Archive: ‘Opinion’ Category
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.
-Elizabeth Edwards, The New York Times
Regarding all the media attention given Pennsylvania and the Democratic primary, Elizabeth Edwards asks, “what did we learn?”
Truth is, very little of substance. For example, you probably don’t know the first thing about Joe Biden’s health care plan, but you’re probably well aware of Obama’s bowling score.
As Mrs. Edwards states, “We are choosing a president, the next leader of the free world. We are not buying soap, and we are not choosing a court clerk with primarily administrative duties.”
Read the rest of the article HERE. It’s well worth your time!
(H/T, Batocchio)
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, Paul Krugman, discusses the disgusting lack of health insurance in America. It truly is disgusting:
Health Care Horror Stories
Not long ago, a young Ohio woman named Trina Bachtel, who was having health problems while pregnant, tried to get help at a local clinic.
Unfortunately, she had previously sought care at the same clinic while uninsured and had a large unpaid balance. The clinic wouldn-t see her again unless she paid $100 per visit - which she didn-t have.
Eventually, she sought care at a hospital 30 miles away. By then, however, it was too late. Both she and the baby died.
You may think that this was an extreme case, but stories like this are common in America. [...]
The end result is that the uninsured receive a lot less care than the insured. And sometimes this lack of care kills them. According to a recent estimate by the Urban Institute, the lack of health insurance leads to 27,000 preventable deaths in America each year.
UPDATE:
Some interesting numbers from KnoxNews.com:
In Tennessee between 2000-2006, the report said, more than 3,600 people 25-64 years of age died as the result of a lack of health insurance. Uninsured people are 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults with private insurance.
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.
-Charles Krauthammer, WashingtonPost.com
Krauthammer has officially flown over the cuckoo’s nest.
A most excellent post by diary owner, “droogie6655321“, of Daily Kos. A snippet:
People are just people. As Jim Cacy said in Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” there’s some things that folks do that’s good, and there’s some things they do that ain’t so good. But that’s all a man has a right to say.
They’re not so different from you. They are your brothers and your sisters. And were you born where they were born, don’t pretend that you’d be so very different either.
So please don’t forget about your brothers and sisters in areas of the country that have been written off time and again by so-called “progressives.” You may think yourself mighty open-minded, but when you call an entire city, or a whole state, or even a region of the country “racist,” or “hopeless,” or “a lost cause,” you are only revealing your own prejudices.
Go read the full post. Well worth your time!
This is where the “spineless” part comes in. Taking the high road does not work with this crowd.
How we play:
Obama Campaign: McCain Not a ‘Warmonger’
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign on Saturday repudiated a liberal talk show host’s description of Sen. John McCain as a warmonger, a comment made to an audience that Obama later addressed.
Ed Shulz on McCain: “He voted for this war. He’s a perpetrator of the war. He’s an advocate of the war. In my personal definition, that’s a warmonger.”
That’s a pretty convincing argument to me! So why the hell did Obama feel the need to apologize?
How they play:
McCain Calls for Respectful Campaign
PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) — Sen. John McCain called Saturday for a presidential campaign that is more like a respectful argument among friends than a bitter clash of enemies, and said he is better able than either of his Democratic rivals to govern across party lines.
And this from the party that brought us swiftboating.
So says Fade, from House Of The Rising Sons:
True Patriots fight FOR Freedom, not against it
They are aresting American citizens for t’shirts that offend warhawks. They are arresting preachers in America for calling for an end to the Iraq war. They are arresting eighty year old men who openly voice their opinion peacefully.
They are arresting American citizens for exercising free speech.
We are not free to oppose the warlike among us. We are not free to express morality in a country run by the immoral. We are not free to assemble peacefully when our opinion opposes that of the corporatists.
We are not free.
Fade is a must-read! Click HERE for the rest of this post.
Perfect title for this piece by WaPo op-ed columnist, Charles Krauthammer:
‘A Rank Falsehood’
Asked at a New Hampshire campaign stop about possibly staying in Iraq 50 years, John McCain interrupted — “Make it a hundred” — then offered a precise analogy to what he envisioned: “We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so.” Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: “That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed.” [...]
But a serious argument is not what Democrats are seeking. They want the killer sound bite, the silver bullet to take down McCain. According to Politico, they have found it: “Dems to hammer McCain for ‘100 years.’ “
Reality: “Paging Charles Krauthammer… Paging Charles Krauthammer… Mr. Krauthammer, you have a reality call. Please use the white courtesy phone located in the lobby, thank you!”
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McCain may have his moderate leanings. But is there any doubt he doesn’t fit the mold of war-mongering republican? Mr. Krauthammer, have you not seen this?
Do you think it’s a joke? Do you think our country can survive another war? Do you really think lying and name-calling are specific democratic traits? Do you remember “cut and run“, Mr. Krauthammer?
The only thing ‘rank’ around here, Charles, is the line of thought you’re trying to peddle.
The Nation contributing editor, Robert Scheer, and his view on the Obama / Rev. Wright flap:
War of The Word
Would God ever damn America? Is there anything we have done or could do as a nation that might court such severe judgment from an almighty, or is there a peculiar American exemption from God’s wrath? The prediction of God’s damnation for bad behavior is made in both black and white churches. [...]
I respect Barack Obama’s right to repudiate his pastor’s comments, as he did, but I respect even more his refusal to throw the man overboard in a practice we witnessed all too often with the Clintons when they came under right-wing attacks. Hillary did it again Tuesday, telling the right-wing Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board that Wright “would not have been my pastor.” So she says, but the record shows she was there in the White House on September 11, 1998, when her husband posed for a photo with the Rev. Wright and was grateful for his support in the midst of that wrath-of-Leviticus blue dress flap. Ingrate.
WaPo Columnist, George Will, argues conservatives are more ‘giving‘ than liberals:
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• Although liberal families’ incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
• Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
• Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George Bush.
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I won’t argue with monetary numbers, (even though something smells fishy about it). But I will offer up this:
Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things…every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.
-Matt Santos, The West Wing
Torn because I really do not know how I’m supposed to feel about this. My first impulse was to have the bum thrown from office. But then I remembered Senators Craig and Vitter, and how they’re retaining their seats.
What are we supposed to think?
Detroit Mayor Charged With Perjury
DETROIT (AP) — Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, a one-time rising star and Detroit’s youngest elected leader, was charged Monday with perjury and other counts after sexually explicit text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with a top aide.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also charged the popular yet polarizing 37-year-old mayor with obstruction of justice and misconduct in office.
Kilpatrick’s lawyer, Dan Webb, predicted that the mayor would be exonerated on all charges and said he has recommended to the mayor that he not resign.
Of these two, which one gets it… and which one appears the bitter hack?
Obama’s purpose in the speech was to put Wright’s outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, “We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country,” and then he proceeds to do precisely that. What lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.
This contextual analysis of Wright’s venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It’s the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That’s why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination. I cite King not to justify Wright’s damnation of America or his lunatic and pernicious theories but to suggest that Obama’s pastor and his church are not as far outside the African American mainstream as many would suggest. I would also ask my conservative friends who praise King so lavishly to search their consciences and wonder if they would have stood up for him in 1968. [...]
Obama understands the anger of whites as well as the anger of blacks, but he’s placed a bet on the other side of King’s legacy that converted rage into the search for a beloved community. This does not prove that Obama deserves to be president. It does mean that he deserves to be judged on his own terms and not by the ravings of an angry preacher.
WaPo article, “Bush: Clueless and Happy” by Dan Froomkin, is a very good read!
Does Bush not recognize what a mess he has created for his party? Is he unaware of the gulf between the “mentality of the American people” and his positions on the most important issues of the day? Americans overwhelmingly want to get out of Iraq and are overwhelmingly negative about his stewardship of the economy. Even on national security and the war on terror, traditionally winning issues for the GOP, Bush has driven the public into the arms of the Democrats.
As always, Froomkin has his eye on the ball. In the preceding quote, something caught my attention; “Bush has driven the public into the arms of the Democrats.” I think there’s a lot more truth in this statement than Dan meant there to be.
Other than the obvious “anyone other than a republican!” angle, have Clinton or Obama made any (tangible) promises that screams out to you to vote for them? Do they have you “pumped up”? I’m certainly not pumped. I still have not brought myself to the point of choosing which one to get behind.
And that might also explain why John McCain is doing better than once expected. Yes, he is “Bush III“. And, yes, it will be “four more years“. But McCain does have a history of an independent following. And I fear if Clinton or Obama don’t change tactics, and soon, McCain could very well win the big prize.
In a WaPo op-ed, titled “McCain’s Lobbyist Baggage“, E. J. Dionne Jr. writes:
McCain’s denunciation of the sexual innuendo won him allies well beyond the world of Times-hating conservatives. Many fans of the Times (including this one) think journalists should stay away from the sex lives of politicians unless there is a truly compelling public reason for doing otherwise. Last year I urged that we ignore the escapades of Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), precisely because it’s important to preserve, as much as possible, the distinction between the public and private lives of politicians. (emphasis mine)While I want to agree with Mr. Dionne on this point, it’s not being very realistic. We live in a hurried, fast food, supermarket tabloid world. People want dirt, and “journalists” are all too happy to deliver.
Mr. Dionne argues for privacy, unless there’s a “truly compelling public reason” not to. Where is the cutoff point, sir? Am I to assume you believe it to lie somewhere between John McCain and Bill Clinton? Could we have more clarification please?
And how do you feel about Sen. Craig’s bathroom antics? Should they have remained private? He says he did nothing inappropriate. Do you concur?
It’s silly to believe a man’s private life doesn’t affect his public life. Conservatives resoundly held this belief during the Clinton/Lewinsky brouhaha, and acted upon it. Were they wrong? Is our former president owed an apology? Do you think he’ll get one? Does anyone?
I think not.
A little common sense, please?! People, in general, do not want to pay more, (much more!), for something that produces the same results, even if it saves them money in the long run.
Writing a law and forcing it upon the masses is something we should all hate. It’s “slippery’slope” ideology, like high-taxation on cigarettes or the coming change in the way television is broadcasted.
Don’t get me wrong. The eventual outcomes of the above-mentioned are good! I object to the use of force in obtaining the results. Laws should be written to protect us, not bash us over the head. Remember ‘freedom’? Freedom to choose?
Our government could do a lot in the way of reducing the high price of the new bulb. They could also do a better job of informing the masses as to why they should be buying the new bulb. Handcuffing us is not the answer!
From light bulbs to clothes washers, the energy law passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in December will change many of the appliances in the average American home.
[...]If every American household replaced just one incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, the country would conserve enough energy to light 3 million homes and save more than $600 million annually. It would be as if 800,000 cars were taken off the road, according to a Web site maintained by the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency.
[...]
Homeowners’ reluctance prompted lawmakers to illuminate the path forward. The new energy law says that in 2012, any bulb emitting the amount of light a 100-watt bulb does today must use only 72 watts. In 2014, 40-, 60- and 75-watt bulbs will have to cut energy consumption by similar percentages.
A small post to get the brain juices flowing this morning.
I just read a WaPo article about a High School senior, Juashaunna Kelly, who was disqualified from Saturday’s Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet because her Muslim clothing violated national competition rules. She wore the same uniform for the past three seasons with no repercussions.
This got me to thinking about how anal, misdirected, and even ass-backwards we Americans can be at times.
On the subject of government-recognized gay marriages, (which I’m not wholly for, but can sympathize with), I’ve often said the argument is backwards. Gays shouldn’t be arguing for inclusion. Just the opposite. With so many people believing that marriage is a religious institution, why does our government recognize it? Shouldn’t that be a no-no? It doesn’t just fly in the face of separation of church and state, but more accurately, our government is endorsing one religion over another. Gays attend church too. And they believe they should be allowed to marry. So, why is our government endorsing some beliefs over others?
If marriage belongs to the church, then it should stay in church. Our government needs to take a big leap out of the “divine-enforcement” business. Else, recognize ALL marriages.
If Juashaunna Kelly’s religion dictates proper attire, what right does anyone have to strip her of that? Does her clothing pose a risk to public safety? Is it screaming ‘fire’ in a public theater? I think not.
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