Tinfoil makes the real crimes dissipate into the
ether

Why spend time on real problems, when we can ignore actual injustices and fixate on what some dipsh*t tosses out there for profit?[...]

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FX Markets Focus on Irish Debt Problems

Source: Advanced Currency Markets | G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USD EUR -0.01 GBP -0.36 JPY -0.37 CHF -0.54 Markets now clearly focused on Irish and EU bond yields as spread continue to widen this morning. The Nikkei climbed 103 points to 9827.51 after Japan posted positive GDP figures with the YOY growth at . . . → Full Story: FX Markets Focus on Irish Debt Problems

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Plan C: Obama Appoints Hillary V.P., then
Resigns in 2011

Patrick H. Caddell, was a pollster and senior adviser to President Jimmy Carter, while commentator. Douglas E. Schoen, is a pollster who worked for President Bill Clinton.  They say in the Washington Post today,

we believe Obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012.

I agree with them, although I don't agree with much of their reasoning.  I believe that the President should go one step further and make Hillary Clinton his Vice President now, so that she'll have a reasonably good chance of succeeding him in 2012, without an internecine battle for the nomination among Democrats that would deplete us for the General Election.

In  2008, we had a choice between two able US Senators and, through the workings of our Democratic caucuses and primaries, and with the obscene anti-Black rants of Hillary Clinton's surrogates, we ended up all going with Senator Barack Obama.  Now, President Obama has had a try and he's royally bungled it, by putting process over substance and by giving the reigns of our economy to the same Wall Street-oriented apple-cores who first ran the economy aground, including Lawrence H. Summers, now chief economic adviser, who first argued in the Clinton Administration for the deregulation of the derivatives.  That's the walking definition of an apple-core.

I am now confident that Hillary Clinton would have made a much better president.  She'd have fought to her last breath for what she knew was true and good, rather than taking her stands based on the opinions of one or two Republicans in the US Senate who together represent less people than are resident in the state of Massachusetts.  The Clinton's were derided for watching polls of what the American public was thinking.  Obama should be derided more harshly and more substantively for making policy based on what one Republican Senator from Maine thinks.

Hillary might not have achieved national health care by now, in spite of trying like hell, but President Obama hasn't achieved national health care either.  All that he's given us is a supply-side mockery of health care reform wherein the states and the Federal Government will beg and plead and PAY for forty million more Americans to receive health assurances from the same venal scrooges who are denying us health care today.

Rather than try to turn pitbulls into lapdogs through financial rewards, the President should have done exactly what he did with student loans:  he should have nationalized the Federal portion while letting people borrow from whomever they want to, if they don't like the nationalized system.

All we needed for better health care was a bigger budget for the Public Health Service; a broadened mandate and budget for Veteran's Hospitals; Medicaid for All; and mandated data-driven medical care, with the National Institutes for Health at the core of determining the medical care that works based on empirical data, while also determining the medical care that is simply a waste of money and a illusory burden for those with serious health problems, as well as their families.

Instead of a Public Option, we got a public pay-toilet.  We got supply-side, trickle-down health care in which we will be compelled to trust the same assurance companies--that we hate--to provide us with the care we need.

Obama has had some victories, though few of us can remember what they were, with unemployment at an official near-ten percent and home mortgages with default rates that we haven't seen since the Great Depression.  Obama can't be blamed for the economic basket-case he inherited from George W. Bush, but Obama IS responsible for the addle-brained corporate bank-driven solutions with which he has saddled us since he took office.

Since he can't make the economy better by 2012 and he can't get re-elected without doing so, he should put Hillary Clinton in the Vice Presidential spot; exit stage right and let Clinton take the heat as President, with her [and her husband] taking the reigns through the 2012 election.  As much as Hillary insulted Black people in her 2008 nomination race, the slaps in the face we felt then do not compare to the economic meltdown we have subsequently suffered.

And it's not really his fault.  He's just been the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hillary tried to win the presidency without Black votes and she has been punished for it.  Blacks elected President Obama, and we have been punished for it.  It's time to let bygones be bygones and its time for President Obama to appoint Hillary Clinton Vice President and then resign the from the presidency.

Wouldn't that be a cynical plot against Democracy?  Perhaps, but if the voters didn't approve of it then they could make their voices heard in the 2012 elections, which is what will happen in any case.  As it stands, we WILL hear from the voters in 2012 and, if Obama is still President, then even lifelong Democratic Party voters might be chanting "Haley Barbour for President!"  They might be chanting "Sarah Palin for President."   Governor Haley Barbour and Governor Sarah Palin might end up being the George H.W. Bush/Dan Quayle Republican ticket of the 2012 elections, winning only because their opposition is disrespected politically, and economically incompetent.

Hillary for Vice President in 2010!  Hillary for President in 2011!  Re-Elect Hillary in 2012!  At least we know the Clintons "feel our pain."




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Late Night Karaoke

[...]

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The Atlantic Ocean is My Swimming Pool

I had an amazing day at the beach today.  I swam out into the Atlantic as far as I could, and then I swam further out thrice as far.  I spent more time in the ocean than on land, sipping ice cold fresh coconut water through a straw.

One waiter at my favorite beach club called me "Man-Fish" today, which I take as a great compliment.  Today, I feel more at home in the ocean than I do anywhere else except my and my wife's bedroom. I think swimming and drinking copious coconut water instead of eating French Fries may be the ticket out of obesity for me.

I've done a lot of hair-brained things in my life, but moving to Bahia, Brazil is certainly one of the best decisions I have ever made.  The water is warm enough to swim year-round and the barrier reefs at my port keep the waves to a minimum.  This part of the Atlantic ocean is my enormous swimming pool, with no maintenance or membership fees.


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You Get What You Voted For

Yellowdog Granny reminds us what Republicans really want to accomplish.

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Can't Get Any Meaner Than Tx Republicans

Texas Republican legislators have either lost their damn minds or they are the meanest people in this country.   As the chart above shows, Texas is already one of the stingiest states in the Union when it comes to Medicaid.   If a family of three makes about $9,200 a year, they are deemed ineligible for Medicaid insurance because they make too much money.

Now anyone who thinks a family of three can even pay rent and buy groceries for $9,200 a year is crazy, and yet Texas legislators think they should also be able to purchase private insurance with that gigantic salary.   That is embarrassing enough to decent-minded Texans, but now the Republican legislators (and Republican governor Rick Perry) want to drop out of the Medicaid program altogether.

Texas has a budget shortfall of about $25 billion dollars for the next biennium.   They must either raise some taxes or slash that amount out of the Texas budget when they meet next January.   And the Republicans, who control both houses in the Texas legislature, are saying they can save money by dropping out of the federal Medicaid program.

The cost for Medicaid in Texas for 2011 is $24.7 billion dollars.   At least $16.6 billion of that tab is paid by the federal government.   That means the state would have to come up with $8.1 billion dollars to cover it's share of Medicaid.  

The Republican legislators are saying they expect many more people to become eligible for Medicaid in the next few years because of the new health care law and call it an unfunded mandate (one of their favorite terms).   But that's just not true.   While more people will qualify and the federal money will increase by about 39% to cover it, the state portion is expected to only increase by 3% -- a small price to pay to cover many more Texans with health insurance.

The Republican legislators are saying they can develop a state program that would cover those needing Medicaid coverage, and do it cheaper than the current Medicaid program.   To save money they would have to spend less than $8 billion to do what is now being done for over $24 billion (and do it without any federal money).   That would be quite a feat since Medicaid already pays so little that many Texas doctors already refuse to accept Medicaid patients.  

That simply can't be done without kicking millions off the Medicaid rolls.   Texas already has about 26% of its population without health insurance (more than any other state) and dropping out of Medicaid would drastically increase that number.   These people will have no option but to flood the already-crowded hospital emergency rooms for medical treatment.   And that doesn't come without costs.   Hospital districts will have to raise taxes and hospitals will raise costs for other patients.   As much as these legislators want it to be, there just is no free ride with medical care.

This is just a stupid and unworkable idea, and it will probably hurt the Texas economy since nearly $17 billion federal dollars will not be spent in Texas.   As Anne Dunkelberg of the Center for Public Policy Priorities says,   "You can't just pull $17 billion out of our healthcare system and have everything be hunky-dory."

These Republican legislators know they cannot improve health care in Texas by pulling the state out of the Medicaid system.   They are just playing to their teabagger base by thumbing their noses at the federal government, and they're willing to throw millions of poor people under the bus to do it.   That's not good economics.   It's not even conservative economics.   It's just plain old meanness.

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Trust

Political Cartoon is by Tim Eagan at Deep Cover.

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McCain Refuses To Keep His Word - Again

There used to be a time when many people thought Senator John McCain was a politician worthy of respect.   He was not only considered a war hero, but had a reputation as a "maverick" -- somebody who thought for himself regardless of what the party's talking points were.   But that is all in the past.   He has recently shown himself to be a political coward, a liar and unworthy of any respect.

McCain was badly beaten for the presidency in 2008, but I doubt any Republican could have done any better.   America was just sick of the Republicans after 8 years of George Bush.   But McCain has gone downhill since that election.   He has abandoned any pretense of thinking for himself and lurched far to the right to keep his senate seat in this last election (saying he never claimed to be a "maverick").

He also seems to have a real problem in keeping his word these days.   Take for instance his stance on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) -- which is the military policy that says gays/lesbians can serve only if they keep their sexual orientation a secret.   A year or so ago, McCain said he wouldn't support DADT until military officials thought it should be overturned.

Well, last February Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, told McCain they were in favor of discontinuing use of DADT and letting gays/lesbians serve openly.   Instead of keeping his word, McCain just said he would not approve discontinuing DADT until a study was completed by the military on whether and how to discontinue DADT.

That study has now been completed.   It shows that over 70% of all servicemen/women either want DADT to be repealed or don't care whether it's repealed.   In addition, most military leaders still support doing away with DADT.   Once again the requirements McCain had laid down had been met, but once again he also refused to keep his word.   Instead he just set a new requirement.

He now says he wanted a different kind of study than the kind that was done.   He said this study was on how to implement the repeal of DADT, while he had wanted a study of whether it should be repealed.   That's more than a bit disingenuous.   He knew months ago what the military study was about and didn't complain.

The fact is that McCain new position as a teabagger requires him to oppose DADT, and he will never support it regardless of what he has said in the past.   If another study was done, he would not like it either (since most of the military, both officers and enlisted, don't think DADT should be enforced anymore).   McCain is not going to change his mind (or keep his word) about DADT no matter what happens.

It has been uncomfortable watching McCain's downhill journey of the past two years.   He has succeeded in transforming himself from a fairly well-respected independent-thinking senator to a lying and word-breaking right-wing teabagger demagogue.   Maybe he's just getting senile, but he's definitely not the man he once was.

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The Real Torture

Political Cartoon is by Gary Markstein at Copley News Service.

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