Adopt-a-Liberal

Steve Benen calls attention to an initiative by a Jerry Falwell group to urge its members to "Adopt-a-Liberal" and pray for them.
I'm assuming their prayers are meant to turn the individuals more conservative. But what if these liberals are like me and are liberal BECAUSE of their Christian beliefs? Are these Falwellians praying that they will become less Christian?

"Dear Lord, Please cause this person to turn inward and become more self-focused. Let them see the light that turning their backs on the poor and downtrodden is the true path to righteousness. Have them recognize that starting wars, promoting torture and supporting capital punishment is the true path to the Prince of Peace. Amen."

Obama and gay rights

This is good news:

Obama called for the repeal of the ban on gays in the military -- the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
"We should not be punishing patriotic Americans who have stepped forward to serve this country," he said. "I'm working with the Pentagon, its leadership and the members of the House and Senate on ending this policy, legislation that has been introduced in the House to make this happen, I will end 'don't ask, don't tell.' That's my commitment to you."
The president said he backed the rights of gay couples, saying they should have the "same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country." He said he has urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and to pass the Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act.

I'm wondering if having the Nobel Peace Prize under his belt won't spur Obama to push this along and may even help him to get it through.
The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy has long outlived its usefulness as a transition period and needs to be eliminated.
And the Orwellian "Defense of Marriage Act" is simply reprehensible and will one day be looked back on by history in the same light as the Jim Crow laws.

Great Expectations

President Obama's Nobel Peace prize in unquestionably coming sooner than anyone would have expected. I don't think anyone can really avoid calling the honor premature.
I liken it to having the Academy Award for Best Picture awarded to a movie while it is still being filmed. Or inducting a baseball player into the Hall of Fame after his rookie season.

Still, I would rather have the world tossing premature Nobel Peace prizes at our president rather than throwing shoes at him.

New GOP theme song

Steve Benen is nominating nominating this tune as the official theme song for the GOP.
I'll second that nomination.

Olympic disappointment

I was disappointed to learn today that Chicago didn’t win its bid for the 2016 Olympics. But I was absolutely disgusted by the response of many Republicans who literally cheered the news.
That their bitter hatred for President Obama is so intense that it would override any feelings of pride or love of their country is despicable and shameful.
Charges that Obama was “wasting” taxpayer money by flying to Copenhagen to lobby the IOCC are petty and partisan. Charges that he should be spending more time on Afghanistan or health care are hypocritical and ignorant. Obama has given far more attention to both those areas than his predessor did over the past eight years.
Just imagine if it was President McCain, rather than President Obama, supporting an Olympic bid by Phoenix. Would these same partisans be attacking him and celebrating when the bid fell short? I would think not.
I would think that there were still some things that we could all agree on in the country. It is sad that this is not the case for such a large segment of our people.

Tea-stained flags and tie dyed shirts

Rightwing nutjob and former actor Chuck Norris is now urging “Tea Party” radicals to quit flying the modern American flag in favor of older, “Betsy Ross-style” or “Don’t Tread On Me” flags as a protest statement against the American government.
Or, as an alternative, he suggests staining a modern U.S. flag with tea.
Seriously.
Do you suppose Norris was one of the folks who a few years ago was supporting criminal penalties for folks who burn or otherwise deface an American flag?
Nevermind.
The point is that this is another example of the complete radicalization of the rightwing conservative movement in this country. Today’s “teabaggers” are not much different from the radical hippies of the 1960s. Both had some unorthodox, and in some cases extreme, anti-government or anti-authoritarian views.
The teabaggers’ recent march on Washington looked like a Hippie protest put through an ideological mirror.
Imagine, for a minute, Glenn Beck, the self-described “rodeo clown” of the teabag movement, as a modern version of Wavy Gravy, the ‘60s era anti-war protester who discovered that by adopting a clown persona he was able to stay out of jail more often. Of course, Wavy Gravy was never given his own national TV and radio shows. And therein lies the real difference between these two groups.
One is serving the interests of the rich and powerful, and one did not. Can you guess which is which?
That’s right. The “Hippies” were NOT doing the things that the rich and powerful approved of so they were ignored, marginalized or vilified as needed.
Today’s radicals, however, ARE serving the interests of the rich and powerful, so they get lavished with lots of media attention and have their views broadcast all over the TV and radio everyday.
So we get to watch everyday as nutjobs like Chuck Norris, Glenn Beck, Michell Bachman and Sarah Palin parade around and “let their freak flag fly.”

Rightwing talk = Gangsta rap

This column in the Sunday NYTimes is dead on comparing right-wing talkers with gangsta rappers.
Although each is appealing to a different audience, both forms of communication use very similar modes of operation and share similar ethics based on selfishness, greed, bombast, an overbearing sense of righteousness, resentment, paranoia and a victim mentality. And, of course, lots of raw hatred mixed in. They will even share similar targets for their hatred -- Women, gays, immigrants, authority figures, etc.

...rap is among the most conservative genres of pop music. It exalts capitalism and entrepreneurship with a brio that is typically considered Republican. (Admiring references to Bill Gates are common in hip-hop.)
Rappers tend to be fans of the Second Amendment, though they rarely frame their affection for guns in constitutional terms. And rap has an opinion about human nature that is deeply conservative — namely, that criminals cannot be reformed.

I would never have put these two together quite like this since I can't stand to listen to either one. But the similarities are striking as the article makes clear.

An FB discussion on immigration

Here is a recent post and comments thread from my FaceBook page that I thought I would save here rather than watching it get lost and buried.

Mike Thomas I’m glad to see Archbishop Gomez speaking up about the health care debate and I support his position that coverage should be extended to immigrants both legal and illegal.
Yesterday at 10:36pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (21)Hide Feedback (21) · Share

Wes Howard
We should send the illegals back home!

Mike Thomas
If it was that simple we would have done it a long time ago. But it is not practical or possible on many levels to extract so many millions of people who are enmeshed in our society.

Virginia Chapman Bugai
My ancestors came from Germany, but they came to learn the language and ways and became true Americans, not forcing their homeland and trying to change the language! They also came legally to this country, not sneaking in and working and not paying taxes!

Wes Howard
Great point Virginia!

Virginia Chapman Bugai
Don’t get me wrong, I am proud to be from a German hertiage, but you don’t see me carrying their flag and making the schools print everything in the German language because myself or my parents refuse to learn the language of the country that I CHOSE to move to!!

Virginia Chapman Bugai
My Grandmother speaks German, but she is also affluent in the English language.

Kristen Cherry Williamson
I don’t agree with this at all. If you want social benefits that my tax dollars are paying for, then go thru the immigration process the correct way. They’re called illegal for a reason.

Mike Thomas
I am sympathetic to your concerns about integration and bilingual education, but those are separate issues from the need to have basic health coverage for everyone. It is not good for society to have millions of people without basic health insurance. It is more expensive when they end up in the emergency rooms of our county hospitals for ailments that could have been easily treated with preventative medicine. Diseases get spread more quickly and widely in countries without adequate health care.

Mike Thomas
Health care is not just a benefit to the individual. It is a benefit to society as a whole. Same thing with education. Once you accept the fact that we can’t just drive around in a big paddywagon through all the poor Hispanic neighborhoods and gather up all the illegal immigrants for deportation, then you have to deal with these societal issues of health care and education.

Virginia Chapman Bugai
Well, I guess if they would have gone through the naturalization process, they would have been issued a number so that they could work for companies in a legal manner (not paid under the table because they are illiegal), and then possibly they would be paying taxes on their income, just like the rest of us hard working citizens. They would also be... Read More paying into social security and medicare and have health insurance coverage. From what I understand, they make more money in America than their own country, so they are already better off, but instead of choosing to spend the money here on healthcare and doctors, most of their money is sent back home.

Mike Thomas
Actually, most illegal immigrants do pay taxes - http://tinyurl.com/o7ty6c - more than you would think. And while there are many who fit the description you state (Which is why we need to institute a Guest Worker Program), many more settled down here years ago with no intention of ever going back.
I’m all for enforcing our borders - but we have to ... Read Morebe realistic too with those who are already here. And it is not good for society as a whole to have such a large population of people who are kept sickly and uneducated. We should provide these “benefits” because it is the right thing to do and because it is better for society in general.

Carlos Johnson
Whether they are here legally or not, if an uninsured person goes to the hospital and can’t pay then we all pay through taxes, higher insurance costs, etc. If the goal is to get everyone covered then I personally don’t have that much of an issue with covering illegals. My problem is with the goal itself and the likelihood that the solution will be worse than the problem.

Kristen Cherry Williamson
Health coverage is a privilege, NOT a right and it is not the American taxpayers responsibility, nor is it within the scope of what our founding fathers intended to be the role of the federal government.
Forcing hospitals to treat anyone who comes into their emergency rooms even if it is not an emergency is a main cause of our woes When hospitals start sending people down the road to urgent care clinics for snotty noses where the cost is 20 percent and they have to pay when they are treated we will see improvement.
Another main reason our costs are so high is that we are in dire need of tort reform. Doctors are currently having to do so many unnecessary tests just as a CYA to help from being sued or to defend when they are sued. While illegals may pay sales taxes, they are not filing federal income tax returns, nor are they paying payroll taxes (medicare and medicaid...).
While illegals may pay sales taxes, they are not filing federal income tax returns, nor are they paying payroll taxes (medicare and medicaid...).

Mike Thomas
Health care is more than a privilege or a right, it is a necessity like food, water, clothing, shelter. I WANT my neighbors to have good health care because then they are less likely to pass diseases on to me and my children. And I think having universal health coverage is a perfectly reasonable and practical goal. Most Western, economically-... Read Moreadvanced nations already do this. Why we are dragging our feet I will never know.
And it is most certainly within the purview of the federal government to provide health coverage. The Constitution is very broad in its determination of what the government CAN do and very specific about what it CAN’T do. (The Texas Constitution is exactly opposite which is why it is a million pages long and totally screwed up). The Constitution gives the federal government the power to “promote the general welfare” and I would say that giving people access to health care falls very neatly into that definition.

Mike Thomas
I don’t want to live in a country where people would be turned away for medical treatment because they cannot pay. Certainly, as in your example, a person with the sniffles should be directed to go to a clinic and leave the emergency room for true emergencies. I think most already do that.
As for tort reform, haven’t the Republicans who have been ... Read Morerunning this state for the past hundred years or so already passed half a dozen “tort reform” bills over the past several years? Did our insurance premiums go down as a result? Did I blink and miss it?

Kristen Cherry Williamson
Promoting the general welfare does not mean that congress has the right to play Robin Hood and rob from the taxpayers to give to the non-contributing members of society, and it also doesn... Read More’t give congress the power to legislate for the general welfare of the country, that power belongs to the States and is given to them thru the 10th amendment. You are overlooking the fact that the federal government has only specific enumerated powers. The Ninth and 10th Amendments limit Congress’s powers only to those granted in the Constitution. What we have is simply an abuse of power by the federal government for political reasons. The president wants to reward his supporters with free health care that the rest of us have to pay for.

Virginia Chapman Bugai
Well said Kristen.

Virginia Chapman Bugai
What it all boils down to is hard working taxpayers who are tired of the people who work harder circumventing the system so they don’t have to work and just continue to live off the government and the bleeding hearts who continue to allow them to do it. I saw it first hand, young mother with a child quit working, because she received more in ... Read Moregovernment benefits when she didn’t work. I tried to appeal to her pride and work ethic, but to no avail, she said when she worked they cut her benefits, so she quit! What a backwards system.

Virginia Chapman Bugai
Or should I say not so much a backwards system, but a backwards ethics! I realize the system is put in place to help these people, but at some point we have to say enough is enough.

Mike Thomas
How can you say that the government doesn’t have the authority to do something that it has been doing for over a hundred years? This whole 10th Amendment argument is completely bogus.
Here is a good article that slices and dices the whole mess - http://tinyurl.com/l9po5n
Taxation is a necessary component of our government and our society and you ... Read Morecan’t just call it robbery whenever you disagree with a particular spending program. I wasn’t happy that George W. Bush wasted $1 trillion of my tax dollars on his boondoggle in Iraq (and never managed to catch Bin Laden either!). But I would be incorrect to call it robbery.
Furthermore, Obama is not rewarding ME with free health care! In fact, chances are that most of the people who will benefit from health care reform didn’t even bother to vote. I think Obama’s actions are completely selfless and probably politically damaging in the short term, but entirely necessary for the long-term health of our nation and our democracy.

Mike Thomas
What I saw firsthand working the watermelon fields in Premont years ago were illegal immigrants doing the toughest jobs that nobody else wanted to do. These were some of the hardest working people I’ve ever seen in my life. Us pampered city kids got to unload the trucks under a shed where there was a bit of shade. The illegal immigrants were the ... Read Moreones out in the full sun in the fields loading the trucks. One of our friends decided to work in the fields one day with the promise of higher pay and ended up in the hospital with heat stroke.
We take full advantage of many of these illegal immigrants for their labor and then treat them like criminals. It is a shame and a disgrace. We need a Guest Worker Program - http://tinyurl.com/lkyzwj - and less draconian immigration laws that recognizes this business-labor relationship that is the current reality.

Catholic Church supports "Obamacare"

San Antonio Archbishop Jose Gomez has made it clear that he supports health care reform. In fact, he wants to take it further and include illegal immigrants in the plan.

"It must include immigrants, especially legal immigrants, but all immigrants," Gomez told 1200 WOAI news. "We are concerned about the immigrants," Gomez said. "The immigrants are human persons too, and one way or another, they are going to need health care. I think it is important to recognize that, and be open to them participating one way or another in the health care system in this country."

One Republican commenter on FaceBook reacted to the news by spitting back "But the Democrats don't listen to the Catholic Church regarding human life..."

To which I would respond that beyond the disagreement over abortion rights, Democrats are much more in line with the Catholic Church's "pro-life" agenda than Republicans are. The church's position on war, foreign policy, foreign aid, health care, immigration, capital punishment and much more is closer to the Democratic side than the Republican one.

It is just that Democrats do not favor criminalizing abortion because rather than stopping abotions it would just send them underground and result in the deaths and maiming of thousands of women on top of the number of abortions that would still occur. So safe, rare and legal is the best way to go as far as reducing the number of abortions is concerned and a little more help in spreading the family planning message and birth control would go along way in that direction as well.

But I certainly welcom Archbishop Gomez to the cause of promoting universal health insurance and I endorse his view that immigrants, both legal and illegal, should be included as well.

The Acorn double standard

Let me see if I have this Acorn thing straight....
A wingnut on a crusade with a video camera manages to videotape of couple of poorly trained Acorn employees doing and saying some stupid and reprehensible things...
(He conveniently does not show anyone the videos he took of Acorn workers who did not fall for the scam)
In response, the federal government is cutting off Acorn from future government contracts and Republicans want to strip them of all current funding as well.

So what about KBR/Halliburton? A couple of KBR employees were involved in a gang rape of a fellow employee a couple of years ago. That would seem to be infinitely worse than what the Acorn employees did. And yet, KBR has continued to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts since that occurred. And there are no cries from Republicans to strip them of funding.
I wonder why that is?

Are they idiots? Or is it a setup?

I have to agree with the conservatives on this one, and boy does that tick me off!!


Proposed Texas social studies curriculum change angers conservatives

The Associated Press
AUSTIN – A proposal for new social studies curriculum in Texas public schools removes a mention of Christmas in a sixth-grade lesson, replacing it with a Hindu religious festival, a change that has riled conservatives who say it’s another battle in the “war” against the Christian holiday.
“It’s outrageous that the war on Christmas continues in our state and in our nation,” said Jonathan Saenz, a lobbyist for the conservative Free Market Foundation. The draft proposal being considered by the State Board of Education won’t be formally adopted until May for the 2011-12 school year.
The standards now instruct sixth-grade students to be able to explain the significance of religious holidays such as the Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.
The proposal, which is set to be debated during a hearing next week, removes Christmas and Rosh Hashanah from the listing. Diwali, a Hindu festival, is added.
In a note explaining the change, members of a review committee wrote, “the examples include the key holiday from each of the five major religions.”

This is so completely asinine I can’t help but wonder if the conservatives aren’t setting this up on purpose. I mean, who are the MORONS on this committee recommending that we remove any mention of Christmas from Social Studies textbooks? You want to add a reference to the Hindu holiday? Great! But you can’t replace Christmas with it. The Christian faith has two major holidays - Jesus was born, Jesus died (and was born again) - and you can’t mention one without the other. This is so idiotic that I can’t believe that there are rational people who are sitting on that board making this recommendation. It plays right into the hands of the Bill O’Reilly-Glenn Beck lunatics who can now wave this story around as evidence that their shrill warnings about a “War on Christmas” were correct. The Board of Education, with its heavy tilt to the right, will no doubt knock this recommendation down long before it has a chance to draw breath. But then they will parade it around as proof that they are needed to stand guard against these anti-religious liberals who are trying to wipe out Christmas and all vestiges of Christian faith from the schools.
If these people really do exist they need to be slapped upside the head. And if not, then the conservatives who set up this little charade need to be exposed.

Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy - The Atlantic Politics Channel

Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy - The Atlantic Politics Channel
Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.

It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

The Census' final report card on Bush's record presents an intriguing backdrop to today's economic debate. Bush built his economic strategy around tax cuts, passing large reductions both in 2001 and 2003. Congressional Republicans are insisting that a similar agenda focused on tax cuts offers better prospects of reviving the economy than President Obama's combination of some tax cuts with heavy government spending. But the bleak economic results from Bush's two terms, tarnish, to put it mildly, the idea that tax cuts represent an economic silver bullet.

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Heckling the President

This is intolerable.

A Republican House member shouted "You lie" during President Obama's health care speech to Congress on Wednesday, and members of both parties condemned the heckling.

What has become of the Republican Party? It has obviously been replaced by the Tea Party and its legion of screeching, wild-eyed radical lunatics. How can people even consider putting these mindless imbeciles back in charge of our government?

Finding friends, losing friends

Ever since I signed on to Facebook a few months ago I have been overwhelmed by the number of old friends, past co-workers and distant (geographically) relatives I’ve been able to reconnect with, even if it is just to find out where and what they are doing some 20 to 30 years later.
But an added consequence of finding old friends is that you lose some as well. By that I mean that I have learned that some old friends from long ago have passed away. One person died in a car wreck, another had a heart attack. Although they died years ago, I had been oblivious to their passing until just recently when I reconnected with old friends who had kept up with them better than I had.
But perhaps the most wrenching experience has been the very recent death of Steve Damm, who I hardly knew at all. Steve passed away over the Labor Day weekend from a form of brain cancer.
I knew Steve mostly through his wife, Tyra, when we worked together for a short time at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. They were a young couple without kids and went to the same church that we did. I met Steve maybe half a dozen times at various work-related social functions. Then they moved to Dallas and we moved to San Antonio. End of story.
Except that when I got onto Facebook I hooked back up with a bunch of my old A-J co-workers, including Tyra, and in that way learned of their nearly two-year struggle with Steve’s brain cancer. Tyra is now a columnist with the Dallas Morning News and was documenting their ordeal through her columns, blogs, Twitter and Facebook. It was all quite remarkable. You couldn’t help but be pulled into their daily struggle. And what really hit home the hardest for me was that they now have two young children, nearly the same age as my own - a boy just entering second grade (my son just entered first grade) and a girl in pre-K about age 4 (my daughter is 3).
You can follow and retrace Tyra and Steve’s remarkable journey here.
Funeral services for Steve are set for this Saturday in Dallas.

Czar wars

The things that rightwingers freak out about grows increasingly bizarre everyday.



And here is more on the subject.

Video of the Day

Robert Reich makes the simple, straight forward case on a public health insurance option.

Cartoon of the Day

In light of the ongoing discussion between Mark and Ann in comments, I thought this cartoon was wholly appropriate.

I hate pre-season football

I know lots of people are really football-starved at this time of the year, but I really can't stand all the hype that pre-season football gets right now.
This is BASEBALL SEASON!!! We are getting into the playoffs with the World Series just around the corner. I could care less about these meaningless pre-season football games!!
Yet the news media is sooooo intent on telling me everything about pre-seaon football - even broadcasting entire games as if it mattered -- Heck! Even rebroadcasting replays of meaningless pre-season games -- all to the exclusion of baseball.
Quit pre-empting my baseball games to show me these stupid pre-season football contests and maybe I would be a bit less grumpy. But as it is I want to throw things everytime I see the local sports newscast leading with football stories in the midst of the baseball playoffs.

Blame Republicans for bulk of the deficit

Jackie Calmes of the New York Times had a great piece in the New York Times on Sunday about what makes up the national deficit.
What is most striking about it (as shown in the graph) is how little of it is made up of the extra spending that Obama pushed for in the budget. You can see way at the bottom of the graph are too itty bitty boxes, one for the non-defense discretionary spending and the other for the energy investments that Obama requested.
Republicans screamed to high heaven about this extra spending and acted like it makes up the entire deficit alone.
Not hardly. In fact, when looked at in context, it is almost inconsequential. Furthermore, as the article notes, it is completely paid for and then some by additional revenues and cuts that Obama made in the budget.

So the real fault for the deficit can be summed up in two ways (or maybe three) The fiscally irresponsible tax cuts that Bush & Co. pushed through in 2000 combined with the increased spending on Medicare and Social Security as health costs continued to spiral out of control during eight years of Republican mismanagement; Throw in all the money that Bush & Co. flushed away in Iraq and all the spending that had to be done to bailout the financial industry and the auto industry after Bush and the Republicans ran the nation's economy into the ground and Voila! We have a massive deficit when - under Clinton - we were supposed to have big surpluses.

Here is another good graph that illustrates the same thing:

Universal Health Insurance 101