Liberals at Hypocrisy.com

Insanity Run Amuk in the Health Care Reform Debate

pamelalyn — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:22:59 +0000

Headline Huffington Post: Robert Byrd’s Death Seemingly Wished For By Tom Coburn

Enough is enough already. This Huffington Post headline is ridiculous and definitely in poor taste.

Heaven knows that the last person I am interesting in defending is Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). But unless he specifically referenced Sen. Byrd by name or made some veiled reference to “the good gentleman from West Virginia” then neither Senator Durbin or the author of this post knows what was in Sen. Coburn’s mind.

Have many of the Republicans acted like hateful, petulant children about health care reform? Of course.

Have some of the Democrats acted in their own self interest? Yes, to that too.

Have members of the Senate used the idea of prayer and religion to advance their very own agendas? Yes indeed. Coburn’s comment was out of line.

And do persons on all sides of the debate secretly harbor thoughts of throwing a few members of the Senate under a moving train? You Bet. I know that I have my list and it’s pretty long.

But to say that Tom Coburn seemed to be wishing for Senator’s Byrd’s death is irresponsible and the very type of comment that gives progressives and bloggers everywhere a bad name.

Shame on the Huffington Post for this headline. You have now officially stooped to the level of a Rupert Murdoch rag. All may be fair in love, war and the health care reform debate but this headline is too much for this progressive to stomach.

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

When Corporations Run Government This Is What You Get

pamelalyn — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:55:23 +0000

When corporations have undue influence on government you can count on one thing: the interests of the corporations will always be placed before the interests of individuals. Never has this been more true than in the devolution of the Senate version of H.R.3590 - The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act aka the health care reform bill. And regardless of your political party affiliation or whether you are for or against the bill, you should find the handling of this bill by the Senate and the White House deeply troubling.

Obviously no one really believed that in just one year after an election, albeit an historic one, the world of Washington politics was going to dramatically change. However, I suspect that most people did hold out hope that our elected officials would finally realize that the American people were no longer naive and/or clueless about the influence peddling that occurs in our nation’s capitol. I believe that most Americans, at least the progressives that I know, held the hope that their elected representatives would respect their intelligence and realize that while they may have been fooled more times than they care to count, they can’t be fooled all of the time. Yet sadly it appears that a lot of people in Washington didn’t receive that memo. Because now the American people are being asked to be happy about a proposed Senate health bill that throws them a few crumbs but leaves the most vulnerable in society at the mercy of the insurance industry.

Yes, there are a few good things in the current version of health care reform bill but let’s all be honest. If an insurance company is allowed to charge a senior citizen three times as much for their health care coverage does it really matter if there is no longer a doughnut hole in their prescription coverage? In fact, the amendment that would have made a significant difference in the the cost of prescription drug costs, the Dorgan/Snowe amendment, was rejected in order to protect the interests of Big Pharma

Here’s what we are now being asked to cheer. A bill that opens for the door for a senior citizen who currently pays $200/mo ($2,400/yr) for supplemental Medicare coverage to now see the possibility of that rate jumping to $600/mo ($7,200/yr). In that scenario, the Senate’s bill would, at best, guarantee that that senior faces extreme financial hardship or, at worse, force them to choose to forego medical care that they may desperately need.

In another scenario, a young person, with what is currently considered “a pre-existing” condition, could be forced to purchase an insurance plan at an exorbitant rate. That certainly wouldn’t leave much money left over to spend on the other items that help fuel our economy, would it?

In both of these scenarios, the only entity that is really benefiting is the insurance company. Surprise, surprise!

As physician and former Gov. Howard Dean wrote in his article, Health Care Bill Won’t Bring Real Reform, for the Washington Post:

“Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries — in the range of $20 million a year — and on return on equity for the company’s shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann former Cigna executive Wendell Potter calls the current version of the Senate health care reform bill, a big gift for the (insurance) industry.

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

This bill is a travesty. Even worse, anyone who has the courage to speak out against this sell-out to the insurance industry is being labeled as “irrational” and their dissent is being misrepresented.

During an interview with Keith Olbermann, Lawrence O’Donnell touched on why it seems that Howard Dean’s comments are being taken out of context as well as why the White House seems to be more upset with Dr. Dean than the obstructionist Sen. Joe Lieberman:

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

In a post for The Hill, Alexander Bolton quotes Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) as saying: “This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth.” And that takes me back to the heart of this post.

As long as election campaigns involve obscene amounts of money, then corporations will have undue influence in politics. And when corporations have undue influence in politics you can count on one thing: the interests of the corporations will always be placed before the interest of individuals.

So who is to blame for this madness? Sen. Lieberman, Pres. Obama, Harry Reid, Congress, the lobbyists? Or maybe we should all take a look in the mirror. Because if we quietly sat by while our government was sold to corporate interests we have no one to blame but ourselves.

An Appeal for Real and Comprehensive Health Care Reform

Health Care Reform - How Bad Do We Want It?

originally posted on Pam’s Coffee Conversation

When Michelle Malkin is Right, She’s Right

pamelalyn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:26:18 +0000

Ok readers, you can get up off the floor now.

I haven’t suddenly lost my mind. But you know that I have to call them like I see them, even when it gets me into big trouble. So here goes.

In a recent interview with FoxNews on the topic of the tragedy at Ft. Hood, Ms Malkin stated:

“I don’t think that we have to play games with the rush to judgment anymore. I think that the bigger problem for the American government and their culture post 9/11 is that there are too many people still doing the rush to white-wash.“

She later states: “the red flags were missed and it behooves everyone in Congress and in Washington to figure out who dropped the ball.”

Friends, when Michelle is right, she’s right. Sadly, the rest of her argument misses the point and her statement is a few years too late.

During the rest of the interview, Ms Malkin blames the recent tragedy at Ft. Hood on “the military’s worship of the “false god of diversity” which, in her opinion, was placed before national security.

First of all, that is an insult to the military and all of the servicemen and women whom Michelle Malkin constantly criticizes liberals for not supporting. Shame on her,

Second, I submit that it wasn’t the military’s worship of diversity but rather the Bush administration’s rush to war with an all-volunteer military and a “see no evil” recruitment policy that opened the door to disaster.

In an April, 2008 post, I referenced a December 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle which raised very serious questions about the military’s recruitment policy. In his article, “US is recruiting misfits for army: felons, racists, gang members fill in the ranks“, reporter Nick Turse wrote:

“After falling short of its goals last year, military recruiting in 2006 has been marked by upbeat pronouncements from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, claims of success by the White House, and a spate of recent press reports touting the military’s achievement of its woman- and manpower goals.

But the armed forces have met with success only through a fundamental transformation, and not the transformation of the military — that ‘co-evolution of concepts, processes, organizations and technology’ that Rumsfeld is always talking about either.

In 2004, the Pentagon published a ‘Moral Waiver Study,’ whose seemingly benign goal was ‘to better define relationships between pre-Service behaviors and subsequent Service success.’ That turned out to mean opening more recruitment doors to potential enlistees with criminal records.

In February, the Baltimore Sun wrote that there was ‘a significant increase in the number of recruits with what the Army terms ’serious criminal misconduct’ in their background’ — a category that included ‘aggravated assault, robbery, vehicular manslaughter, receiving stolen property and making terrorist threats.’ From 2004 to 2005, the number of those recruits rose by more than 54 percent, while alcohol and illegal drug waivers, reversing a four-year decline, increased by more than 13 percent.

In June, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that, under pressure to fill the ranks, the Army had been allowing into its ranks increasing numbers of ‘recruits convicted of misdemeanor crimes, according to experts and military records.’ In fact, as the military’s own data indicated, ‘the percentage of recruits entering the Army with waivers for misdemeanors and medical problems has more than doubled since 2001.’

One beneficiary of the Army’s new moral-waiver policies gained a certain prominence this summer. After Steven Green, who served in the 101st Airborne Division, was charged in a rape and quadruple murder in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, it was disclosed that he had been ‘a high-school dropout from a broken home who enlisted to get some direction in his life, yet was sent home early because of an anti-social personality disorder.’ “

In that same post I mentioned, Paula Zahn’s 2007 report on “Gangs in the Military“. If you missed it, here’s an excerpt from the show transcript:

THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): No one knows for sure just how many gang members are in the military. By some estimations, it’s less than 1 percent of all military personnel, hardly an epidemic, but enough to prompt the FBI to issue this report.

(voice-over): Gang members at military installations from Fort Lewis, Washington, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been involved in drug distribution, robberies, assaults, and murder. According to this 2007 internal FBI document, the report found that gang activity in the U.S. — quote — “is increasing and poses a threat to law enforcement officials and national security.”

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Military men training gangsters on how to use weapons.

GUTIERREZ: An issue law enforcement is taking seriously.

Al Valdez (ph) is a former detective. He trains police around the country on gangs in the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s not illegal to be a gang member in the United States. And it’s a protected right. In fact, the head of Army Recruitment Command correctly states that. What happens is, they bring that gangster mentality within the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When these cats come back from — these gang members come back from Iraq, we are going to have some hell on these streets, because these dudes are coming back with training that’s on another level.

So, if the military was willing to overlook gang members, overt racists and felons, then it wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if they may have overlooked an Islamic jihadist or two. To be clear, I said “IF”.

Of course, Ms. Malkin may not read the San Francisco Chronicle or be a fan of Paula Zahn but there were other signs that the recruitment demands placed on the military by the Bush administration’s rush to the war in Iraq and lack of an exit strategy would have serious consequences. Where was her concern then?

Oh yes, I forgot. Ms. Malkin was busy labeling anyone who expressed a concern about the war as a “traitor”, “a coward” and “an enemy sympathizer.”

Yes, when Michelle Malkin is right, she’s partially right. “The red flags were missed and it behooves everyone in Congress and in Washington to figure out who dropped the ball.“

The Illusion of An All Volunteer Army

originally posted on Pam’s Coffee Conversation

How to get out of Afghanistan

Snark Twain — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:22:02 +0000

During the early, heady days of the Obama administration, when fear stalked the land and Wall Street execs had to change their Calvins hourly, Rahm and the boys had a saying. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

That was a great idea. Use a crisis to make positive change. They haven’t followed their own advice on Wall Street and the health care issue is still up for grabs, but the idea is sound. Change is hard in normal times, crises make it easier. It’s much simpler to build anew when you’re knee deep in rubble.

We are knee deep in Afghanistan already. In the next few weeks Obama will decide whether or not we wade in up to our necks. But we’ve been in that country for eight years and there’s no end in sight. The only thing that can save us from more of the same, and worse, is a crisis.

A crisis is brewing in Afghanistan. Actually, crises are always brewing in Afghanistan, but the one coming now is threatening to boil over, melt the kettle and blow up the stove.

That crisis is the Afghani presidential election runoff and the crisis of legitimacy that is sure to follow. Hamid Karzai will win, but it will be a messy, nasty business with messy, nasty consequences. Those events will precipitate a crisis that provides an opportunity, a fleeting opportunity, to get America out of that country. If we’re smart enough to take it.

The first thing we need is a reality check. What are our objectives in Afghanistan? What do we want for that torn patchwork quilt forever trying, and failing, to become a healthy nation? What’s our goal there, freedom and democracy? Well, people in heaven want orgies. We need to dial down the expectations.

Maybe we just want to build up the Afghan state until it’s ready to stand on its own two feet. But Afghanistan doesn’t have two feet, it has dozens. If it is to stand at all, it will be on the feet of clans, warlords, druglords, local despots, religious authorities and assorted tribesmen who have precious little in common, save this: they don’t respond well to outside force. Nor inside force, for that matter, which is why they’re always fighting.

That fight is going to get a lot hotter in the days and months ahead, after the runoff. There will be hurt feelings and wounded pride and a severely diminished belief in the ballot box’s power to make things right.

Obama will have a chance to make good use of that crisis. When Afghanistan devolves into chaos, on top of the already occurring civil war, Obama can begin to make the case that it’s beyond our power, any power, to heal that nation—not even with 500,000 boots on the ground, much less the 40,000 that General McChrystal wants.

We needn’t “cut and run,” nor will we. All Obama needs to do is “set down markers.” He can give the Afghan government some time to get their act together. He can save face by getting into a holding pattern, keep the already augmented troops in country for a while and “await events.” He can even add a few, saying it’s a down payment on our commitment to Afghanistan, the rest to be provided when conditions on the ground, in theater, allow. And when those conditions never arise, which they won’t, Obama can announce that it’s time to “change the mission” and begin to withdraw our troops.

What should our mission in Afghanistan be? To keep our real enemies there from taking over and to keep al Qaeda on the run. We can do that with special-ops and commando raids and Predator strikes on terror camps or anyplace else fanatics are holed up, dreaming of a second 9/11. Just like we’re doing in Pakistan.

With our army mostly gone, and hearts and minds, always out of reach anyway, no longer our core mission, our job will be much easier. Our footprint will be smaller, collateral damage can be minimized, and when it inevitably happens, regrettable though it is, it won’t hurt our troops engaged in pacification. Because they won’t be there. Pacification won’t be our mission. Defense will. And the people we’ll be defending is us.

Never let a good crisis go to waste. If we don’t want to be stuck in Afghanistan for longer than the American people, or the Afghani people, can tolerate, we have to follow that advice right now. The coming crisis will give us a precious chance to get out. It is too good to waste.

Roughing the Rusher

Snark Twain — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:42:48 +0000

Rush Limbaugh, America’s Rectum of the Radio, will not get the chance to spread his malodorous flatus on yet another industry. The NFL said no, thanks.

This was big news the past couple of days. TV was all over it, like white on whitey. They teased it mercilessly: “Sack of stank sacked by NFL! Film at eleven.”

Then there was the headline in Variety: “Karma Kicks Konservative Krazy in Keister!”

In a way it’s too bad. Rush had a good shot at winning the 2010 Marge Schott Memorial Award for Blowhard Bigotry in American Sports Franchising.

Rush got the old heave-ho when the other prospects in his ownership group realized he was contagious. There is no way the NFL owners would vote a guy that radioactive into their club. You can be as loopy as Al Davis or as degenerate as the Hunt brothers, no problem. But with labor relations decaying and a possible strike or lockout already on the near horizon, the NFL didn’t need this.

About 70% of NFL players are African American and they don’t like him, mostly. “I wouldn’t play for that fat duck if I sat on him till he quacked,” is almost what they said. It’s as close as I can get to their words on a family blog.

Rush is firing back now, saying he got race-baited by Obama’s cronies in the media and the cowards in the NFL.

He has a point. The league wasn’t crazy about his proposal to change the name of the team from the St. Louis Rams to the Missouri Vicodins or the St. Louis Thugs. They didn’t think that was appropriate for children.

But that’s not why he got sacked. The liberals didn’t do it. The capitalists did.

That’s the beauty part. Rush got done in by capitalism! He got the full leper treatment because he was bad for business. Nobody censored him and no liberal threw him under the bus (where is that bus, anyway, the one that keeps driving over people? I think the driver may be impaired, by, like, Oxycontin or something.)

The NFL didn’t even have to vote on the guy. I heard one of Rush’s supporters (excuse me a second, that word gave me a visual and I have to puke…. Ok, I’m back.) say what happened to him amounted to a “high tech lynching.” Well, if so, the NFL didn’t get their hands dirty. His “partners” did the hit for them. That’s one thing you gotta love about capitalists, no sentiment.

“Hey Rush, you’re getting in the way of our bid. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya! Peace, out.”

Still, there’s no getting around the fact that having Rush in the league would have been a risky proposition. He would have cost the networks too much advertising. All those booze ads with P. Diddy? Gone. That Miller High Life guy who repossess the beer from yuppies? History. Dennis Haysbert pitching for Allstate? Policy cancelled.

But they could have made some of those losses up. The American Association of Teabaggers was ready to pony up for a spot, and I understand the Alabama Robe and Noose Company was interested as well.

But you know businessmen. No courage. They said what all Americans say when the gods of commerce are faced with controversy. “I’m taking my business elsewhere.”

Bless their covetous little hearts.

But a part of me regrets their decision. Rush with an even higher profile might have been fun to see. The man already has an ego bigger than his ass, and his ass is so big I was sure that Balloon Boy was trapped in the crack. Thank God Rush made a soft landing and that kid was safely tucked into a box in his father’s hoax, uh, I mean house.

Alas, it was not to be, and it’s all Rush’s fault. He brought this upon himself.

Forget the politically incorrect statements being blamed for Rush’s defenestration. A few tasteless remarks about Crips and Bloods and Donovan McNabb aren’t the problem here.

Rush’s problem is that he hates everybody who isn’t a sycophantic fan of Rush Limbaugh. He hates our duly elected president like Obama wanted to date his daughter or steal his wakeup or both. He’s sitting on top of a pile of money almost as big as his self-opinion yet he cries hippopotamus tears of woe about how the liberal conspiracy is out to destroy him.

Well, we’re trying. But it hasn’t been going so well. Until some of his fellow capitalists took a quick sniff and decided to distance themselves from the skunk.

Take a bow, irony. You earned it.

Saturday morning with the village idiots

Deb Della Piana — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:36:49 +0000

I thought I’d just about seen everything, and then came this morning. Actually, some of this happened yesterday but it took a day or so for my tired brain to absorb it all. Is this a Saturday morning rant? In the immortal words of that now infamous former vice presidential candidate, Facebook aficionado, and current financial guru, “You betcha.”

Health care reform

The first thing that pissed me off, of course, is this whole health care reform discussion. Apparently, the issue has moved from inclusion of the public option to how we’re going to afford health care reform. In my mind, this is a non-issue. Does anyone ask the question about how we’re going to continue to afford the bloated defense budget, or the two illegal, immoral wars we are waging in Iraq and Afghanistan? The 2010 proposed defense budget is $663 billion. The present cost of the Iraq war is $9 billion/month, while the cost of whatever is going on in Afghanistan is an additional $2 billion/month. However, because of Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama’s influx of 17,000 additional troops into Afghanistan this past March, it is expected that the cost of that conflict will increase 60% by year’s end. I’ve not heard anyone ask how the United States can continue to afford these wars. Yet, in order to protect the profitability of the insurance companies, various conservative political zombies - both Republican and Democrat - have now decided to make the cost of health care reform an issue in order to prevent it from happening.

How is it that the United States, with all its wealth, remain the only industrialized nation that does not offer universal health care to its citizens? Simple. The insurance industry has given millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle. The leading recipient of this cash influx is, in fact, Barack Obama. Second in line is Max Baucus. Both are Democrats. One is the President of the United States.

The Nobel Peace Prize

Now that I’ve mentioned it, let’s talk about the Nobel Peace Prize and its recipient, Barack Obama. Apparently the committee feels he belongs in the company of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi and Professor Elie Wiesel. He supposedly won the award for calling for a reduction in the world’s supply of nuclear armaments. Barack Obama took office on January 20. The names had to be put into nomination by February 1, long before the call for this initiative began. There’s no justification for the POTUS winning this award, and he should turn the award down and say that there are others who are much more deserving of it. Calling for a global initiative to reduce the world’s supply of nuclear armaments and actually doing something about it are two different things. The United States owns the largest cache of nuclear weapons in the world. It’s not that I think the call for a nuclear-free world is trivial, because I believe it is essential for our survival. It’s just that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given based on a body of work, not a mere statement. Let’s also not forget that Barack Obama continues to fight two illegal wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) and has conducted bombing raids in both Pakistan and Somalia. He has also done everything in his power to prevent the investigation of war crimes and torture under the Bush administration. Now, let’s talk about the 1991 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Inspired by both Mahatma Gandhi and Buddhist concepts, Aung San Suu Kyi has been a tireless fighter for democracy in Burma since 1988, and has spent 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest. Suu Kyi was first arrested in 1989, and offered freedom if she left the country. She refused. In 1990, the National League for Democracy, of which Suu Kyi is the general secretary, won 82% of the vote. As the party’s candidate, Suu Kyi should have assumed the position of Prime Minister. Instead, the election results were nullified, the military refused to hand over power, and she was again detained. In 1991, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and Suu Kyi used the $1.3 million award to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people. In Suu Kyi’s case, she had already put her money where her mouth is, as we say. She had already shown courage and leadership. It’s not that I don’t think that Barack Obama doesn’t have the potential to be a great or influential world leader. It’s just that I haven’t seen any evidence of it nine months into his presidency on any front. Even if we go back further than his presidency, let’s accept the fact that Barack Obama was a first-term Senator without many accomplishments under his belt. Basing the award on potential, rather than accomplishments, trivializes the process.

All is not okay in OK

Seems the state of Oklahoma has come up with a new idea designed to prevent women from getting abortions. Hell, if you can’t challenge them in court, you might as well try intimidation. Under a new law that will take effect on November 1, physicians will be required to collect detailed personal information from every woman getting an abortion. There are 37 questions, including:

Date and location of the abortion

Race of the mother

Marital status of the mother

Total number of previous pregnancies (including details about live births, miscarriages and induced abortions)

Education level

The reason for the abortion

The method of payment

Whether or not the woman was a state employee at the time of the abortion

The physician must then send the completed questionnaire to the State Health Department, which will create a report to be posted on line. Doctors who fail to submit the questionnaires will face criminal sanctions and loss of their medical license. Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, says, “They’re really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions.”

This whole process is sick, twisted and scary. The Center for Reproductive Rights has joined with former state representative Wanda Jo Stapleton (D-OK City) and Shawnee, OK, resident Lora Joyce Davis in legal action to prevent the law from going into effect. Let’s hope they win.

Who Roots for America?

Snark Twain — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:39:57 +0000

Who is so bold as to root for America anymore? Once it was a given, now rooting for America is passé on both sides of the political divide. These days you can get more applause, American applause, by rooting for America to fail than to win.

The GOP wants Obama to lose far more than they want America to succeed—witness their unseemly delight at Chicago’s face-plant in the Olympics vote. If Barry Goldwater were alive he’d have torn the flag pins from their traitorous lapels. The sunshine patriots of the party of patriotism sold their birthright for a mess of morbid revenge.

The right thinks America is them and only them; to the conservatives’ debased base liberals in general and Obama in particular aren’t really Americans. They’re like French, or something. And it’s no great leap from there to wanting America to fail as long as these pinkos are running the place.

But I don’t just want to pick on the right, they’re too easy. The right is in the throes of a nervous breakdown these dark days, it’s hardly fair to expect them to be rational, however disappointing their behavior has been to anyone who roots for America.

The left often seems to find rooting for America as distasteful as dental work, and with far less excuse than the right.

To find actual hate for America among the left, you have to look pretty far into the fringes, into the precincts of “America the warmonger,” “America the ruthless globalizer,” “America the imperial overlord raping the world of its resources and enslaving its poor.”

But a far broader swath of liberals is ashamed of America. They don’t hate the place, they just find it nearly impossible to root for. To them, rooting for America reeks of flag waving, NASCAR and John Wayne.

And flag-waving, NASCAR-loving, John Waynes are everything they’ve been against since the Vietnam war. Yahoo, reactionary, know-nothings who have hijacked and perverted the American dream.

But the left let them do it, they watched in aloof disdain as their opponents grabbed Old Glory. The liberals handed over the flag without a fight, and the conservatives proceeded to wrap themselves in it.

That was a mistake. Liberals should have been the repository of the highest ideals of America, especially during their long exile in the political wilderness. They should have fought hard to claim the mantle of Americanism back from their adversaries. The winning strategy would have been to unwrap the flag from the flag-draped right and stake it proudly on their own, liberal, American ground.

They are paying for that failure now. We all are. The liberals, albeit a weak tea version of liberals, have come into power at long last. They have a chance to remake the American dream in their own image—just as Ronald Reagan did in his, thirty years ago.

They’re doing a poor job of it, so far. The liberals don’t seem to have the courage of their own convictions. They start out compromising to get Republican support, and when they don’t get it they compromise some more.

Why is it that the Democrats, elected with a ringing mandate for change, are so timid about making some? Why are their health care plans so pedestrian? Why don’t they get rid of hate laws like “don’t ask, don’t tell?” Why won’t they tax some fairness into the most unbalanced economy in American history?

I believe it’s because they don’t know how to root for themselves anymore because they don’t know how to root for America. If they did, their arguments would be clear and commanding: Health care is an American right. Fairness to gays is an American right. Economic justice is an American right.

But to say that stuff you have to believe in America, its ideals, its history. You have to root for it.

I have never been a fan of President Reagan, not at the time and not in retrospect. But I like one thing about him. He never let the nation, or the world, doubt where his sympathies lay. He knew you can’t move America unless you root for America.

Contemporary conservatives have forgotten that lesson. Contemporary liberals better learn it fast, if they want to be more than just another failed blip on the arc of decline of a once-great Nation.

The revolution we started in 1776 needn’t end in failure. America is still a place we can make, if we root for it. But who roots for America anymore?

It’s time to dump DOMA

Deb Della Piana — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:26:06 +0000

It’s hard to pinpoint the most misguided piece of legislation to come out of Washington over the past 15 years, particularly in light of the twisted logic of the Bush administration. From my perspective, however, I’d have to choose the absurd Defense of Marriage Act (or DOMA). In the thirteen years this law has been in effect, it has done little - if anything - to improve the state of heterosexual marriage. In fact, it isn’t about protecting the sanctity of marriage. It’s about oppressing one group of people, the LGBT community.

In effect, what DOMA does is allow the federal government to define marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman. No gays. No barnyard animals. Now, I was under the impression that the federal government was involved in the affairs of state, not affairs of the heart. This bill was introduced in the Senate by none other than Bob Barr (married three times, by the way), and passed as part of serial cheater Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America (or the Contract on America, depending upon how you look at it). It was signed into law on September 21, 1996 by none other than William Jefferson Clinton, turncoat. About two years after signing DOMA into law, Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky exploded throughout Washington, eventually leading to his impeachment. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t really care about Bob Barr’s inability to get it right personally. I don’t care about Newt Gingrich’s cheating ways, nor do I believe that Bill Clinton should ever have been impeached. Their sexual pursuits are their personal business. What really pisses me off is the hypocrisy of it all. These three clowns have no business protecting marriage from anybody or anything. In fact, it would seem to me that marriage needs to be protected from them.

Here we are in 2009, thirteen years after the passage of DOMA, and the GOP is completely owned by extreme right-wing Christian conservatives who insist on erasing the line between church and state. The passage of DOMA was the beginning of that unholy alliance. DOMA is less about protecting the sanctity of marriage than it is about blatant discrimination and bigotry. Jason Bartlett of the National Black Justice Coalition says, “DOMA is an egregious piece of legislation as it codifies discrimination into federal law.” In addition to allowing the federal government to define marriage, it also allows the government to deny legally-married, same-sex couples more than 1,100 federal protections, including Social Security benefits, immigration benefits, family medical leave, and hospital visitation rights. This absurd legislation is courtesy of the political party that insists it doesn’t believe in big, intrusive government. Frankly, it’s hard to reconcile this piece of legislation with that political position.

The time has come to dump DOMA and all it stands for

DOMA’s critics rightfully argue that it is unconstitutional on several grounds, including:

it exceeds congressional authority in violation of the Tenth Amendment.
Congress over-reach its authority under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.
The law illegally discriminates and violates the Equal Protection Clause.
DOMA violates the fundamental right to marriage under the due process clause.

Recently, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, along with Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Congressman Jarred Polis (D-CO), introduced the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), which seeks to repeal both sections 2 and 3 of DOMA. The Respect for Marriage Act would eliminate the exception to the full faith and credit clause for married couples created under section 2 of DOMA. However, RFMA would leave it to the states to decide whether or not to recognize the marriages of same-sex couples from other states. Section 3 of DOMA arbitrarily denies same-sex couples the more than 1,100 federal benefits granted to heterosexual married couples. RFMA would require that the federal government treat all married couples equally.

It is time to dump DOMA and the bigotry that lies at its core. Members of the LGBT community pay taxes, go to work every day, take care of their families, struggle with finances and raise children. They are entitled to equal protection under the law.

No, you can’t

Snark Twain — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:30:34 +0000

For Barack Obama, the easy part is over. Dealing with the rednecks, racists and right-wing dead-enders was duck soup compared to what’s coming now. While we were engaged in pleasant diversions like debating health care reform and financial re-regulation real trouble was brewing overseas.

Our new president came into office with a vision of the future and a long to-do list that the previous administration had either badly botched or sorely neglected. He knew what he wanted to spend his political capital on, he knew the approximate direction he wanted to take the country, he thought he had an idea of the history he was going to make.

He is about to be overtaken by events. The anvil that will forge or crush his presidency isn’t going to be the town halls or the blogosphere, it won’t be in congress or the Supreme Court. It will be, once again, thousands of miles away, where reckless men are making desperate bets with the lives of millions. It will be, once again, a dozen little fires, threatening to burst into a firestorm, that test his steel and define his legacy, as it did to FDR and JFK and LBJ before him.

Iran wants a bomb, Israel wants to bomb Iran, Bin Laden wants his audiotaped fantasies to become fatal realities, homegrown Jihadists with homebrew explosives want to kill, kill, kill.

Will Afghanistan become a playground for Al Qaeda again, is it a war to win or a quagmire to avoid? What do we do if Iran goes critical, if Pakistan explodes into civil war, if Moscow sends the tanks into Georgia, if a ship full of North Korean missile parts sails for Yemen?

Those are the stark choices that are rushing to confront our president right now, at an ever-accelerating speed. He is the man who must decide, do we go all in, is it just a bluff, can we let things happen and live with the consequences? Will Iran get the bomb, will they use it, will Israel wait quietly to find out, will Russia and China help with sanctions or pick up the pieces after we break ourselves in a war that costs them nothing?

We have a most reasonable president who now has to deal with a scarily unreasonable world. This is his test and it’s not the one he was looking for. The 3 AM telephone is ringing off the hook. What does he say when he picks it up?

“Yes, we can.” There is still power in those words. The honeymoon is over, but the dream is alive, and Obama has more people believing than not. It will take time, but we’re only ten months into an eight year presidency, he has time. I have no doubt that Obama means it when he says, “Yes, we can.”

But there are forces afoot in the world that can turn it all to dust, if left unchecked. From Tehran to Times Square, nihilists, dictators, fundamentalists, crazies and crazies like a fox are weaving nightmares and hatching plans that would shatter our beautiful hopes for a better, more compassionate world and paint it red with blood.

Obama came into power with grand ideas and many plans, as only the best leaders do. He was going to bend the future to his will, as only the strongest leaders can. He is trying mightily to rouse us from our gridlocked doldrums and get us moving forward again. Obama is a moderate by temperament and a progressive by aim, but a realist above all. He knows that progress is a ratchet, you make history by moving forward, click by click. Little victories adding up to big changes, that’s how history is made. Obama knows that and he’s doing it, through all the noise and turmoil and resistance he’s pushing forward, pressing the agenda. When the dust clears and the naysayers have screamed themselves mute, we’ll be further along than we are today. Obama will have made history.

But it’s not just about the history you make. Sometimes it’s about the history you prevent. Sometimes the measure of the man is to stand athwart history and shout “halt!”

The horizon is growing dark, you’d have to be blind not to see that. Obama is not blind. And now we’re going to find out if he knows how to say the words that are not in his nature, and make them stick. “No, you can’t.”

The return of ENDA: Keep on keepin’ on

Deb Della Piana — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:34:19 +0000

On September 23, the House Education and Labor Committee held hearings on Capitol Hill for HR.3017, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (also known as ENDA). Let me tell you why that’s important. In 29 states, it’s perfectly legal to fire employees based on their sexual orientation; in 38 states it’s perfectly legal to fire employees based on gender identity. This essentially means that people can be fired for something totally unrelated to job performance. When discrimination like that exists in the workplace, it’s a threat to all people everywhere. Employment discrimination doesn’t have to stop with the LGBT community.

I’ve been working on the passage of ENDA since I was a volunteer with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) back in 1994. At the time, I was the Sixth Congressional District coordinator for HRC and the Marketing Services Manager for the Analytical Division of Millipore Corporation. The first thing I did was lobby Millipore to sign on as a corporate sponsor. Within 48 hours of talking to the head of Human Resources, I had the sponsorship I wanted directly from the CEO of the company. Then along came the politics of fear, otherwise known as the Contract with America (personally, I’ve always looked at it as the Contract on America). Along came Newt Gingrich, the serial cheater, with his own particular brand of family values and all hope of ENDA passing died with the GOP majority.

In 2007, the transgender community became the latest demon in the discussion. Knowing that there would be minimal support for a measure that included the transgender community, the House passed a version of ENDA without such protections in a vote that was largely seen as “symbolic.” When President George W. Bush threatened to veto any such legislation, it was DOA. The Senate never even took up the measure, leaving the LGBT community unprotected in the work force. The notion that the transgender community should be eliminated from protection is absurd. There is no more reason to discriminate against them than there is to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

The LGBT movement has made tremendous piecemeal advances over the last fifteen years on this issue. Twelve states, along with the District of Columbia and more than 100 local governments, now have workplace non-discrimination protections covering the LGBT community (covering 40% of all Americans). More than 150 Fortune 500 companies have also enacted non-discrimination policies for their LGBT employees. In spite of this positive movement, we must face the fact that members of the LGBT community are still fired every day across this nation simply for who they are, not what they do. This is so because Washington has lagged horribly behind in passing this critical legislation.

During the September 23 hearings, longtime openly gay Massachusetts representative Barney Frank stated, “I find it hard to argue for legislation that bans discrimination. It just seems to be so self-evident that an American who would like to work and support himself or herself ought to be allowed to be judged solely on his or her work ethic and talent that I don’t know what more to say.”

He was joined by the only open lesbian in Congress, Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) who stated, “There is a clear record demonstrating the need for these protections: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees are harassed, fired, not hired and passed over for advancement without regard to their merit.” Baldwin cited an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report that shows 30% of the LGBT community has experienced workplace discrimination. More disturbing is the fact that nearly one in four say that they experience it on a weekly basis.

Of course, there are organizations that are not required to comply, like the armed services, veterans’ services groups, religious organizations and groups with fewer than 15 employees. Again proving himself to be the most forward-thinking legislator this nation has, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has suggested that - given the fact that so much American commerce depends upon small businesses - perhaps companies with 15 or fewer employees should be made to comply. Perhaps companies with 5 or fewer employees should be given the exception.

Recent polls show that 60% of all likely American voters support an inclusive federal employment non-discrimination law that protects the LGBT community. In addition, labor leaders are ramping up support for this legislation. The AFL-CIO recently passed a resolution pledging its commitment to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, calling for full inclusion of the LGBT community into the labor movement. Richard Trumka, the newly-elected AFL-CIO president pledged his organization’s support for the swift passage of ENDA, stating in a recent speech, “We want a nation where it doesn’t matter what the color of your skin is…or what sex or religion you are…or whether you’re gay or straight or what country your family’s from because here, in America, we believe everyone ought to have their chance to step into the winner’s circle.” In light of all this, it’s pretty clear that the time is now to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009.

Writer’s Note: Prior to the August recess, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced a trans-inclusive version of ENDA in the Senate as well. Senator Kennedy was to have introduced this bill, but passed the responsibility over in light of his illness. Merkley was chosen as the lead sponsor because he had championed a similar non-discrimination bill in Oregon. Right now, when hearings will be held on the Senate version are unclear. Face-to-face discussions garnering support for the bill are underway in the Senate, but Merkley expects the transgender issue to be the sticking point in the Senate. You can track the progress of this bill here.