Thank You Senate Staff

To both Democratic and Republican Senate staff members,

The last cloture vote was just announced which enabled an engrossment vote tomorrow and I wanted to take a moment and thank you for all of your hard work.

Unlike all of the political BS, you are the ones that scheduled all of the meetings. You are the ones that actually had to read the whole bill and decipher it. You are the ones that made sure that every measure was legal and you probably crafted much of the bill as well.

I've never seen a legislative body work as hard as I've seen the U.S. Senate this past month and I have to say I'm really impressed. 1AM votes and votes on Christmas Eve must not be fun, but for those of us that believe that at least some attempt must be made to insure more Americans, we are very thankful for your efforts.

The Filibuster

So apparently people on the right and on the left all fight about how wrong the filibuster is when THEY are in power. Here's the thing. Currently the filibuster is being abused and it's been increasing over the past 10 years or so. I still believe the filibuster is an important tool for legislative minorities to stop legislation that they deem really, really bad for the country and in this case, I guess that is health care reform for today's Republican party.

The Republicans are entitled to their filibuster but here's the compromise. You should only get 10 filibusters TOTAL; thats including procedural votes. The filibuster should be available but it really should only be used when the Senate is ready to engross its bill. And I have one final rule, a filibuster should actually be a really annoying process; in order for a filibuster to occur, all senators must be locked within the chamber with only water and basic food available to them (and some slightly cushy chairs for the Senators older than 80), no cots, no sleeping, no breaks.

That's what should be the point of a filibuster. This legislation is soooooooo bad I'm willing to do anything to stop it.

For example, last night the Republican minority did something really classless. They promised to vote en masse against the military funding bill. Yes, you heard me right. Not the healthcare bill, but the Military Appropriations Bill. They threatened a filibuster on legislation THEY SUPPORTED! just so they could delay a final vote on the healthcare bill. They brought 91 year old Senator Robert Byrd out at 1AM for the Military Appropriations Bill. Sure, do that for the healthcare vote but not for stuff you support, that's just not intellectually honest.

Democrats voted for the Iraq War and voted for No Child Left Behind because there were things for them in those bills to support. Trust me, there are things in this bill that will help many small businesses and middle class Republican families obtain affordable healthcare. Republican Senators could have made this a better bill if they had participated fully, but they chose not to even play and it's a crappier bill because of that. As I said previously, I would have rather given up some compromises to Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine than Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson, but even they cannot bring up the courage to vote their conscience.

Congress has done its job. The far right doesn't like the bill. The far left (including me on some measures - I would trade major tort reform for a small public option - anyone?) doesn't like the bill. This is a good thing. The political center has been served, and America is better off for it, I just wish Republicans had played a larger role in the debate.

La Boheme, The Movie - Premieres on PBS Wednesday, December 23rd!

An interview with the lovely and talented (and dare I say, super hot) Anna Netrebko.



Full disclosure: I work at Great Performances, but I loved Anna long before!

Really???

Oh North Carolina.

These guys should read the First Amendment and Article VI of the Constitution.

Wowie.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Relevant passage of Article VI.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Eugene goes to Copenhagen

Enjoy...

Screw Joe Lieberman

He is officially useless. Against a proposal he championed as Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee in 2000 and supported most recently 3 months ago. Senate Democrats would be better off just giving concessions to Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Just give Maine a couple million dollars or healthcare jobs and be done with it. It accomplishes three main goals.

1. Screwing Joe Lieberman by not stroking his ego. Let him be the little bitter man who's pissed off that no one was interested in him in 2004 and had a challenge from the left and lost his party's nomination in 2006. If he wants to be a Republican, he can be one.

2. Instead of passing a healthcare bill with "just Democrats" you get to say that you passed the bill with "bipartisan support."

3. Maine is a much better state than Connecticut, by a long shot.

Look, usually I'm not into the kinds of people who kick out moderates of their party. I think it's a strategy that is incredibly stupid in the long term. However, Joe was a moderate before this recent shift to the right. Back in 2000, Joe was always hawkish on foreign policy and law and order issues (i.e. drugs and censorship) and a fairly standard middle class liberal on domestic policy (healthcare, union jobs, higher minimum wage, etc.) He is no longer that man and the sad thing is, is that it appears that he's doing it just because he's upset. I don't think you do that dramatic a shift in 3 months when you're not up for re-election.

Court Snowe and Collins and if you get Lieberman on-board next year, that's just another junior Republican Senator on board.

The Obam - "duh" Doctrine

So apparently conservatives are all surprised and a flutter that our Democratic President, or as they would say "Democrat" President stated in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that he believes that war is necessary some times.

Wow. I know this is really controversial and I can't believe that a Democrat would ever believe that sometimes war is justified to meet threats and human rights violations. That we must do our best to negotiate and use other means of persuasion first, but that force can and must be used when the time calls for it against leaders like Hitler and Milosevic and whoever the bad guys are in Darfur.

Duh. This is not crazy political science or theory here. The Bush Doctrine on the other hand, while admirably liberal in policy was not realistic. To be fair, the doctrine was really half crazy conservative and half crazy liberal.

The Bush Doctrine essentially is a mix of two primary concepts preemption and freedom in the form of Democratic government for everybody on the earth. The first principle was preemption; we must attack possible threats first before they become real threats. Unfortunately, that concept isn't legal nor is it a smart use of our limited military power, as we have learned recently troops cost money (money we don't have). How can you guess the right country to attack? Iran may attack Israel, at what point are we justified in bombing their nuclear facilities. The mere chance of an attack is not reason enough to start a war.

The second concept is freedom should be everywhere and we should use military force and diplomatic isolationism to press countries to move towards democratic governments. Sometimes a military dictatorship can be our friend. For example, when Gen. Pervez Musharraf was President of Pakistan he did a much better job than the current president in fighting Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaida even though the current President has created a more democratic government.

The Obama Doctrine basically states that we're going to go after and kill some bad guys who aren't interested in negotiating or peace. We're going to negotiate with the weirdos who may or may not have bad intentions, people like Kim Jong-Il and Ahmedinejad. And we'll only use force if it's for our absolute security or if it's a real crime against humanity such as sectarian violence in Darfur, but Europe needs to step up to the plate and help. Because unlike other doctrines of past presidents we don't want to be the only policeman in the world, it costs a ton and it's not worth the problems. We've got problems here that we need to fix. As Obama correctly stated in his Afghanistan speech, "the nation I'm most interested in building is our own."

Tip to the world. We're back to the time when America won't attack unless you've demonstrated a history of being an evil-doer. So that's yes to Al-Qaida and no to Iran, because Iran's people are more pro-American than their government, so isolating that country further pushes those fans away, get it?

Just remember this bad guys, "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood."

Quote of the Day

"The purpose is to make it clear to [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and his government, who up until now has been unwilling to step up to the ball. … 'Fellas, you've got to step up to the ball.' "
—Using a made-up idiom to deliver a tough message to Karzai's government in an interview with CBS's Early Show, Dec. 2, 2009

Love the Biden.

Hat tip to Slate.com

The civil rights issue of our time, Part II

Unfortunately, the New York Senate voted down the Gay Marriage bill by a vote of 38-24. Here is Senator Diane Savino (D) - Staten Island giving a very well argued speech about her vote to support the bill.

Why Obama's Afghanistan decision is the right call

Much like the Iraq surge the success of the continuation of our conflict in Afghanistan will not depend on how many troops we send to the region. What success does occur will happen largely as a result of the change of strategy.

Unlike some of my liberal colleagues, I supported the Iraq surge under President Bush, but I did so not because I believed that more troops would necessarily be the answer. My support was conditional upon a complete change of strategy. When Bush decided to make General David Petraeus, the man who helped develop counter insurgency strategy, the primary commander of the Iraq operation, I had the sense that a more sizable troop presence might help provide that security while providing our soldiers the added benefit of needed reinforcements.

The "surge" time line should be short and sweet. Personally, I only have the stomach to be militarily engaged there for 2-3 more years. I'm glad that President Obama did not adopt the McChrystal strategy wholesale as some of the area's extremely mountainous regions will never be able to be "held" by military forces. Afghanistan is the kind of terrain that is designed for extremely light special forces in the hills and a more traditional army presence in the major population centers. (Thank you Vice-President Biden for that policy movement)

We owe this to Afghanistan. We totally messed them up in the 80's when we used them to fight a proxy war with the Soviet Union, and our Central Intelligence Agency trained a promising young upstart in guerilla warfare named Osama bin Laden to do so. Anyone ever heard of him? I thought so. I would much rather have a communist Soviet Union than Islamic terrorism be the primary enemy of the United States, you can at least negotiate with a COUNTRY. However, I digress.

We again messed Afghanistan up in 2002-2005 when we actually did some good to start by ousting a terribly repressive regime. But then we sent a large majority of our forces there to fight a completely unnecessary war in Iraq. Now you can see why the war in Iraq was doubly stupid. Anyway, we are there now, and we owe the people of Afghanistan a good faith attempt at helping them create a civil society, one where women and girls go to school, one where literacy rates are higher, one where there's more subsistence farming and less poppy farming (perhaps more on that later), and where they have a government that can respond to their needs.

Again, I believe we owe them this shot at a workable stable country. They don't get a free police force for eternity as some would like. The Afghanistan Government gets 2-3 years to shape up, with substantial help. If they can't do that hopefully Afghans will remember the time that America tried to help rather than refer to the time "The Americans left again."

Let's hope.

Please look to my fellow blogger PaleThunder for an articulate argument of his concerns.

Hector Projector?

Have you ever read the theory of Freudian Projection? When I saw the chart below it made me think of it. Basically Freud said that we project our own neuroses or problems onto others or the outside world at large. In essence, the things that we are most mad at in ourselves we blame on outside forces.

Whenever I catch family or friends do this I call them Hector Projector. For example, Jillian Michaels from NBC's the Biggest Loser is defintely a Hector Projector, she hates the fat and lazy person inside of her and that's what she hates in others. Is the average American family being a hector projector about the deficit? Click above at the debt as a share of GDP for the American Household on the left and then look at Government Debt on the right.

Hat tip to The New York Times for the chart. If you want to read the article, click here.

What's Up With That?

Check out that riff "renewable resource, yeah". Sweet.

Quote of the Day

"I believe that it's fair to say that we have either saved or created four turkeys."

- President Obama, November 25th, 11:46pm said while performing the traditional Thanksgiving pardon.

Put your money where your mouth is

Do you believe we should work to lower the deficit?
Do you support a troop surge in Afghanistan (estimated at $1M per solider / per year)? Great.

Now pay for it.

Dubbed the “Share the Sacrifice Act,” the six-page bill exempts anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan since the 2001 terrorist attacks as well as families who have lost an immediate relative in the fighting. But middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000 would be asked to pay 1% on top of their tax liability today — a more sweeping approach than many Democrats have been willing to embrace.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress. Read the full post here.

John Mayer - Battle Studies review

Overall, this new album has received some favorable reviews and received some not so favorable. Here's my review below.

If you're looking for John Mayer to completely eclipse his latest release of Continuum, look somewhere else, because you're not going to find it here.

If you're looking for a compilation of well-crafted songs which mix a bit of country, folk, blues R&B and rock all into one, then Battle Studies is as good and strong as any other John Mayer release.

In my opinion, very few artists can describe the intricacies of relationships as well as Mayer can, and his breakup with Jennifer Aniston has provided him plenty of material to work with.

In "Assassin", Mayer is at his most interesting both lyrically and sonically as the song opens with mallet instruments as a constant murmuring backdrop while Mayer adeptly provides his own whisper backup vocals describing the inner fight between his impulse to seduce the girl in the night and leave: "you never leave a trace or show your face/ you get gone" and be seduced by a longer-term loving commitment which is nicely supported by a lovely major chorus of Mayer overdubbing himself. "suddenly I'm in over my head / and I can hardly breathe." Apparently this inner debate is all irrelevant anyway as this "girl" has more tricks up her sleeve than he realizes, John turns up the dial on his fender strat (I'm guessing here) electric guitar to eleven - cue the shredding:

"I was a killer, was the best they'd ever seen /
I'd steal your heart before you ever heard a thing /
I'm an assassin and I had a job to do /
Little did I know, that girl was an assassin too."

An artist or musician's work should reflect the life he's experienced during that period. Battle Studies gives no indication as to who broke the relationship off, but it appears that John met his match in Jennifer.

Key tracks: Half of My Heart (w/Taylor Swift), Assassin, Edge of Desire

Why I support President Obama

Hillary Clinton, explaining the Afghanistan review process to Charlie Rose.



As I've said to friends before, it's not the what that President Obama does in office it's the how.

Would I like to see a healthcare bill with a reasonable public option pass (perhaps in states that only have one or two insurers)? Yes.
Would I like to see some sort of viable carbon tax bill pass? Yes.
Would I like to see the President move more forcefully on repealing the ban on gays in the military? Yes.

Even if he failed on all of these fronts (which there's a strong possibility he might) I would still support him. Why? That's sounds completely illogical.

Because I supported the President not for the decisions he makes but for how he goes about it. He's deliberate and incisive and seeks multiple opinions outside his own, just ask Republicans Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

All I ask is that our President, regardless of party, thinks through every decision he or she makes with care and with all of the information and opinions available. There's so much pressure on Obama to make this decision and view it as some sort of insight into his strength or weakness as a leader.

Look guys, we all get it. Democrats are pussies who are afraid to fight wars (although you might want to refer to Presidents Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Kennedy/Johnson). Our soldiers don't deserve a leader who thinks he kicks ass just because he made a quick and final decision. They deserve a leader that puts their safety above his own ego.

Neocons are just weak nerds who wish they were dumb bullies

KRISTOL: I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring him to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death.

Here's Bill Kristol advocating that the United States just skip the trial of Nidal Hasan and put him to death already. I find it incredibly interesting that these types of guys find themselves to be so macho. They've advocated the bombing of Iran and further confrontation with North Korea. They find no limits to the use of military power and why should they? They are just weak nerds who would never have the balls to put their own lives on the line. Believe me, if Bill Kristol were in Fort Hood or being held by terrorists he would convert to Islam before you finished this sentence.

There are no consequences to their rhetoric because they've never had to face a bully or a terrorist and I believe that they live vicariously through their own foreign policy ideology. They get to fight the bully (whatever imagined bully that is) without facing the consequences of their own demise. And to kick it all off, they put in harm's way all the dumb fucks who pushed them around and fucked their girlfriends, because they were busy studying Machiavelli's The Prince.

I've forgiven my bullies, I have no complex about winning wars and putting people to death just so I can feel like a strong man. I want my bullies to be as safe as possible. I don't want these guys dying for something that isn't strategically important to the security and safety of the United States. I don't think Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Hugh Hewitt and the like have gotten over their insecurities of being weak nerds, they should just embrace it and start wearing their helmets when they ride their bikes.

Nidal Hasan should be put to death for his crimes. But we are a nation of laws and we show the strength of our democracy not by carrying out the sentencing of the verdicts juries render, but by the fact that we give every criminal, no matter how depraved their crimes, a full and fair trial with a fully funded defense.

We win the war on terror by not becoming them. We eat bacon cheeseburgers, we smoke pot, we let our girlfriends and wives go to work and make more money than us, we let gays marry, we make fun of our leaders and we make fun of our country but we ALWAYS uphold the Constitution, regardless of how painful it might be.

Chocolate milk is good for you!

Exposed in the New York Times of all places!


If only my Nana Mary-Ann were alive to see this. I was right when I told her at the tender age of 7 that chocolate milk was in-fact good for you because of all that milk part, but it turns out the chocolate helps as well!

The civil rights issue of our time

Here's Dan Savage doing what he does best.

Ok, here's what he does best.

Moderate Republican + Stephen Colbert

= Awesome

Better Know a District - Delaware's Mike Castle

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor U.S. Speedskating

Is there a better way?

Interesting and thoughtful article about medical malpractice and tort reform on Slate.

Jony Ive is a genius

Here's a clip from the upcoming movie about industrial design Objectified.

Liz Cheney always says that Waterboarding was legal...

If we really thought waterboarding was legal, would our memos really look like this? This memo is from a series of memos released last Friday, November 6th. Click the image below for a closer look.

Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Dish.

Why the Democratic Healthcare bill is like a trip to Costco

It might cost a bit more upfront, but it will give us more stuff (coverage) and save us more in the long run. And that's not my opinion, it's the Congressional Budget Office's as David M. Herzenhorn of the New York Times writes in this article. Key passage below.

The Republican bill, which has no chance of passage, would extend insurance overage to about 3 million people by 2019, and would leave about 52 million people uninsured, the budget office said, meaning the proportion of non-elderly Americans with coverage would remain about the same as now, at roughly 83 percent.

The budget office has said that the Democrats’ health care proposal would extend coverage to 36 million people, meaning that 96 percent of legal residents would have health benefits. The Democrats’ bill would cost $1.1 trillion, with the costs more than covered by revenues from new taxes or cuts in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

House Republicans, including their leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, have said that they did not intend for their legislation to expand insurance coverage, because they viewed that goal as unaffordable. Instead, they said the bill was tailored narrowly to reduce costs.

According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10 years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’ legislation.

Quote of the Day

Pedro Martinez on today's Game 6 of the World Series:

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,’’ said a smiling Martinez. “I know they don’t like the Yankees to win, not even in Nintendo games. And knowing that I am part of Boston, I consider myself a Bostonian . . . I’m pretty sure that every Boston fan out there can feel proud that I’m going to try to beat the Yankees, and I’m going to give just the same effort I always did for them. They’re special fans, and they will always have my respect.’’

Vote 'No' on the Gay Marriage Repeal in Maine!

Dear Mainers,

As someone who has spent countless summers in one of the most beautiful places in the country and the world, I know that Mainers believe in civil rights for everybody. Even if many Mainers do not agree with gay marriage, they know that it is extremely unlike them to tell another person how to live his or her life, so long as it does not interfere with their own.

Mainers are all for independent moral living, and a 'No' vote today does nothing to change that, in fact it embraces it.

Come on Maine. Set an example and ensure that it remains the place where 'the way life should be'.

This is a Middle-East battle I can support

As someone who currently lives in a city that he loathes for the time being (Johnny Damon just has a knack for hitting key hits in ALCS games in New York), I ran across this article and was reminded that the more we fight over stuff like this, the better.

It's time for Europe and NATO to step up

NATO and I agree with General McChrystal that perhaps the only winnable strategy in Afghanistan is one that involves a major counterinsurgency effort. I also agree that President Obama should approve General McChrystal's troop request of 40,000. However, I do NOT agree that all of those troops should be American.

NATO defense ministers comprising leaders from many of our allies have apparently voiced their support. Here's my message to them:

If you believe this mission is the right one and needs to be resourced more fully, then by all means send in the troops. But nicey nice Barack doesn't come for free. He comes at a price to you, to NATO, to Europe and the rest of the world. If you don't want the U.S. to be a bully single-handedly going around the world telling other countries what to do, then it's time to step up and become a part of the solution - and that includes military help.

The left in Europe agonized over the genocide in Darfur and Rwanda, yet most European countries wouldn't ante up the troops to stop the violence. The U.S. was just as bad on the genocide front but we made the right call in Bosnia and in Somalia (just because we had trouble in Somalia doesn't mean it wasn't the right thing to do).

In his address to Congress in November of 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said, "Let me tell you solemnly today: France will remain engaged in Afghanistan as long as it takes, because what's at stake in that country is the future of our values and that of the Atlantic Alliance. For me, failure is not an option. Terrorism will not win because democracies are not weak, because we are not afraid of this barbarism. America can count on France."

If the election of President Obama means the era of the unilateral superpower is over, then it's time for Europe to step up and embrace its new role and act on its words.

Democratic Senators need to fall in line

Honestly, this is why people vote Republican. If a popular President with strong majorities in both houses of Congress can't get through his own proposal then what's the point?

Republicans fight for what they believe in and they stick together, even if it will cost them personal political capital. Do you think all of the congressional Republicans wanted to vote for Bush's tax cuts? No. Do you think all Republicans wanted to vote for the creation of Medicare Part D, one of the largest -- and unfunded, I might add -- parts of the welfare state? No. Do you think that Rep. Joe Wilson wanted to apologize for his "You LIE!!!" outburst? No, but Boehner and McConnell made him do it anyway. Sometimes you gotta take one for the team and Republicans do that when they've got one of theirs in the White House. And politically, I respect them for that.

But the Senate Dems don't believe in team. They believe in holding onto their jobs and lining their campaign coffers, so they can be ultra cautious for the 2010 elections. That's why you do things in the first year of a cycle, so you have a year to recover and distance yourself!!!

Look, I believe in democracy, I really do. But I believe every president, regardless of party, should get roughly one year of a gimme. Heck, I'll only give the President 10 months to November, but he should receive a rubber stamp from at least his own party to try out his proposals. Obama's policies were voted on by the public and those policies won by a significant margin. Everything that this debate has brought up was talked about in the campaign and Obama's proposals are similar to Mitt Romney's (creating an online insurance exchange for individuals to purchase) and include ideas from John McCain (taxing healthcare benefits above a certain threshold as income). These ideas are hardly radical or revolutionary.

Bush won in 2000, I'll give Repubs that. But he won by a margin of -0.49 percent. Obama won by 7.3% with a majority of the votes. Give him until November of this year, if the ideas don't work that's why we have November 2012.

And if some Republicans and moderate Democrats really think that the public option is socialism then I suggest they start protesting outside of UMass or UDel, because it's the same damn thing. Just sayin'.

Tucker Carlson seems like a really nice guy

He just played an asshole on TV. This is my feeling about Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, they are conservatives/republican no doubt, but they are playing a cartoon version of themselves that is merely for the ratings.

I pretty much hated Tucker when he was on CNN's Crossfire with his stupid little bow-tie, but I always assumed that there was a somewhat decent person underneath. I'm glad that this segment from FunnyOrDie has proven me right.

Enjoy.

The Uncle Sam Interviews: Tucker Carlson from Tucker Carlson

Faith Reconsidered...

NASA released new images from the newly repaired and updated Hubble Space Telescope on Wednesday and they are absolutely astounding. On one hand, these images make me feel infinitesimally small, like there is nothing in control and that there is absolutely no plan at all for everyone and everything. Yet at the same time, these images which reveal the places where stars are born are of such immense beauty that I question that any such thing could be so random and unintended.

Click the picture above for a full-(internet) size rendering. And for more of these new Hubble pics, click here.

Watch Al Franken slay at a Minnesota state fair

This is what happens when you have a real person elected to Senate, not just a regular lawyer douchebag. This is how America needs to have its discourse if we are going to survive as a nation; calmly, with disagreement and with FACTS.

Imogen Heap - Ellipse - streaming now available

I really think that she is one of the most innovative artists making music today.

A new study is out that Mozart died of strep throat. I can't help but feel that if Mozart were alive today this is the kind of music he would be experimenting with, developing as many sounds as he could and trying to make complex arrangements.

Anyway, here's Ellipse. Sounds pretty good so far. Enjoy.

Mass goes to Little League World Series with Walk-Off Grand Slam

Something a little more wholesome after that previous post.

The team from Peabody, MA came back from losing 6 to 2 to Rhode Island in the 4th only to tie it up at 7 in the bottom of the 6th (Little League only goes 6 innings) and ended with this...

I found a little asian version of me!

OK, maybe I wasn't as bad as this kid, but still...

Note: This clip crosses the line a lot and is not appropriate for children or anyone in my family with the exception of my sister. Please don't play this clip if you're not prepared to cross the line with me.

Husband and wife duo James Carville and Mary Matalin square off on health care

Back from vacation. I'm tired but looking forward to the next couple of months.

I think Carville is right here, both politically and policywise. Aside from policy matters, there is no use wasting all of this political capital on something that you don't want in the first place. Also, not having a full vote on this allows scared blue dog Dems to not vote for the thing even if they really support it.



For the record, I don't necessarily support a public option as proposed. I think the government should offer a basic plan that everyone should be required to have or the insurance companies through regulation must be required to offer a basic plan and then people can purchase supplemental insurance on top of it.

I also don't think it's fair to just tax the wealthy. My dad feels that the government should increase payroll tax for all income brackets by 1%. Everyone should contribute funds to something that I believe everyone should have access to.

What we really need to focus on is funding end-of-life care and those who have really complex terminal illness. We can afford regular checkups and the random stitches and illnesses that the large majority of people go through.

Guess who conservatives like being interviewed by the most?

In somewhat of a shocker, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.

"He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do," says John Bolton, President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. "He's got his perspective, but he's been fair."

Wax Fonzie and Tom Cruise go for a ride

This is hilarious.

Is Cash-for-Clunkers as environmentally friendly as we think?

Perhaps not as much as we thought. The Green Lantern of Slate explains.

Like Obama, McCain has some secrets

(Secrets)

Right wingers cause a ruckus in town halls

Lately many "constituents" have shown up to town halls to shout away healthcare insurance reform.

Here's a clip below.



Remind you of anything?

Bill Clinton is the Man

Looks like Bubba got the job done. He was able to secure "special pardons" for Current TV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Reports suggest that the two could be on a plane home to the U.S. tonight (perhaps even with the former President).

Obama could have gone with Richardson, but something tells me his Secretary of State convinced him that another Bill would be good for the job.

Although of course, officially, the White House has no comment regarding this "private citizen's" trip to North Korea.

But you've got to hand it to the man, two American citizens have gone from a possible 12-year sentence in a labor camp to being on a plane back to the U.S. because of William Jefferson Clinton. Republicans should seriously think about getting a congressional resolution going to forgive the man his oral in the oval.

New David Gray album coming soon

The album is called Draw the Line, comes out September 22nd and I can't wait. Here's a taste of the song "Fugitive" behind the scenes in the studio.

What to do about Cash-for-Clunkers program

So apparently the $1 billion program in the stimulus has run out of funds in a few weeks. The program provides up to $4,500 for qualifiying car purchases from trading in cars that are less than 25 years old with low mileage standards to new cars with higher mileage standards.

The House recently approved a new appropriation for $2 billion to be allocated for the program. I do not know if that is new money or just a bigger slice of the stimulus. Also, rumor has it that Senate Republicans and Blue Dogs are looking to kill the new House appropriation of funds.

Overall, I think this is an idea that is working. The fact that it ran out of money in a few weeks shows that it's working. And I think this shows where government can be effective if it's targeted well. The consumer gets $4,500 towards a new car which will save them money in the long run. The government gets old gas-guzzlers off the road and newer more environmentally friendly ones on, and to top it all off, the car companies and local dealerships get an increase in business, which hopefully sustains employment, or perhaps even increases it.

I can buy that perhaps the $4,500 per family may be a bit too much. The housing credit is $8,000 and that's for buying a house! So maybe in the Senate version they can approve the appropriation but perhaps lower the credit to $3,000, thus allowing more families access to this program. But I think killing it would be a bad idea.

Let me know what you think. I've posted a poll.

Time Interviews Obama on Healthcare Reform

Karen Tumulty of Time, talks to Obama about healthcare reform in a pretty extensive interview.

A careful read illustrates how non-radical President Obama really is. Here he is responding to whether we can afford reform during this recession:

"But I disagree with this idea that because of the financial crisis somehow we can afford to put this off. In some ways I think it's just made it more urgent for some of the reasons you just said: A lot more people are losing their jobs,are vulnerable to losing their health care; our deficits are even bigger, which means the load on Medicare and Medicaid is just going to get worse. If we don't do this now we are going to be in a world of hurt later."

A legitimate conservative economist argues against national healthcare

Megan McArdle, a conservative economist who writes for The Atlantic and The Economist has a great post about why she opposes a national healthcare system.

"Once the government gets into the business of providing our health care, the government gets into the business of deciding whose life matters, and how much. It gets into the business of deciding what we "really" want, where what we really want can never be a second chocolate eclair that might make us a size fourteen and raise the cost of treating us."

Read the full blog post here.

More Palin Poetry

I apologize that I keep on posting video. I know I should write some more thoughtful analysis on the healthcare debate or Glenn Beck's most recent rant. However, I cannot resist; this is just too good.

She obviously shows signs that she was educated in Idaho.

I swear I invented this junior year of college!

My dreams stand before my eyes! I wanted to call it Stand UP! My super-amazing girlfriend called her mock-up, Punch! Check it out. It's super funny and awesome.

http://www.punchlinemagazine.com/

I'm going to cry now.

FOX News legal analyst says Gates arrest unconstitutional

I hope to the lord almighty, that this is my last post on the Gates thing.

Andrew Napolitano, by no means a liberal, sympathizes with Sgt. Crowley, but ultimately determines that the arrest was not legal under Mass General Law or the U.S. Constitution.

To be fair, my buddy policeman, Justin, says there was a solid legal basis for his arrest. Watch the video and decide for yourself.



Just to let you know, we only have one more day of the poll, so go vote!

Why the 4-day workweek for state government employees benefits everybody

You're probably asking, "don't they already work less than a full week?" Sometimes that is true, but for the large majority of staffers, analysts, and aides, this policy would be a common-sense way to cut down on electrical costs and create a more efficient work system.

Read the article here.

Palin Poetry

William Shatner reads:

The morality of prostitution?

In my first real crossing the line, economist Tyler Cowen makes the case.



Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish and Dan Savage's blog for the link.

Hitch takes on the Gates controversy

One of my favorite writers, Christopher Hitchens, on Gates' arrest.

"It is the U.S. Constitution, and not some competitive agglomeration of communities or constituencies, that makes a citizen the sovereign of his own home and privacy. There is absolutely no legal requirement to be polite in the defense of this right. And such rights cannot be negotiated away over beer."

Read the full essay here.

Ernie makes the news! (sort of)

Well my striking image did. I'm in the upper left-hand corner wearing the red tie in the background. It's funny how this Boston Herald article details legislators' abuse of their spending privileges with their office accounts, but the picture is from Ethics conference committee.

Conservatives (and some Dems) find newfound love for police intrusion on private property

As I said in my earlier post concerning the Gates arrest, the situation wasn't about race, it was about two people who overreacted to the situation. However, in the wake of this controversy I now find that many people have no problem with the police arresting you on your own property for yelling at them.

I think this is ridiculous; the police cannot arrest you for being an asshole. Again, it is never a good idea be rude to a police officer, but they are trained to decipher between someone who constitutes a threat and someone who is upset and being defensive.

So, I have a poll set up in the sidebar about whether people think that the police can arrest you for yelling at them.

Conan and Jordan Schlansky!

Irrelevant.

You'll see what I'm talking about.

Big Whiskey Alternate Track - Write a Song

I'm at the beach so I'm not feeling like a hefty blog post today.  So I'm posting a song instead.

This is a track that didn't make the final cut on U.S. versions of Dave Matthews Band's Big Whiskey and The GrooGrux King.  It is also available as a part of Big Whiskey's iTunes Pass, so if you like it, go get it!

Obama elegantly attempts to ratchet back racial heat

Whether or not you agree with his policies, our President is a class act.

Listen to the President take over today's press conference below.

The Professor Gates Controversy Isn't About Race, It's About Douchebaggery

The first major story about race since the election of President Obama has finally hit the collective societal consciousness, and the resulting dialogue is not moving in a productive way. People are taking sides in this debate in a sadly expected way. For the most part, Republicans are blindly backing up the policeman, while Democrats are doing the same on behalf of Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates. And with a story like this, the way most rational people can decide who was in the wrong by knowing all of the details, and with the details not being available to the general public, the useless chatter is growing louder by the moment.

The President's attempt to wade into the issue only hurt his real goal of talking to the American people about healthcare, which is where the attention of the country should be. And although he asserted that he isn't sure how much race was a factor in this particular case, his use of the word "stupidly" has given him trouble that he doesn't need - especially now.

My thoughts on the controversy are this:

The woman who called the police might have engaged in racial profiling. A transcript of her call in the police record shows that she reported "two black males with backpacks." Neither Gates, who is 5'7", nor his driver were wearing backbacks at the time. However, the woman was in the right for reporting the behavior as Gates mentioned yesterday on CNN, "I hope right now if someone is breaking into my house, this nice lady is calling the police...It wasn't her fault."

The behavior of Officer Crowley however, is a different story. There is no reason to believe that he was acting with any racial prejudice.

Here's what I believe happened. Gates, upset by being questioned in his own home yelled at the police officer and stressed that he was a powerful and important Harvard professor not to be messed with. He repeatedly asked for his name and badge number and apparently those requests were met with silence. He was in his legal rights to complain and yell, but he was kind of being a douche.

Officer Crowley, after seeing Gates' ID left the house and asked Gates to follow him on the porch to further discuss the matter. Gates, thinking the incident over, further berated the officer as a racist. The officer then arrested Gates for disorderly conduct and handcuffed him with his hands behind his back. In my opinion, here is where Officer Crowley crosses the line into being a douche himself. There was absolutely no need for an arrest. A 58 year-old man who walks with a cane posed no physical threat to the officer or to the public. Mr. Gates was legally on his own property and was being a douche to the officer, which I might add is also legal.

Here's the moral of the story. Both parties were in the wrong to escalate the situation into something it did not need to become. But if this case reveals anything, it does not reveal anything about the nature of race, it reveals the nature of people who when annoyed act like douchebags. And it's never a good idea to act like a douchebag around cops. I respect the police and the job they do. Day in and day out, they do a great job of keeping us safe but we all know that sometimes certain policemen can be assholes.

On Nightline, as President Obama backpedaled his "stupidly" comment after his press conference slip-up, he stated, "cooler heads should have prevailed."

That's exactly how I feel.

My first post - Hooray!

Hello Everybody,

Welcome to Ernie Crossing the Line! I hope to create a space where people can feel free to "cross the line" on various topics as long as they do so in a respectful and intellectually honest way (ok, maybe not too respectful!). This blog will largely deal with politics, comedy and music but perhaps we'll cross the line on a bunch of other topics as well.

Thanks for reading. Let's get to crossing the line!

Best,

Dave (Ernie)