MetaBoy

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recently published an op-ed in the New York Times. Basically, Cotton's argument is: Riots = bad. Protests that are "peaceful and law-abiding" aren't quite as bad... ...but really, they didn't send me to Washington to make such persnickety distinctions. We should conduct military assaults on Americans the same way I did against insurgents in Afghanistan's Laghman Province. Because... [here he's fuzzy; he just likes "calling in the miltary."] These are just a few of Cotton's lies, half-truths and dissembling. The link supposedly to evidence of de Blasio's abnegation of responsibility actually shows the protesters standing up to looting and destruction, and details further, rampant police misconduct. You're not helping yourself by linking to this one, Cotton. He cites instances — all horrible — of violence toward cops. But he neglects to contrast those to the many, many more instances of violence *f...

Nationalized Healthcare Kicks Our Butt // The comparison stats are from the 2000 World Health Organization, World Health Report 2000 - Health Systems: Improving Performance , the last comprehensive report on some of these issues. But since I wrote this post, I've found some more up-to-date stats on their site for some figures, so will try to do a new post with some of those comparisons. S ome people have asked three questions which, taken at face value, are legitimate questions. What would the public option do to (a) reduce the overall cost of healthcare, and (b) improve the quality of my healthcare; and (c) what will the effect be on the deficit? The Congressional Budget Office estimates $1 trillion-plus. So how do we pay for that? To take the last item first, the CBO analysis didn't factor in what could be saved by the public option, or by best-practice incentives, or by competitive price pressure on the private insurers. By the same rationale, fluorescent lightbulbs make no...

Lies, Damned Lies, Yet No Statistics // I keep trying to start a blog post that aims to refute all the lies, idiocy and misinformation that the right-wing (Grassley, Boehner), ignorant ("Keep the government's hands off my Medicare!"), and downright evil (Palin, Beck, etc. etc. etc.) are putting out there about health insurance reform and health coverage. But every time, I end up realizing it would be full-time job that should have started over a month ago. And then, today, I read two column that help put a lot of the bad information out there into perspective. The first was Steven Pearlstein's look back at the 20th century and how the right-wing loses its mind every time a liberal (even a nominal liberal) gets into power. It froths at the mouth. It takes two opposing thoughts ("socialism! fascist!") and says they're the same thing. It basically makes stuff up, and the more bizarre the better. That's what gets attention, at least. The second was Pau...

That Ol' Country Bumpkin // I n looking for some other kind of information on his site, I happened to see that my congressman, Charlie Rangel, lists something like 30 congressional "caucuses" he's a member of. He's a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He's a member of the Progessive Caucus. He's a member of the Army Caucus and the Navy/Marine Caucus. (He was a staff sergeant in the Army and earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star in Korea, by the way.) He's a member of the Caribbean Caucus, which takes some chutzpah, given the trouble he's gotten into with unreported rental income on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. (Which may explain why he's also a member of the Real Estate Caucus.) He's a member of several caucuses that don't reflect his own history but rather the causes he chooses to support: the Caucus for Women's Issues, the Caucus for Armenian Issues, the Fire Services Caucus, etc., etc. One caucus ...

Laying it on with a trowel // I f all the following are true... I voted for Barack Obama I donated more money to his campaign than any other campaign I'd ever donated to On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give him, maybe, an 8 so far. (If he'd quit discharging soldiers under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" I might move that up to a 9, even.) On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give Michelle Obama a 10 so far I've been interested in both the history and the modern working of the White House since I was in junior high school I'm generally a fan of Brian Williams I'm fascinated by the open access the White House gave NBC for 5 days to produce its two-night "news special" on the Obama White House I didn't tune in for a hard-hitting expose or confrontation between the Executive branch and the Fourth Estate ...then why am I feeling so profoundly embarrassed by Brian Williams's fawning hagiography of the Obamas in this special? Are there still, somewher...

Language, Please! // Chicago's Fox News outlet (so take it FWIW) is apparently reporting that Obama's incoming chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, did in fact have multiple conversations with Governor Rod Blagojevich about the successor to Barack Obama's seat in the U.S. Senate. There's no intimation that they were looking to make a deal, only that Emanuel may have provided the governor with a list of names that would be be seen as "acceptable" to the Obama administration. Given the transcripts reported by Patrick Fitzgerald's office from the wiretap of Blagojevich's other phone conversations, and given the reputation of Rahm Emanuel for expressing himself in ways that could make a longshoreman blush, it makes you wonder what's up with the folks in the Fifth Congressional District of Illinois? Are they all a bunch of swearing pottymouths? Or, as someone elsewhere has said, can you imagine the number of F-bombs dropped in a conversation between Emanuel a...

Mostly? Loved It! // T he good news: at this point, it doesn't even need to be said, but that never stopped me. Talk about history. Someone pointed out that very, very few countries have elected or appointed someone of a racial minority to lead the country. The most obvious, prior to this, was Peru electing a man of Japanese descent (which didn't actually turn out too great for them). But no country near the size, power, or economy of the United States — well, there isn't one, but you know what I mean -- has done so. And yet I see something like this happen and I'm actually reminded of something Ronald Reagan quoted at the groundbreaking of his presidential library in Simi, California, from a letter someone had written to him not long before: "He said, you can go to live in another land — you can go to live in France, but you can't become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany, but you can't become a German. You can go to live in Japan or Turkey, and y...

Signs of Hope and Change // H ere, on the eve of Election Day, it all comes down to this:

A Roundup of News that Mattered to Me // It's strange what catches your attention in the news. For me, it's sometimes the same stuff that's on the 30-minute roundup that's considered "news" by the networks. Or the goofy points brought up by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, who I swear has the same take as I do so often that I may just quit watching her, because even what she finds outrageous or amusing is exactly what I find amusing across the TV, Web and blogosphere regarding this election. But herewith, in lieu of actual insight or thought (which I could never claim, anyway, for this blog, I fear) a collection of things I've noticed, shared on Facebook or in e-mail, or posted elsewhere. For one thing, starting with today, Obama held a rally under the Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, which drew an estimated 100,000 people. Yesterday, I ran across a link posted on a blog for an article The Onion ran back in January 2001, a satirical look ahead at the Bush Administrat...

I'm So Proud // Markos has seven good points that should be addressed before any bailout is agreed to. Read, mark, inwardly digest. T his from the wayback machine seems priceless, given the news: More recently, instruments that are more complex and less transparent--such as credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and credit-linked notes—have been developed and their use has grown very rapidly in recent years. The result? Improved credit-risk management together with more and better risk-management tools appear to have significantly reduced loan concentrations in telecommunications and, indeed, other areas and the associated stress on banks and other financial institutions. Remarks by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan Before the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C. November 19, 2002

Everyone Must Go! // Last week's financial sector meltdown certainly feels like a game changer to me. For one thing, capitalists are now on record as no longer believing in the power of the free market — or, rather, admitting it has an awesome power, greater than they expected, and therefore it needs some care and feeding — and tacitly admitting that needs to come with oversight. The Tom Toles cartoon said it best. It showed a fireman, dressed sorta like Uncle Sam, pulling a Wall Street fatcat from a burning building, who is saying, "Wait! Let me go back and save my needlepoint 'Government isn't the solution, government is the problem' inspirational wall hanging." I have no doubt that the Republicans, as adept as they are at self- and other kinds of deception will choose to remember this crisis differently, and much will depend on what happens over the next two weeks or so. But I for most people the meltdown last week demonstrated, once and for all, that unbr...