Sleep Well Big Man

Not much to add to what transpired over the weekend but this........

Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, whose jovial onstage manner, soul-rooted style and brotherly relationship with Mr. Springsteen made him one of rock’s most beloved sidemen, died on Saturday at a hospital in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 69.

The cause was complications of a stroke he suffered last Sunday at his home in Singer Island, Fla., a spokeswoman for Mr. Springsteen said.

In a statement released Saturday night, Mr. Springsteen called Mr. Clemons “my great friend, my partner.”

“With Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music,” he added. “His life, his memory and his love will live on in that story and in our band.”

I don't know what else to say.

Yes, He Did: Pt. III - It's All A Conspiracy!!!!!

A saying that most people in America know and often repeat is that there are only two things guaranteed in this world - death and taxes. However, the Modern American Right has added another item that is also guaranteed - anytime the Obama administration does anything, there's going to be a multitude of conspiracy theories formulated.

But not all of these are as crazy and full of comedic value as others.

For instance, the newest meme is that the still photos of Obama's speech Saturday night were "staged", thereby questioning the legitimacy of the message itself. The only problem is that this has been standard procedure since - gasp - the Reagan Era.

John Harrington, president of the White House News Photographers Association, tells me that the Obama Administration has used this technique before and they are not the first.

“I am aware of it happening in previous administrations. I believe Bush 41 [George H.W. Bush] did it too,” Harrington says. “The times where I have known of it happening before is when the president is in the Oval Office and you are working in a very tight space.”

Other photographers who work at the White House told Poynter.org that since the Reagan era (and possibly before) it has been the standard operating procedure that during a live presidential address, still cameras are not allowed to photograph the actual event.

Questioning the actions of the President or his administration officials is completely rational and understandable - that is, until your questions and accusations fail to be rational or understandable.

The morning following the announcement, members of the Modern American Right even went so far as to decry the celebrations in front of the White House as nothing more than a "staged" incident.

Right Wing Socio-Political Agnosticism is quite an intriguing thing to analyze, as they are want to de-emphasize that which can clearly be seen, yet are more than eager to believe that which simply isn't there.

Seeing as how Obama provided the evidence that should silence the "Birthers" once and for all - but you know they'll keep going - the next (il)logical step for the Modern American Right to take is to use the same template in regards to the verified killing of Bin Laden:

The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure Osama bin Laden is really dead. Every American has a right to walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it. We are entitled to know for a fact that the witch is dead. No shroud for dignity’s sake, please – bin Laden’s naked, bullet-riddled corpse should be put on display in lower Manhattan for all the world to see. The entire body should be digitally scanned, inside and out – and made available for everyone to take his or her own picture.

The snuff fetishism of the Right is likely to be the hot issue on the 2012 campaign trail, and that could likely start tonight, as Ron Paul and Herman Cain will be taking the stage for Fox"News".

Truth-be-told, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, provided it makes me do the research to either verify or debunk it. But the rapid-fire way in which the Modern American Right display their conspiratorial nature tends to make one realize that these are nothing more than excuses for their own ideological ignorance.

Pushing The Poll Limits

I've always stated that public opinion polls are nothing more than data manifested from a person's "feelings" on any given issue during any given news cycle. The later is the most prominent factor in this, as the modern cable news outlets are either taping into what is happening in Wisconsin from a pure visceral level or they are blandly reporting on it.

Cable news programs hosted by the likes of O'Donnell, Maddow, Schultz, Hannity, Beck, and O'Reilly are all opinion programs - Well, the first three will state without equivocation that they are opinion programs - but the fact still remains that a lot of people base their standpoints on another person's opinion. What I would have like to have seen from the NYT/CBS sample data regarding Unions in America is where they get their news from - particularly the MSNBC/Fox"News" split.

Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air tries to crunch the numbers:

First, the partisan split in the sample gave a ten-point advantage to Democrats. Their sample for this poll had a D/R/I split of 36/26/31, an absurd sample for political polling. In December, Rasmussen’s general-population survey put Republicans ahead, 36.0% to 34.7% for Democrats.

I'm trying to figure out why Morrissey considers this an "absurd" sample, as the modern American Right have been claiming that the "independent" voter in America is against things like public sector unions. By their own metric, the NYT/CBS poll looked at responses from a larger Independent set than Republican; and only 5 percentage points separate the I's from the D's. Moreover, since the modern American Right insists that "independents" vote largely along the same lines at Republicans, this actually puts the Democrats at a 21% disadvantage.

But then again, I'm just going by what people like Morrissey have been claiming.

While Ed does go on to harp about the percentage of Union employees that were polled, there's some data that he is ignoring; chief of which is as follows:

- A majority of those polled claim their political alignment to be more Moderate or Conservative.

- A majority are not supporters of the Tea Bagger movement while approximately an average of 17% claim no affiliation or opinions of the group.

- The split between the lower and upper age ranges are negligible, as is household income and highest educational level earned.

But Morrissey's final statement at least hints that he knows he just splitting hairs with this one:

The gaps in the results are wide enough that these issues by themselves might not have swung them to the opposite. However, at least the magnitude of the results can certainly be questioned in a poll this flawed.

Flawed in the sense that he isn't being given what he expected? I would largely say yes, as Morrissey is want to denounce any poll that isn't conducted by Rassmussen - who only polls "likely voters" and uses a methodology that only contacts people with "land line" service. Talk about flawed.

But the larger point goes back to the fact that a poll is never going to show you precisely how a person is going to act, simply how they feel at that particular moment in time based off the way they process the information they have available to them, which is primarily from Cable news outlets.

And speaking of ridiculous polls being pushed by the modern American Right, check this out. It's touted as the "real Tea Party Straw Poll".

The Politics Of Hedge Funds

As I've stated previously, I'm not an economist. But, I can tell when someone with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the financial realm lets their mask slip.

In a recent piece in the New York Times, hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry says something of Barack Obama that I have hypothesized many like him have said:

If there was a way to short Obama, I would.

And while many conservatives would attack liberals/progressives for highlighting this quote - even going so far as to insist that they were about to call Mr. Hendry a racist - it should be pointed out that this isn't exactly something to snort at.

Are hedge fund managers gaming the system against the Obama administration in order to create the illusion that the economy isn't rebounding as it should because of policies and practices by Democrats? I think it's a fair theory that requires more investigation.

Some Thoughts For Your Morning

- When reading something like this you get a much clearer picture as to why this is aptly referred to as Bush's oil disaster. After all, when your administration is allowing a regulatory body to shirk their duties, then you bare the lion's share of responsibility when a dangerous practice like off-shore drilling goes horribly wrong.

- I appears that we are close to an end of DADT. It wasn't until I became quite politically minded about my country that I started to ask this question - why would anyone deny a person to serve their country? After all, from my perspective at least, the implementation of this absurd law was one of the low points of the Clinton administration. And many of those that whole heartedly supported this law either never served in the armed forces or have a seriously canted perspective of what "patriotism" means.

- I'm not about to claim that all Republicans are guilty of sedition, but one has to but look back just a few years at the more reasoned and logical complaints of liberals/progressives against the Bush administration and realize that they pale in comparison to the level of vitriol and hate leveled at Barack Obama. Sedition? On the part of some, quite possibly. Ignorance? 100% across the board.

- Fox"News" loves the editing bay at the studios. They do their best to make Bill O'Reilly look like his brainstem is fully attached at least half the week. Palin can barely exist on her own outside of the Fox"News" environment without being heavily edited so it's a given that she needs it. But what Fox really loves to do is edit footage of Democrats in order to make a hamfisted point that their easily lead fanbase will accept as the gospel truth. This is no less true for what has recently been done to Obama when he gave the commencement speech at West Point.

- I can recall when AIDS was first spoken about in the media. I was quite young and didn't really comprehend that this was about to become a health issue of global proportions and that America was sitting idly on their hands while people died. I guess that South Carolina favors that stance again.

R.I.P. - Frank Frazetta

The art world has lost one of it's modern masters, Frank Frazetta. The fantasy genre has lost a great visionary as well that will never be replaced. He passed away at the age of 82.

Frank Frazetta, the great painter of fantasy book covers, has died. The artist, most closely associated with Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Barbarian" character, was the subject of the 2003 documentary "Frazetta: Painting With Fire." After a series of strokes, Frazetta trained himself to paint using his left hand. His signature work often featured bare-chested "sword and sorcery" heroes, helpless women and fantasy creatures. His paintings often sell in the million-dollar range....

Frazetta's Death Dealer was a figure in variety of comics, most notably in the Verotik line championed by dark-metal metal/punk pioneer Glenn Danzig. Frazetta's art was not only seen in the comic realm, as it appeared on the Nazareth album cover for "Expect No Mercy" and Death Dealer even appeared on the Molly Hatchet album cover for "Flirting With Disaster".

His obituary will appear in the New York Times.

When It Is And When It Isn't

This morning on Fox And Friends, the three stooges of morning television took after the failed NYC bomb plot with predictable fervor. They teased the Napolitano segment with a paranoid tirade from Peter Johnson Jr about how terror is everywhere and we all have to be afraid and that The Dept. Of Homeland Security isn't protecting America - you know, typical Fox"News" stuff.

When Napolitano finally got on, she did her best to let the facts be known and that the police and Homeland Security are handling this carefully and as a real threat. The main problem that the Fox crew had - she wasn't forceful enough with the word terrorism.



here's what she had to say on Sunday.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday morning that the administration is "certainly considering" that the car bomb found in New York's Times Square could be an act of terror.

"Luckily, no one is hurt, and now the full attention of city, state and federal law enforcement will be turned to bringing the guilty party to justice in this act of terrorism," New York Gov. David Paterson said in a statement.

When asked about Paterson's characterization of the incident, in which a T-shirt vendor noticed smoke coming from the back of an SUV and notified police, Napolitano said forensic evidence plus video footage from the area was being analyzed.

"We're certainly considering it now that it could be an act of terrorism or was intended to be an act of terrorism," Napolitano said on "Fox News Sunday."

Napolitano said they were "not ruling anything out."

Reports are coming in that the person that made the bomb didn't know what he was doing and the wingnuts at Free Republic are already starting to spin this as someone trying to frame the Tea Baggers.

From the New York Times:

Law enforcement officials offered a more detailed description of the makeup of the failed car bomb found in Times Square on Saturday night, and said they were reviewing surveillance footage that showed a white man who appeared to be in his 40s walking away from the area as he looked over his shoulder and removed a layer of clothing.

Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said the materials found in the Nissan Pathfinder — gasoline, propane, firecrackers and simple alarm clocks — also included eight bags of a granular substance, later determined to be nonexplosive grade of fertilizer, inside a 55-inch-tall metal gun locker.

Aside from the non-explosive grade fertilizer, the trigger mechanism was an old-style clock and the ignition system was 20-30 M88 firecrackers.

And while the NYC police say that the fire produced from the gas and the vehicle alone would have produced a fireball enough to kill someone, this bomb wasn't going to do the type of damage the designer had hoped for.

Michelle Malkin concludes her internet shrieking with a not-too-thinly-veiled accusation that the bomber is some left-wing anarchist.

You see where this is all going, right?

Much in the same way that conservative refused to call Joseph Stack a terrorist after he flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin, Texas, I'm thinking that once all the info is in, you won't hear the words "terrorist" because the suspect the police are looking for is white. And we all know that you have to be non-white and between the ages of 18 and 29 to be considered a terrorist.

Corporations Over Consumers

Looks like the courts once again proved they care more about the "feelings" of the corporations over the "rights" of the consumer.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.

The decision, by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, specifically concerned the efforts of Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, to slow down customers’ access to a service called BitTorrent, which is used to exchange large video files, most often pirated copies of movies.

After Comcast’s blocking was exposed, the F.C.C. told Comcast to stop discriminating against BitTorrent traffic and in 2008 issued broader rules for the industry regarding “net neutrality,” the principle that all Internet content should be treated equally by network providers. Comcast challenged the F.C.C.’s authority to issue such rules and argued that its throttling of BitTorrent was necessary to ensure that a few customers didn’t unfairly hog the capacity of the network, slowing down Internet access for all of its customers.

There's a lot of disinformation out there regarding Net Neutrality. Could this have actually influenced the courts decision?

But Ed Morrissey's take on this issue is not only short sighted by completely backwards.

The DC circuit Court of Appeals gave the Obama administration a big dash of cold water on the limits of its authority to impose rules on communications networks today. In essence, the court recognized Comcast’s property rights to determine its own terms of service for Internet use, and the implications could affect Barack Obama’s plans to mandate broadband expansion as well

What about the "property rights" of companies that are delivered on broadband service? With this ruling, Comcast could charged Netflix more to carry their content because Comcast wants to push their own "on-demand" service. They could, considering they have near monopolistic control over various areas of the US, price NetFlix out of the market or simply block them all together. Such undo influence into the market is not only unethical, but is likely to be illegal.

The bottom line is not that companies like Comcast don't deserve to make a profit, it's that since all content usage is based on customer preference once broadband service has been paid for, corporations like Comcast feel that they can literally censor content based on personal preference. This could even be seen through the prism of political alliances. If a company uses Comcast or Verizon to stream their content and that company is known to have contributed to a political party that Verizon or Comcast doesn't agree with, they would be censored. It would interesting to see how this sort of issue would play out in court, as corporations are now considered "people".

With the average American having only two choices of broadband service, the idea of "competition and choice" is something that won't even be realistically plausible. Once broadband providers realize that the FCC cannot punish them for censoring content or charging elevated prices for higher speeds of delivery, what's to stop both choices from removing your ability to choose?

Conservatives have no clue what Net Neutrality is about.

Assumptions

Seems that a lot of liberals/progressives didn't read the whole NY Times piece about the Obama administrations plans to lift a moratorium on off-shore drilling.

Under the plan, the coastline from New Jersey northward would remain closed to all oil and gas activity. So would the Pacific Coast, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska would be protected and no drilling would be allowed under the plan, officials said. But large tracts in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska — nearly 130 million acres — would be eligible for exploration and drilling after extensive studies.

People are under the assumption that the platforms are going to be built tomorrow and that Obama is caving to conservative demands. This is simply not true.

The only place that is already a definite for a platform to begin operating is off the coast of Virginia. The remainder of the areas are to be explored to see if they are even viable.

While this does create the illusion of a conservative victory, I'm seeing this as just a perfect example of an over-reported topic that ultimately confuses people rather than make any clear point - though the Times piece does include all the relevant information.

To me, this seems more like a carefully calculated chess move on the part of Obama. With the administration's energy bill coming up, this will likely appease some Republicans while others will remain skeptical. I'll like to see how many GOP members vote against this proposed drilling plan.

It's your move conservatives.

Ramming Spin

I have yet to figure out why it is that conservatives consider a legal, legislative, process "ramming" something through Congress and The Senate.

President Obama this week will begin a climactic push to rally restive Congressional Democrats to pass major health care legislation by hammering the argument that the costs of failure will be higher insurance premiums and lost coverage for individuals and businesses.

While Mr. Obama prepared for a speech on Wednesday to outline “the way forward” and to flesh out the substance of his proposed compromise based on the bills passed by the House and Senate, the two parties on Monday stepped up their battle to define the Democrats’ legislative strategy. It was framed as “a divisive trick” in Republicans’ telling and, in Democrats’ view, as a procedure regularly used and honed by Republicans.

Their fight for public perception could itself determine how some politically vulnerable Democrats vote.

Democrats are planning to attach any compromise revisions to a budget reconciliation measure, which would circumvent a Republican filibuster and allow the plan to be adopted by a simple majority in the Senate

And while the New York Times article reports on the actual procedures used, conservatives are far more concerned with playing the "victim" role, as their obstructionist tactics are now backfiring on them.

Time and again, conservatives were offered options, asked for their input, and each time Obama and liberal Democrats kowtowed to their insolence and idiocy. And now, it appears that Obama is fed up with the stonewalling tactics and Congress is gaining more support for reconciliation and even a Public Option.

Proper procedure and legal procedure ( used more than 100 times by Republicans during Bush's occupation of the White House ) is being implemented, but don't expect conservatives to accept that.

From Their Cold, Dead, Hands

This was to be expected.

In Virginia, the General Assembly approved a bill last week that allows people to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and the House of Delegates voted to repeal a 17-year-old ban on buying more than one handgun a month. The actions came less than three years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives and prompted a major national push for increased gun control.

Arizona and Wyoming lawmakers are considering nearly a half dozen pro-gun measures, including one that would allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. And lawmakers in Montana and Tennessee passed measures last year — the first of their kind — to exempt their states from federal regulation of firearms and ammunition that are made, sold and used in state. Similar bills have been proposed in at least three other states.

Living and working in one of most red states in the nation, I can attest that this ill-informed insanity surrounding guns and Obama is real.

From the conspiracy theory that Obama is going to tax firearms to fears that all weapons will be rounded up, the reactionary gun-owner in America is coming apart at the seams.

Nevermind the fact that these people are operating under assumptions that were debunked back when Clinton was in office, the spectre of an "angry black man" coming for your guns and your freedom is what motives these people.

One can but wonder how long it's going to be until someone in this gaggle of blathering prattle-heads takes their concealed weapon into a bar, or store, or to a townhall meeting and shoots someone in retaliation for something they think Obama is going to do.

Stimulus Confirmation

this will not sit well with the people that look to Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh for economic advise.

Just look at the outside evaluations of the stimulus. Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent agency, considers these estimates to be conservative.

Conservatives have a great deal invested in seeing the Obama administration fail - as I've stated before. But with a report such as this from multiple, reputable, sources confirming the Economic Stimulus Bill's success, it puts more than just a dent into the conservative narrative.

This is to be expected, as Republicans from Bobby Jindal to Tim Pawlenty are taking credit for the success of the stimulus in their states and asking for more money at every turn. The longview of this success is more than likely going to show an even greater return on this investment, as more than half of the stimulus money hasn't even been spent yet.

A Victory That Will Be Ignored

At least by the conservative media - or they'll claim this as a Bush victory.

WASHINGTON — The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The question has been asked by several as to why this wasn't possible under the Bush administration, but the larger point is whether or not this will be seen as a victory.

Fox"News" has all of their chips riding on the hope that the Obama administration will be an abject failure, and this flies directly in everyone of their smarmy little grins. I hope they choke on it.

It's All About Communication

I'm wondering if there is any tension now in the McCain household(s) after Cindy posed for this



...and John McCain said this?

Does "Mavericky-ness" work on your wife?

But guess who else is siding against McCain now.

A Question Of Economics: Pt. V

There so much speculation going on surrounding Obama's alleged State Of The Union "spending freeze" request that it's hard to discern the facts from the fantasy.

While some conservatives are crowing that they have won, to some economists saying that this is very a "Hoovereque" move on Obama's part, one has to wonder precisely what he's going to say.

It's very easy to get lost in rank speculation, though not all of it is reactionary paranoia, but one shouldn't just simply rest back on one's heals and hope for the best. After having read Krugman, DeLong, and a variety of other economic minds, I'm inclined to be a little skeptical of this plan.

None-the-less, I'm going to wait until Thursday morning and read the political tea-leaves and see where this plan could really lead us.

Another Job She Can Quit

But will she?

When you get an invitation to move in with your boyfriend/girlfriend and don't have to pay rent it's a pretty sure thing you won't want to leave right away.

Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska has signed on as a contributor to the Fox News Channel. The network confirmed that Ms. Palin will appear on the network’s programming on a regular basis as part of a multi-year deal. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ms. Palin will not have her own regular program, one person familiar with the deal said, though she will host an occasional series that will run on the network from time to time. This person would not elaborate, but the network does have a precedent for such a series. Oliver L. North is the host of an occasionally running documentary series on the military called “War Stories.”

Many suspected that when Ms. Palin retired as the governor of Alaska last summer she was doing so to pursue some sort of career in television. The Fox News deal, however, would not seem to be all encompassing, and would appear to give her room for other pursuits, as well.

As predictable as this is, the question should be asked - is this really what Fox"News" wants? Sure, right now this is great for them. They get another player on the team that isn't afraid to misinform, distort, and blatantly lie on national television, but they are also getting a lot of baggage with Palin.

She is an unblushing supporter of the tea-bagger movement and is known for her fringe rhetoric. It's going to be a lot more difficult for Fox"News" to claim they are fair and balanced with Palin now officially on the payroll. Moreover, the ability for the network to keep a tight leash on her should make some producers and co-workers rather nervous too. The alleged "zero tolerance" policy for on-air mistakes is most certainly going to be put to the test, considering Palin's penchant for "going rogue".

A Problem With Co-Opting Black Culture

Has anyone noticed the great "interest" that Glenn Beck is taking in members of the black community? Recently on his Fox"News" program he had a panel of all-black "conservaties" that spoke out against Obama and his policies. It didn't take a Rhodes scholar to realize what Beck was really doing. But now, he's taking it a step further.

I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100 year plan for America. A 100 year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.

Thinking like the Chinese? Really? And this from the man that recently lambasted people for simply quoting Mao.

Beck's rallying cry was heard within the friendly confines of the retirement-community-for-wingnuts known as The Villages.

So what does this have to do with black culture and black history? Beck's proposed rally at the Lincoln Memorial just happens to be the anniversary of another speech that took place there - one that had much more significance to this nation than anything Beck could ever conceive of.

On August 28, 2010, I ask you, your family and neighbors to join me at the feet of Abraham Lincoln on the National Mall for the unveiling of The Plan and the birthday of a new national movement to restore our great country.

Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech was given on that day.

So here we have a conspiratorial, reactionary, serial fabricator promoting a book and saying that we need to think more like the Chinese. Sounds like Beck is the one that is in love with Mao.

More from Think Progress.

Some Thoughts For Your Morning

- Sarah Palin's sad attempt to hang onto any shred of notoriety found itself nestled in the odd confines of EBay recently. The disgraced former governor of Alaska was auctioning off a dinner with her to some poor sap willing to dish out more money than the average American makes in a year for the dubious "honor" of sitting across the table from her. However, this auction wasn't open to everyone. After all, this is about Palin donating money for tax-write-off purposes...........oh, I mean for "charity".

- A video has surfaced of a Fox"News" "producer" urging the crowd at the 9/12 rallies to cheer longer and louder when prompted. So, if Fox is allegedly impartial in these matters, then why would this woman be rallying the people? Oh, that's right..........

- Did you know that the CBO ( Congressional Budget Office ) that the right-wing conservative set has had such joy in referencing this past summer has released a new study that shows proposed Cap-and-Trade legislation would cost American families around $160 per year? That's 44 cents per day. Wonder why Mitt Romney is still using the already debunked $1761 per year number?

- Bill Moyers, whom my uber-conservative Aunt and Grandmother have been watching for years, recently did a piece on Dick Armey ( the point-man behind FreedomWorks ) and his current lawsuit to keep his government controlled healthcare plan. And, as we all know, Dick is also one of the point-men behind the "grassroots" Tea Party nonsense. But wait, don't they want government OUT of the healthcare industry? Ah, I love the smell of conservative hypocrisy on a Monday morning.

- Apparently, there was a wingnut convention somewhere in the US called the Values Voters Summit, and former governor Mike "I <3 Bass Guitar And Chuck Norris" Huckabee won the "straw poll" for potential presidential candidates. He even beat out Sarah Palin nearly 2 1/2 times over. Even though it's a poorly constructed and coneived idea ( because no matter what, a wingnut wins ) this just may say something of Palin's popularity at this point in the game.

- It seems that James O’Keefe, the VERY white guy that dressed completely unconvincingly as a pimp - yet somehow managed to dupe a few ACORN workers in the US - has a very interesting reason for going after the group. It doesn't sit well with him that ACORN registers minorites. And as we all know, most minorities are going to vote Democratic, as the Republican party has done nothing to make them feel like they were the same as white Americans since Lincoln ended slavery.

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Profiled And Pontificated

I've hesitated posting anything about Prof. Henry Louis Gates and Barack Obama until I have read enough of the relevant data to make my decision.

While Obama's statements during what was intended to be his healthcare news conference, he was asked about the Gates arrest. His answer has gotten more coverage by the establishment press and talk radio than Gates himself.

The police acted supidly. And he's right.

However, it wasn't exactly what he should have said.

Sure, Barack Obama is going to have strong opinions on certain issues, but when you are the President, you have to temper your words, evaluate the situation, make sure that you are clear but not so divisive that you face backlash. All this has to be done within moments of specific things happening. Sometimes it's seconds, as in the case of being asked a quesiton at a presser. Well, there are those that claim that the reporter that asked that was a plant, but those same people think Sarah Palin is of giant intellect and is a formidable opponent for the Democrats in 2012 - but that's another issue.

So where does profiling come into the equation?

One has to but look at the "birther" movement to see that racism and nativism is just as strong as it was decades ago. The entire movement is predicated on a black man being in a position of power. So, how is Gates connected to this?

( From Stanley Fish with additional h/t to Dayvoe @ 2 Political Junkies )

As the story unfolded in the press and on the Internet, I flashed back 20 years or so to the time when Gates arrived in Durham, N.C., to take up the position I had offered him in my capacity as chairman of the English department of Duke University. One of the first things Gates did was buy the grandest house in town (owned previously by a movie director) and renovate it. During the renovation workers would often take Gates for a servant and ask to be pointed to the house’s owner. The drivers of delivery trucks made the same mistake.

The message was unmistakable: What was a black man doing living in a place like this?

It's easy to forget that while many of our parents were young a black man and woman couldn't drink from the same water fountain, use the same restroom, even dine in the same restaurant. Now, some short decades later, a black man is holding the highest office in the land.

Both Obama and Gates have been racially profiled. Would you have reacted simularly if you had been the subject of repeated police visits because you happened to not fit the description of everyone else living in your neighborhood? How would this mutate your view of law enforcement.

Of course, it doesn't help that the arresting officer fit so neatly into the stereotype of condecending twat. But what has caused him to become the man or the officer that he is today?

Both Gates and Obama reacted in a way that shows that racial profiling is not dead - and neither is racism as a whole. But another problem exists within this story - the very real fact that conservative media outlets ( whether on cable or radio ) are laboring under the assumption that racism is dead now that Obama is in office. So, to them, the only real reason that both Gates and Obama reacted in such fashion is that it is in fact THEY who are racists.

Of Markets, Healthcare, And The Divide Between Them

Downpage some, a friend of mine from some year back and I got into a very detailed discussion of not only the cost of healthcare but how it could even possibly exist in the intangible space known as "the free market".

While the standard positions on both our parts revolved around cost, availability, and quality, the talk revolved primarily around the perception of "the free market" and what it really is.

My friend states of this invisible space as follows:

In a truly free market, you would have, at minimum, the following: property rights protections, including an ability to sue for actual harm done, information transparency (clear and accurate labelling laws), and laws against initiation of force and use of fraud.

Competition would drive down prices, because with competition, you can shop around for the cheapest price. Of course, insurance (both private and government) in no small part prevents that from happening, so in reality something has to be done about insurance to keep them from driving up costs, as they do.

While all of this sounds like a fantastic concept, the keystone of "free market" theory is that if there is competition, then prices will be driven down.

That's when I ran across a new piece by Economist Paul Krugman that postulates that "free market" theory can work with certain aspects of society ( ie shopping for groceries or a car ) but healthcare cannot and will not be able to survive in the realm of "free market" philosophy:

There are two strongly distinctive aspects of health care. One is that you don’t know when or whether you’ll need care — but if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the doctor’s office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket.

This tells you right away that health care can’t be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance. And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense when it comes to health care. And you can’t just trust insurance companies either — they’re not in business for their health, or yours.

After reading this, I noticed somewhat of a connection between what Krugman was stating and why my friend had said about healthcare. The subject was "catastrophic care".

Ideally, if one could eliminate all health insurance as it currently works and only have catastrophic insurance (like the kind you have for your house), that would cause people to shop around, driving down costs. If you insist on a safety net, one could set up health care savings accounts that you could contribute to, and in which the government could put money to ensure that everyone has money available for regular healthcare costs.

While it seems, on the surface, that there is a partial agrement with how insurance works ( between my friend and Krugman ) the "shopping aroud" aspect is still quite vague. At what point is a certain form of healthcare classified as "catastrophic"? Who would make that choice?

It is here that we find an example of their being someone in between you and your healthcare choices, something that Republicans and many Blue Dog Democrats are using to stoke fear within the winds of Americans. They say that this would be a major problem with a universal or single payer system. The only problem to their hysterical fear-mongering is that this already happens, a lot.

Also, this idea of healthcare savings accounts sounds a lot like Social Security, an entitlement program that many ( if not most ) Republicans take massive issue with. If we are to put money into this hypothetical program ( with government matching a set percentage of contributions by the taxpayer ) wouldn't this be a "socialistic" style of providing afordable healthcare?

But, back to the "free market" issue.

If this style of economic thinking relys on competition, how will that competition be drawn to a specific area? How does one ensure that there will be competition in a specific county or region of a state. The illusion or perception of "choice" begins to dwindle when one realizes that in certian ares of the US have only one hospital as a choice. When and if there is a competative market set up in "Anytown, USA" could take years if not decades.

From my perspective, in the discussion with my friend, I talked about a local hospital that essentially has a monopoly on care for not just my county, but surrounding counties as well. It is widely seen by not only myself, but many, that it is not the ideal healthcare provider nor employs he best doctors in the region. My small city has a population of just over 19,000 - a negative shift of 1% since the year 2000. While there is choice for specific, standard, care ( i.e. doctors that will give yearly physicals, write standard scrips like blood-pressure medication or allergy medication, or administer necessary booster shots for children ) there is literally NO CHOICE when it comes to having surgery or other, less serious, care that would fall between the "catastrophic" catagory and non-serious, or standard, catagory. That is, unless one has the ability to travel outside the county and possibly even the state.

So, what is there about my community that would bring in competition? This is one of the flaws in the "free market" argument. It would seem that the success model of "location, location, location" is seen here as well, only in a sort of reversed prism.

Krugman continues:

The second thing about health care is that it’s complicated, and you can’t rely on experience or comparison shopping. (”I hear they’ve got a real deal on stents over at St. Mary’s!”) That’s why doctors are supposed to follow an ethical code, why we expect more from them than from bakers or grocery store owners.

You could rely on a health maintenance organization to make the hard choices and do the cost management, and to some extent we do. But HMOs have been highly limited in their ability to achieve cost-effectiveness because people don’t trust them — they’re profit-making institutions, and your treatment is their cost.

And perhaps my ultimate standpoint is this - people that live in smaller communities already lack the ability to shop-around for healthcare sevices ( dependant on what those services may be ) and there appears to be virtually no incentive for healthcare providers to move into those areas.

But, this isn't to say that a "free market" doesn't exist and isn't successful for certain aspects of our society. My friend points out the example of movies:

Movies are a good example of a free market good, by the way. And boy are they cheap to consume, whether at the cinema, at places like Blockbuster, or online. In theory, for less than a dollar a movie, through places like Blockbuster.com, I could watch a movie a day for under a dollar a day.

The only problem with this example is that you are placing the choice of what big budget film staring Will Smith you want to watch on the same playing field as finding the cheapest doctor around to take out you apendix. Sure, you can find "I Am Legend" on Netflix or your local video stry anytime you want. You can even watch it at the same time that someone else is, as multiple copies are readily available. But, if left up to the devices of the alleged "free market" you might have to travel 2 hours to find that reputable doctor that will take out your apendix at the best price. And if you didn't have the luxury of medical-tourism on your side, you would be forced with your limited options, if there even were any.

But let's say we let the healthcare industry operate in the "free market" environment. How long would it take for these chioces to appear in your city, your county, your state? Then we get into the waiting game - another meme of the Right that they don't seem to think exists in the current American system.

Krugman ends his piece:

All of this doesn’t necessarily mean that socialized medicine, or even single-payer, is the only way to go. There are a number of successful health-care systems, at least as measured by pretty good care much cheaper than here, and they are quite different from each other. There are, however, no examples of successful health care based on the principles of the free market, for one simple reason: in health care, the free market just doesn’t work. And people who say that the market is the answer are flying in the face of both theory and overwhelming evidence.

In the end the alleged "free market" ( as it would relate to healthcare ) would provide no solution to the problems we are currently facing. And, from Kugman's piece, it is shown that the "free market" wouldn't work on any level. Living in larger, urban, settings does provide covering fire for those that espouse "free market" ideals based explicitly on the fact that they are surrounded by illusion of medical choice already.