Tuesday, September 30, 2008

To Be Governed By Those Who Hold Government in Contempt

The people who have been running our government for the past eight years have nothing but contempt for government. They believe only in politics and ideology, in that order. First, win elections by any means necessary. Second, once in a position to act in the public good, govern with the ideological conviction that government is either irrelevant or harmful to the public interest.

You can draw a straight line between firing U.S. attorneys for political reasons and turning a blind eye to the ruinous excesses of Wall Street. What's impartial justice against the possibility of gaining political advantage? Why shackle the hallowed free market with government oversight?

And, if you want to draw the line a little further, who cares if the prospective vice president appears to know nothing about anything? -- Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

From Horses Mouth: The Obama Plan

18 Times - And He's Not Talking About Workers...

Same Data, Two Charts

This boils it down pretty succinctly. Are you a supply-sider like McCain, or a demand-sider like Obama?

Mctax1

 

Mctax2

HT: Chartjunk

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

NYTimes' Bob Herbert on the McCain Healthcare Plan

John McCain’s health plan is a monumental change in the way coverage would be provided to millions of people. Why aren’t we paying more attention?

For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on. “It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money,” said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Ms. Glied is one of the four scholars who have just completed an independent joint study of the plan. Their findings are being published on the Web site of the policy journal, Health Affairs. According to the study: “The McCain plan will force millions of Americans into the weakest segment of the private insurance system — the nongroup market — where cost-sharing is high, covered services are limited and people will lose access to benefits they have now.”

This entire McCain health insurance transformation is right out of the right-wing Republicans’ ideological playbook: fewer regulations; let the market decide; and send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible alone.

You would think that with some of the most venerable houses on Wall Street crumbling like sand castles right before our eyes, we’d be a little wary about spreading this toxic formula even further into the health care system.

But we’re not even paying much attention.

read more | digg story

Monday, September 15, 2008

To My Dear Friends Who Support McCain for President

I know many of my posts related to politics are snarky so you may not be inclined to take this post very seriously. If you don't, it is my own fault.

I've been thinking on and off all day about how to formulate this post and then, in an RSS feed from conservative writer, Andrew Sullivan, I'm directed to an article by Steve Chapman of ReasonOnline who puts it better than I ever could:

Why does McCain insist on running such a mendacious campaign? There is plenty an honest conservative might say in opposition to Obama: He's wrong about Iraq. He's wrong about Iran. He's wrong about offshore oil drilling. He wants to raise taxes. He favors abortion on demand. He would appoint liberal judges. He would impede school reform.

But McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe.

He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul.

You can find the full article here.

A new ad was released today that opens with a clip of the candidate I supported in the 2000 race for President, John McCain. (If that McCain still existed I might have a more difficult time deciding who to support)

John McCain has sold his soul.

Clergy for Obama

We are Clergy for Obama.n39914968144_5577

We believe in Barack Obama’s ability to change this country we love so dearly; more importantly, we believe in our ability to be the change.
We believe in our ability to create a country where:
     all children have nourishing food
     the sick can find affordable healthcare
     our young adults have real opportunities and a future they can trust
     the elderly live securely and in community
     women and men have choices about their private lives
     armed conflict is a last resort, not a substitute for diplomacy
Together we believe in our ability to move this country
     to a politics of hope
     to a deep regard for the life of the planet and care for all creation
     to an investment in programs that work to end poverty
     to equal pay for equal work
We are children of God.
We are citizens of the United States of America.
We believe now is the time for change.
We are Clergy for Obama

http://clergy4obama.wordpress.com/

On Facebook

HT: Preachermom

This is Why They Prefer to Scream About Lipstick

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Quote of the Day

I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.
Bruce Grocott
British politician (1940 - )

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Thursday, September 11, 2008

In the Seventh Year

Roger Cohen of the New York Times in the style of an Old Testament prophet. Here's an excerpt. Do not miss the entire article. (Emphasis is mine.)

And in the seventh year after the fall, the dust and debris of the towers cleared. And it became plain at last what had been wrought.

For the wreckage begat greed; and it came to pass that while America’s young men and women fought, other Americans enriched themselves. Beguiling the innocent, they did backdate options, and they did package toxic mortgage securities and they did reprice risk on the basis that it no more existed than famine in a fertile land.

Thereby did the masters of the universe prosper, with gold, with silver shekels, with land rich in cattle and fowl, with illegal manservants and maids, with jewels and silk, and with Gulfstream V business jets; yet the whole land did not prosper with them. And it came to pass, when the housing bubble burst, that Main Street had to pay for the Wall Street party.

For Bush ruled over the whole nation and so sure was he of his righteousness that he did neglect husbandry.

And he took his nation into desert wars and mountain wars, but, lo, he thought not to impose taxation, not one heifer nor sheep nor ox did Bush demand of the rich. And it came to pass that the nation fell into debt as boundless as the wickedness of Sodom. For everyone, Lehman not least, was maxed out.

So heavy was the burden of war, and of bailing out Fannie and Freddie, and of financing debt with China, that not one silver shekel remained to build bridges, nor airports, nor high-speed trains, nor even to take care of wounded vets; and the warriors returning unto their homes from distant combat thought a blight had fallen on the land.

read more | digg story

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Electing McCain President Will Not Win the Vietnam War

Man of War

Andrew Sullivan points to Jeffrey Goldberg's new article in The Atlantic on John McCain.

Money quotes that make me quake:
Senator Obama, though certainly no pacifist, envisions a world of cooperation and diplomacy; McCain sees a world of organic conflict and zero-sum competition.

I once asked Lindsey Graham to name something unusual about McCain in the context of the debate about Iraq; he said that McCain believes, among other things, that “some political problems have military solutions.” A related McCain belief that’s even more out of sync with America’s current mood: wars are quagmires only until someone figures out a way to win them.

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