it’s due: they have been relentless on the topic.
Never before have so many “newscasters” twisted themselves into a pretzel in order to compare a natural disaster (a hurricane, the probable impact of which was forewarned) to the spewing of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico – due not to nature, but the greed of British Petroleum (which greed, I grant you, has come to be accepted as “natural” in and of itself) in not putting safety measures in place that would have mitigated the damage now being caused.
But that’s a pretzel that won’t choke this president – because the idea is so patently ridiculous, it is downright laughable. And the alleged journalists who are promoting this meme are looking more and more like a game of "Twister" gone terribly awry.
While Katrina and its aftermath will go down in history as proof positive of George W. Bush’s unprecedented failure as a leader (and unprecendentin’ is hard work, heh, heh), it is former FEMA head Michael Brown, a.k.a Blunder-Puss who will be remembered as the face of a tragedy that left a city in ruins, its inhabitants devastated, and many of its citizens dead.
So what better way to try and connect one event with the other than for Neil Cavuto (FAUX-News) to have Michael “Heck of a Job, Brownie” guest on his show the other night – in an A-for-Effort attempt to get his brain-dead audience to think to themselves, “Yeah, he’s rite – the too eventz are egsactly the same.” (I suspect Cavuto’s fans think in mis-spellings because – well, why wouldn’t they?)
And this is where the hilarity begins.
Prompted by Cavuto asking him where he sees the similarities between Katrina and the oil spill disaster, Brown states: “First of all, you have a disaster occur, and the Coast Guard shows up immediately. That’s their job. In Katrina, FEMA showed up immediately. The president is off in San Diego strumming the guitar. Obama is back East going to the White House Correspondents Dinner. You’re now nine days into the storm — into the disaster, and actually now, only now is the president appearing to be engaged.”
The fact is that Obama didn’t appear to be engaged; he has been engaged from day one. I suppose that kind of presidentin’ is so foreign to Brownie, he can’t wrap his head around the concept.
Of course, we all know that Brownie and his ilk firmly believe that Obama should have been in the gulf from the outset, armed with a mop and pail, shufflin’ and cleanin’ up the mess made by someone else, ‘cause that’s what his kind of people do, right? That’s their job.
“You’re nine days into the storm – into the disaster …” Looks like Brownie’s Freudian slip is showing beneath his too-little-too-late “FEMA showed up” skirt.
Yes, Mikey, we all remember how you, as head of FEMA, “showed up”.
Two days after Katrina hit, Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA employee in NOLA, told Brown that "the situation is past critical", citing a litany of on-the-ground problems – including the fact that many people were near death, and food and water were running out at the Superdome.
Brown's response, in its entirety, was: “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?” .
Nope. Nuthin’ at all, Mikey – or maybe you could use the down time to “correct” your on-line FEMA resume – you know, the part where you claimed to have worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 overseeing the emergency services division. According to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, you were an assistant to the city manager from 1977 to 1980, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern,” said Deakins. So much for truth in Mikey Brown advertising.
But Cavuto soldiers on: “So, Michael, you don’t take him (Obama) at face value when he says a temporary halt in offshore drilling is just that, a temporary halt?”
Well, given an opening like that, you’ve got to know Mikey is going to put his foot in his Mississippi mud-like mouth: “No, no. Look, Bill Nelson — and, you know, they don’t say these things without it being coordinated. And so now you’re looking at this oil slick approaching, you know, the Louisiana shore, according to certain — NOAA and other places, if the winds are right, it will go up the East Coast. This is exactly what they want, because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, ‘I’m going to shut it down because it’s too dangerous …’”
So this is exactly what “they” want, is it? Oh, Mikey, you really should think before you speak – or, more to the point, you should let someone else think for you, being as you are so bad at it.
You, Michael Fuck-it-up Brown, are telling the American people, on a nationally-televised pretend-news outlet, that the President, his staff and supporters “want” the worst case scenario to unfold for political purposes? And that purpose is to heed the warnings of environmentalists who “want” to save the planet (which our nation is situated upon, in case you haven’t noticed), and “want” to see to it that regulations (ooops – naughty word in your world) are not only put in place, but are enforced so that this type of “accident” doesn’t happen again?
Jesus Hussein Christ, Brownie – we always knew you were a dimwit; you didn’t have to spell it out for us.
As for the statement that “they don’t say these things without it being coordinated”, I couldn’t agree with you more. We all know who “they” are – and we’re seeing, ad nauseaum, the way they’re “co-ordinating” their tiresome little talking point that Katrina and the present situation are exactly alike.
Cavuto: “But leaving aside what our future exploration plans are, he said early on he relied on reports coming out of BP, remember, when all those guys were injured and eleven went missing, that BP said that it had it relatively contained, and that those were the early reports he relied on. How is that different than the argument your former boss made that local authorities on the ground felt that, ahead of the disaster, things were relatively contained?”
Brown: “Here’s what is different, because we were actually on the ground also. We knew what was going on and how bad it was and kept reaching back to the White House, saying, we need these things. We need X, Y, and Z.”
Yeppurs, Brownie, we all saw you on the ground, “knowing” how bad it was and what was needed. Guess someone should have explained to you how to “tweak” things so that lives weren’t lost. Guess someone shouldn’t have appointed a dipshit who had spent the previous decade as the stewards and judges commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association as the head of FEMA in the first place.
But, hey, that’s all water under the bridge now – or water over the heads of those who drowned as a result of your amazing ineptitude.
I don’t know what enticement Blunder-Puss was offered to appear in public and berate the current President – but whatever it was, it will undoubtedly prove to be small compensation for proving himself to be even more of a self-absorbed idiot than we’ve already come to know and loathe.
Perhaps Dick Cheney has invited Heckofajob to join him at his undisclosed location, where he can kick himself in the ass for having reminded the public that he still exists, as dumb a fuckhead as he ever was - only more so.
Never before have so many “newscasters” twisted themselves into a pretzel in order to compare a natural disaster (a hurricane, the probable impact of which was forewarned) to the spewing of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico – due not to nature, but the greed of British Petroleum (which greed, I grant you, has come to be accepted as “natural” in and of itself) in not putting safety measures in place that would have mitigated the damage now being caused.
But that’s a pretzel that won’t choke this president – because the idea is so patently ridiculous, it is downright laughable. And the alleged journalists who are promoting this meme are looking more and more like a game of "Twister" gone terribly awry.
While Katrina and its aftermath will go down in history as proof positive of George W. Bush’s unprecedented failure as a leader (and unprecendentin’ is hard work, heh, heh), it is former FEMA head Michael Brown, a.k.a Blunder-Puss who will be remembered as the face of a tragedy that left a city in ruins, its inhabitants devastated, and many of its citizens dead.
So what better way to try and connect one event with the other than for Neil Cavuto (FAUX-News) to have Michael “Heck of a Job, Brownie” guest on his show the other night – in an A-for-Effort attempt to get his brain-dead audience to think to themselves, “Yeah, he’s rite – the too eventz are egsactly the same.” (I suspect Cavuto’s fans think in mis-spellings because – well, why wouldn’t they?)
And this is where the hilarity begins.
Prompted by Cavuto asking him where he sees the similarities between Katrina and the oil spill disaster, Brown states: “First of all, you have a disaster occur, and the Coast Guard shows up immediately. That’s their job. In Katrina, FEMA showed up immediately. The president is off in San Diego strumming the guitar. Obama is back East going to the White House Correspondents Dinner. You’re now nine days into the storm — into the disaster, and actually now, only now is the president appearing to be engaged.”
The fact is that Obama didn’t appear to be engaged; he has been engaged from day one. I suppose that kind of presidentin’ is so foreign to Brownie, he can’t wrap his head around the concept.
Of course, we all know that Brownie and his ilk firmly believe that Obama should have been in the gulf from the outset, armed with a mop and pail, shufflin’ and cleanin’ up the mess made by someone else, ‘cause that’s what his kind of people do, right? That’s their job.
“You’re nine days into the storm – into the disaster …” Looks like Brownie’s Freudian slip is showing beneath his too-little-too-late “FEMA showed up” skirt.
Yes, Mikey, we all remember how you, as head of FEMA, “showed up”.
Two days after Katrina hit, Marty Bahamonde, a FEMA employee in NOLA, told Brown that "the situation is past critical", citing a litany of on-the-ground problems – including the fact that many people were near death, and food and water were running out at the Superdome.
Brown's response, in its entirety, was: “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?” .
Nope. Nuthin’ at all, Mikey – or maybe you could use the down time to “correct” your on-line FEMA resume – you know, the part where you claimed to have worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 overseeing the emergency services division. According to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, you were an assistant to the city manager from 1977 to 1980, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern,” said Deakins. So much for truth in Mikey Brown advertising.
But Cavuto soldiers on: “So, Michael, you don’t take him (Obama) at face value when he says a temporary halt in offshore drilling is just that, a temporary halt?”
Well, given an opening like that, you’ve got to know Mikey is going to put his foot in his Mississippi mud-like mouth: “No, no. Look, Bill Nelson — and, you know, they don’t say these things without it being coordinated. And so now you’re looking at this oil slick approaching, you know, the Louisiana shore, according to certain — NOAA and other places, if the winds are right, it will go up the East Coast. This is exactly what they want, because now he can pander to the environmentalists and say, ‘I’m going to shut it down because it’s too dangerous …’”
So this is exactly what “they” want, is it? Oh, Mikey, you really should think before you speak – or, more to the point, you should let someone else think for you, being as you are so bad at it.
You, Michael Fuck-it-up Brown, are telling the American people, on a nationally-televised pretend-news outlet, that the President, his staff and supporters “want” the worst case scenario to unfold for political purposes? And that purpose is to heed the warnings of environmentalists who “want” to save the planet (which our nation is situated upon, in case you haven’t noticed), and “want” to see to it that regulations (ooops – naughty word in your world) are not only put in place, but are enforced so that this type of “accident” doesn’t happen again?
Jesus Hussein Christ, Brownie – we always knew you were a dimwit; you didn’t have to spell it out for us.
As for the statement that “they don’t say these things without it being coordinated”, I couldn’t agree with you more. We all know who “they” are – and we’re seeing, ad nauseaum, the way they’re “co-ordinating” their tiresome little talking point that Katrina and the present situation are exactly alike.
Cavuto: “But leaving aside what our future exploration plans are, he said early on he relied on reports coming out of BP, remember, when all those guys were injured and eleven went missing, that BP said that it had it relatively contained, and that those were the early reports he relied on. How is that different than the argument your former boss made that local authorities on the ground felt that, ahead of the disaster, things were relatively contained?”
Brown: “Here’s what is different, because we were actually on the ground also. We knew what was going on and how bad it was and kept reaching back to the White House, saying, we need these things. We need X, Y, and Z.”
Yeppurs, Brownie, we all saw you on the ground, “knowing” how bad it was and what was needed. Guess someone should have explained to you how to “tweak” things so that lives weren’t lost. Guess someone shouldn’t have appointed a dipshit who had spent the previous decade as the stewards and judges commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association as the head of FEMA in the first place.
But, hey, that’s all water under the bridge now – or water over the heads of those who drowned as a result of your amazing ineptitude.
I don’t know what enticement Blunder-Puss was offered to appear in public and berate the current President – but whatever it was, it will undoubtedly prove to be small compensation for proving himself to be even more of a self-absorbed idiot than we’ve already come to know and loathe.
Perhaps Dick Cheney has invited Heckofajob to join him at his undisclosed location, where he can kick himself in the ass for having reminded the public that he still exists, as dumb a fuckhead as he ever was - only more so.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Remembering Kent State
Today is the 40th anniversary of the anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has the history recap: From Crooks and Liars
On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire into a busy college campus during a school day. A total of 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds. Four students: Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder, and Sandra Scheuer were killed. Nine students were wounded.
Although I was in the first grade on May 4, 1970, I can't forget what happened in Kent, Ohio on that day.
I was there.
Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My father and my mother's father were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my grandfather had retired from the Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was the only math professor on record as opposing the War in Vietnam.
My dad, on the other hand, was in the Art Department. Nuff said.
We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, and confusion.
When I got home, my mother had the front door locked for the first time in my life. "Mommy, what is happening?" "I don't know, dear." Mom not knowing, being visibly scared and shaken. Another first.
But she had our sole black-and-white TV on and Walter Cronkite was talking about Kent. That was exciting to my six-year-old heart. I didn't see the consequences, had no idea what death was, let alone that four college students had been shot to death that day in my hometown. Their only crime was protesting their government's illegal, unilateral invasion of Cambodia.
I know, it's hard to believe a Republican president invaded a far away country based on lies and innuendo. (/snark)
The sad irony of Kent State, and what made it so explosive in terms of the "silent majority" of Americans, was that those Americans who could afford it avoided the military draft and the dangers of Vietnam by enrolling their children full-time in college and graduate school. All four students killed on May 4 were full-time students. If the war was going to kill sons (and daughters!) in OHIO? Many who were not outspoken before May 4, now said it was time to stop the war once and for all.
At my own house, a mile or so from campus, my two younger sisters, both pre-schoolers, were in their pajamas in the middle of the afternoon because my mother thought there might be an evacuation and getting the girls in their pajamas was something she "could do." They were playing making a tent with a blanket and the dining room chairs.
They do not remember that day, because it was just another day to play and make a tent.
I remember a few days later Kent was really, truly, on that proverbial "cover of Newsweek." I said to my dad:
"Daddy, before no one ever heard of Kent. Now no one will ever forget."
The University has posted a calendar of events commemorating the 1970 tragedy, and WKSU has a remembrance website.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
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