This is the time I celebrate my Irish roots from the Kellys and the Thomases. Thanks for taking the risk and coming over here so many years ago. And now a seriously un-PC music video from the band The Tossers that forwards the stereotype that the Irish are drunks – we can be for one day I think.
Even those on the left can be a douche
The other day it was reported that Congressman Dennis Kucinich had said he would vote no on the Senate version of the Health Care Reform bill. It’s the version that more than likely will be passed if a vote is taken. On the MSNBC show “Countdown” the founder of the Daily Kos blog Markos Moulitsas called out Kucinich for his principled stand and even suggested he be challenged in the next election for suggesting the bad Senate bill be killed. One can not like the man, disagree with his views, but don’t be a dick about it. Markos is being a dick about it.
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The attack continued on Moulitsas’ twitter feed calling Kucinich ineffective and his supporters – robots. He asked for one piece of legislation Kucinich had sponsored that passed and when one was pointed out (H.J. 26) Markos dismissed it out of hand.
Then today in his regular posting on Daily Kos he wrote:
No ambiguity — MoveOn members want to pass the bill. We spent the last several months fighting to make it better, and we did. It’s not great, but it’s better. And as Howard Dean wrote yesterday, the fight for better health care reform isn’t over.
Dennis Kucinich may rather make common cause with the GOP and Rush Limbaugh, but sane progressives have to realize that this is a step forward. And once the foot is in the door, tweaks can always be made. But our foot must be in the door, and that’s why the GOP and insurance companies are fighting this with all their might.
He basically is calling anyone who shares Kucinich view on the bill insane including progressives who agree with the congressman – like me.
What is ironic is that as late as December Moulitsas held the same view of the Senate bill and also called for it to be killed.
My take is that it’s unconscionable to force people to buy a product from a private insurer that enjoys sanctioned monopoly status. It’d be like forcing everyone to attend baseball games, but instead of watching the Yankees, they were forced to watch the Kansas City Royals. Or Washington Nationals. It would effectively be a tax — and a huge one — paid directly to a private industry.
Without any mechanisms to control costs, this is yet another bailout for yet another reviled industry. Subsidies? Insurance companies are free to raise their rates to absorb that cash. More money for subsidies? More rate increases, as well as more national debt. Don’t expect Lieberman and his ilk to care. They’re in it for their industry pals.
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Strip out the mandate, and the rest of the bill is palatable.
The mandate is still in the bill and Markos now is towing the party line that the bill has to be passed since it is better for the party than nothing.
Normally I agree 90% with the views of Markos and Daily Kos but the people who gave up on getting a better bill to pass the crap Senate version just so they can claim “victory” leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I understand that Moulitsas personally doesn’t like Dennis Kucinich but he doesn’t need to be a douche about it and let it cloud his public comments about the man especially someone who hasn’t changed their mind all of a sudden like Markos seemed to have done.
Health Care Reform meeting in DC one long infomercial
I watched some of the Health Care Reform meeting held on Thursday February 25th at Blair House in Washington DC. President Obama is trying to move the processes along so something is passed before the November elections. It was also clear that really the Republicans have no intention of voting for the reform.
The Republican’s position was to start over and use all our ideas.
Sounds just like those lawyers from insurance companies that try to deny or delay claims so that people will just give up.
My views on this subject are well known – just search on the tags – so I don’t have much to say about the meeting. One thing I will point out is that CNN decided that their non-elected talking heads were more important than hearing was actually being said in the meeting. The media also decided to make it a game and decide who “won”. What a waste of air.
That’s why I stuck to the live feed from C-SPAN.
CPAC? No thanks, I’m driving
Some kind of convention took place this weekend where a bunch of white men and women complained about the government without using facts and evidence to back up their claims. It was “find a scapegoat” weekend and they found plenty. It all reminded me of the KKK having a convention and sounded like one too. They also failed to admit that their political ideas screwed us all when they were in charge.
Speaking of the straw poll, Ron Paul won it. Seriously. Ron Paul crushed–absolutely crushed–all the other GOP big shots on the list except for Mitt Romney, who took a close second. Romney has a history of doing GOTV on big straw polls, but apparently he didn’t get an operation in gear to best Paul.
Paul’s victory said something about the event, and the type of people who attended it. CPAC was an exposition of ideology and conservative glee, not necessarily political prowess. Ron Paul will probably not be president in 2012; he seems to have no relationship with the tea partiers; he has ceded his conservative stardom to the likes of Sarah Palin.
So it’s questionable how much CPAC has to do with electoral reality–and even the realities of the conservative movement’s preferences.
The plea was made all the more effective by the intertwining of [Glenn] Beck’s own story of struggle and redemption Pointing to his time as a recovering alcoholic, the Fox News host urged the GOP to embark on a 12-step program of recovery. “Hello, my name is the Republican Party, and I got a problem. I’m addicted to spending and big government,” he declared, reading out the apology he wanted lawmakers to deliver. Reflecting on his own lack of formal education, he railed against government handouts – extending the logic to argue against a right to health care.
The crowd was enthralled, even as Beck took them down winding tales of Calvin Coolidge, the Statute of Liberty and the supposed great middle class explosion of the 1920s.
That is what drives me nuts. Whack jobs like Beck and the other speakers will never admit that the previous 8 years, when they had their way under Bush, screwed us all.
They still drink from the Kool-aid that small government and handouts to the rich works and millions of unemployed people with no homes show that it doesn’t.
The GOP in general believe that spending on war is good but spending to help people live is bad.
How fucked up is that?
I need to take a shower now to get the CPAC idiotic bigotry stank off me…
New podcast episode is up
A “short” rant against ignorant views about the poor and crime in Findlay. Why George Will is wrong about everything. What is the actual problem with the elected Democrats in Washington DC. TV show theme quiz is back.