Reminding Liberals How "Phony Soldier" Became Possible

Not to excuse Rish Limbaugh's fat, draft-exemptingly pimpled ass, but let's not forget where he got the "ability" (i.e., the daclaration from another source that this is how we'd deal with input on the war by veterans and military personnel) to say what he has. Before Move On's incompetent "Betray Us" heading on the Patraeus ad they took out, it was unacceptable to personally attack vets and uniformed soldiers. Thanks to Eli Pariser and his fumble, it is now okay with Limbaugh's listeners to attack vets... one step short, in their minds, of what Move On did.

Not to sound like a broken record, or anything, but thanks Move On.

The Perfect Start to October

Tonight, the 1-game playoff to decide the NL Wild Card between the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres was the perfect exclamation point to an incredibly exciting September in Major League Baseball. It was also a superb kickoff to an October that will likely prove to raise interest and, as a result, increase attendance to set another new record in 2008.

The poetry of the game was almost too much to take. The Rockies fielded a team with 6 position players who were brought up in their own farm system, and the Padres had just one. The Padres’ recent play had served only to help the Cubs clinch the NL Central, but was otherwise perfectly-suited for being taken over by an upstart team. The Rockies had won 12 of their last 13, playing like the young and wreckless newbies who just couldn’t be conviced of what they were really involved in.

The Mark Ecko convolution of the Bonds’ ball and its fate, providing the surrealistically “Kato Kalen” punctuation to the end of the steroid era, gives the game its next opportunity to revive itself after scandal. Just as after the Black Sox Scandal, The Great Depression, WWII, and the strikes, the game will need something to correct the errors of those magnates who control the game and turned a blind eye to the steroids when it made them rich (you, too, President Bush).

That opportunity is here. With traditional powers like the Yankees and Red Sox, the “lovable losers” of Chicago, the young upstart Rockies, the walking-wounded Angels, the overachieving Diamondbacks, the Indians whose fans couldn’t see home games at the start of the season because of snow, and the hard-charging Phillies, this post-season is set to be magical. The National Pastime is ready again to be the nation’s favorite game. To quote the conservative George Will, "Football incorporates the two worst elements of American society; violence punctuated by committee meetings.”

And so, as this year’s NFL and college seasons become more and more disappointing (unless you’re a South Florida fan, who shouldn’t get too comfortable in that #6 spot) with unreasonable upsets, accusations of cheating, stars taken down by scandal or suddenly unwilling to get into their familiarly scandalous character (TO), and foreseeable poor play on the part of some key players, the stage is set for baseball to regain its place atop American sports.

So let’s sit back and enjoy the fact that TBS/TNT has taken some of the load off Fox, enabling us to see every game this post-season. Let us cherish the last hints of summer that games in Arizona will give (slight as they’ll be in that air-conditioned can), as we await in fear of the snow and sleet in Boston and Cleveland. Let’s all get into it, whether our teams are in it or not, as the story to be told this fall simply warrants our attention. Let us get reacquainted with the greatest game ever created, not just as fans, but as a nation, that played the game on Civil War fields and gave it back to Japan after our troops arrived.

Our relationship with the game is essential, believe it or not, to our national identity. It’s not possible to be the America of its longest-held values, without being the America that loves and respects its original game. So find a part of this story to identify with, and follow it. It has set up too perfectly to simply let us down, now. The next baseball renaissance is here, my fellow Americans, and it is your duty to your future offspring, or their future offspring, to be able to recount what happened this October.

"I see great things in baseball. It’s our game- the American game.” -Walt Whitman

Mets' September Collapse is Penance for 1969

Baseball is, in many ways, like nature. It has limits on its tolerances for extremes, and tries its best to preserve karmic equilibrium (it's failed dramatically with the Yankees). For those of you crying over the Mets' disasterous collapse this month, don't blame the team, don't blame the Phillies, don't blame the baseball gods... blame your dads and grandfathers who got such a kick out of the 1969 Mets' takeover of the Cubs, coming from 9 games down on Aug. 16th to take the NL East by 8 games. Your father's joy at that improbable comeback sowed the seeds for your disappointment this year.

So, I suggest you make dad or grandpa tell you the story of the 1969 Miracle Mets each night as your bedtime story, until opening day 2008. That would be his penance, and would keep your hope alive through the winter.

-A Cubs' Fan

Giuliani Candidacy Could Spell Problem for Religious Right

Dr. Dobson, I'd like you to meet Irrelevance. Irrelevance, this is Dr. Dobson. I'll leave you two alone now, to get better acquainted.

The religious right has decided to consider backing a 3rd party (Constitution Party, anyone?) candidate if the GOP nominates a pro-choice candidate, specifically Giuliani. While that would be a disaster for the GOP, leaving them without their foot-soldiers for their campaigns, it would be the death nail for a cohesive and corporate-structured religious right.

What Dobson, and people like him (Richard Viguerie, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins) don't seem to understand, is that their power over people of faith is relative only to that power's usefulness. As long as they were able to keep the "moral values" voters in check, dutifully serving the GOP's machine, they were helpful in separating the GOP from their foot soldiers' ideology. That provided them with plausible deniability over their perceived ties to the religious right, allowing them to remain attractive to self-serving agnostic yuppies.

But in the absence of such a purpose, as would be the case with 22% of voters back in play, you will be irrelevant. In fact, you will become a target, yourselves, as the payoff for taking you down, no longer men of faith, but men of politics, would be your supporters being free to think for themselves again.

Here's what this Giuliani battle is really over; the leaders of the religious right see their power slipping away. The "moral values" voters see that they've been used, and feel abandoned. The GOP had the power to end abortion, to roll back gay rights 25 years, and to push the social agenda of the religious right to ridiculous ends in 2005 and 2006. But they didn't, and the reason for that is simple. When they had the power the religious right gave them, controlling all three branches of government, they had other priorities. That wasn't a mistake, it was a rare illustration of the GOP's true character. Dobson and Perkins are mistaken if they think the way to keep that power is to put their voters back in play.

Today, Tony Perkins got the first indication of what post-GOP life would be like for him. Chris Matthews, with a terrific target-of-opportunity in Giuliani's boy Congressman Peter King (R-NY), chose instead to lay into Perkins for the "pro-abortion" lingo that's been used for ages. If you go out into the third party wilderness, Tony, don't expect anyone to lay off of you any more. At that point, you are political prey with a lot of supporters other people will be happy to take from you.

Consider this fair warning.

Respone to JSObservations on Health Care

This week's GTL post (link in title) on "Hillary Care" has provided for some fun debate on health care. It's original purpose, which I'll return to this weekend some time (I may owe Hillary an apology, or at least a temporary withdrawal of my more pointed criticisms), was to point out how electoral failure leads to political weakness. But it's become about health care itself.

So we'll look first at several assertions made about about how this current health care system works, and whether or not it should be abandoned.

This JSObservations post provides some unique insight into the health care debate, as it doesn't use the typical rightwing attacks of simply calling us "commies" for wanting to ensure what, in the Greatest Country in the World, should be a human right. Instead, it breaks down numbers and makes assertions that will, at first glance, alleviate the immediate concerns of those with health coverage at the time they read it.

First, let's address the comment that provoked all of this;

So many people base their opposition to the current healthcare system on the number of uninsured, which is commonly identified as 47 million. However, that number is a sham.

“If we believe the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is a frequent source for the mainstream media, Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and who make less than $50,000 a year total somewhere between 13.9 million and 8.2 million, no more than 5 percent of the population. Furthermore, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 45 percent of uninsured people will be uninsured for less than four months."

Is it really a good idea to junk a system that works pretty well for 95 percent of Americans?

The number that's "a sham" is shown in the post as 46.6 million. A far leap from 47 million, I know (somewhat saracastically), but when we get done looking at this, there won't be any of that "well, they're both fudgin' the numbers" stuff that Carville made fun of in War Room (just to be clear, I can't stand Clinton, but Carville is funny as hell). Here's the problem with arguing about 400K people; the report he cites for the math he uses later in the post says 46,995,000 people uninsured in 2006 (see Table 6, "Uninsured", "2006", "Total"), which is only a difference of 5,000 and has likely surpassed that number by now.

This is not the major contention of the post, nor the motivation for my rebuttal. It does, however, provide a lens through which to read the rest of the logic used to dismiss any health care reforms. That is also not the only reason given that the number is a "sham". Some interesting math, whereby the illegally invited (illegal immigrants to righties), and those who make over $50K a year are subtracted. Why, you ask?

Well, the illegally invited are not our problem. I'm not going to argue this point, as immigrant rights isn't the point of the post, although those who think it's a good idea to just leave them hanging should keep in mind that: 1) There's a big corporation somewhere making a bigger profit due to the unprotected nature of their labor; 2) Leaving 9.5 million people without any kind of health care, illegal, legal, not a citizen, whatever, spells major potential for a public health disaster, whether you're covered or not; 3) If these people go to hospitals anyways and never pay, you will pay for it, either through taxes or higher premiums, and the cost will be higher because out-of-pocket health care costs are much higher.

So, moving on to those other people who don't count. The uninsured who make over $50,000 a year, "ought to be able to afford it." He's absolutely right, that they ought to. But this is one of the greatest faults in conservative logic: "If you work hard, you'll succeed, so if you're successful, you've worked hard." Which obviously translates to "those in trouble didn't work hard enough." There's plenty of people with more measure of success than they've earned, and ALOT more people with less.

How much extra spending cash would you sacrifice your health or your childrens' health for?

The answer is, obviously, you can't afford my or my childrens' health. So why would you assume that people in the position of being uninsured, despite their income, have a price and are doing it willfully? Those who go through life thinking "I'll be fine and nothing's going to happen to me," or "I'm not gonna pay my share in," are not the norm, regardless of what Reagan told you. There's probably a good reason why they're risking bankrupting or debilitating illness while earning what "ought to be able" to pay for health coverage.

Maybe it's because that salary, that income, doesn't quite cut it any longer. 50 or 75K isn't what it used to be. According to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, it takes an income of 175.8%-277.6% of the poverty level, depending on your family structure, to afford health coverage. I recall having seen a 200-300% of poverty level standard in one of the comments or the article, and am regretting not being a faster reader; I may be wrong about that. JS is honest, though, and will comment on the origin of that number (it mighta been Captain Morgan who whispered it, so my apologies if it was), but its in the UCLA paper, nonetheless. Those requiring child care are much higher. Is it out of the realm of possibility to assume that stuff just came up that ruined that budget structure and pushed health care out of their affordability column? Probably not.

One can play games with numbers at will, and since I've been dragged into it, I'll do some of that this weekend, too. You can make them say funny things, like the health care system "works for 95% of us" and you can make it come out with an infinite string of subsequent "6's", so the devil returns to provide the Commie solution himself. But no amount of "if a train leaves Milwaukee at 75 mph" fun will change that people are going to go bankrupt (though not as easily, thanks to the GOP and Bush) or die as a result of no coverage or insufficient coverage.

These people are not lazy. They do not expect a handout. They work hard, they love their children. They love their country. But the commitment of some to the market-over-man ethos has sentenced them to financial ruin (about 2 million a year, before the bankruptcy restrictions went into place) or death (18,000 a year).

It's time to let Milton Friedman's ideas go with his spirit, and start looking at this from a pragmatice point of view, and a more selfish (not free-for-all market) point of view. You pay more for someone to tell you to "go screw yourself, that's not covered," regardless of what your doctor says. You're paying for far more than what single-payer health insurance would cost, because you pay for CEO bonuses, corporate profits, administrative overhead, and the ridiculous inflation of unpaid charges to out-of-pocket patients tacked onto the insurance premiums and/or tax obligations of every American. More on all that later.

JS is more than welcome to post a rebuttal and email it to me, which I will post here, or just link it into the "Comments". I prefer a return to dialogue over "socialism" versus "capitalism" talking point disputes, as they're both inaccurate and polarizing. I do apologize for the "you again" and "Stop waisting our time" shots on GTL, as I like to use hard pokes until I know you're really ready to throw down. They make the process of responding to comments easier.

Until then, I'll focus on bashing Eli Pariser and his big league fumble of the "Betray Us" ad, a possible apology (don't hold your breath) to Hillary, and some Iraq war stuff.

That Goes Boom #6/Gomer Says “Surprise” #2: Thanks Move On

So the Senate held debate today about Move On. The revulsive Patraeus ad, which appeared in the NYT last week and has drawn increasingly vociferous opposition from the right, was a political folly that’s going to continue to be an issue.

Ed Schultz talked about it today, reiterating it as a reason to join Move On and send them money. He calls the debate over the ad “honky tonk” and a “waste of taxpayers’ money.” He’s absolutely right on those latter points, but wrong that it’s a good reason to send them money.

Whatever this is, be it “honky tonk”, a “waste”, an offense to the 1st Amendment, it was foreseeable. It doesn’t take a genius to see that offending a uniformed soldier, whatever his political purpose or persuasion, would not help our efforts to end the war.

The “they don’t support the troops” crap had been put to rest, but with Bush’s statement today, and the debate in the Senate, it has been resurrected by a politically irresponsible stunt. As I’ve said before, there’s a number of different ways they could have approached that ad, but chose the second worst option possible (the worst would have been to call him “babykiller” in grand yippie Tantrum Left fashion).

So thanks again, Move On, for not thinking things through.

CREW's New "Beyond De Lay" Report

In the spirit of policing our own, I'm not going to focus on the GOP's corruption. Also, I don't have that much room. Instead, let's address those Democrats who made CREW's Top 22 list, shall we? Each name has a link to the report summary for that person.

Rep. William "Ice Box" Jefferson (D-LA)
Used the National Guard to get to his home after Katrina so he could pick up some stuff. Then, he got busted with $90,000 in bribe money in his freezer. I know we have a judicial system based on innocence until proven guilty, but the only reason to keep this guy around is if you like to suffer. You don't ever put $90k in your freezer for a good reason.

Rep. John "Retriever" Murtha (D-PA)
This guy basically works for one of his old staffers. Paul Magliochetti now owns one of the most successful defense lobbying firms in DC. Why is he so successful? Maybe he has a friend on the Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense.

Rep. Allan "Quarter Bill" Mollohan (D-WV)
Between 1997 and 2006, this guys directed more than $250 million to companies in his district that he set up. I guess that makes it easy to win your disctrict, but doesn't this make clear why we have such enormous budgetary problems? Whenever a Republican bitches about how we don't have the money for this or that, what he means is "that guy took it!" This kind of scum is the reason China owns our ass!

Rep. David "Didn't See This Coming?" Scott (D-GA)
This guy started missing tax payments, at the state and local level, in 1998. He's only in his third term in congress. How did someone run against a guy whose company doesn't pay its taxes, and lose? Since then, he's stopped paying any taxes, and it makes the voters and media in his district look a little nearsighted.

None of these guys even comes close to DeLay in scumminess. But then again, they haven't been given the opportunity yet, either. If any one of these guys were given the authority over the time that DeLay had, I have no doubt that they'd all be just as bad. Murtha would probably be worse. We made electoral gains in 2006 because of the GOP's corruption, and it's our responsibility to address these ethics problems, both in the ethics committee and on the ground in the disctrict.