DeRosaWorld

NPR Should Just Serial Kill Itself

NPR is now running propaganda commercials for the Health Insurance industry disguised as news stories.

Here is a link to the audio.

Do The 'Fathers' Have To Attend These Forced Ultrasounds, Too?

Ass-munch.

A Friend Has Died: Eleanor Hamerow: 1920 - 2011

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
      -- Henry Adams

men·tor:  [men-tawr, -ter], noun
1. a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
2.an influential senior sponsor or supporter.

A friend of mine died this past week. She was 91 years old. She was a teacher, a filmmaker, a chemist and pharmacist, a dancer, a communist and atheist, a lousy cook and one hell of a person. They don’t make them like that in New York City anymore.

I met Eleanor Hamerow when I attended NYU’s Graduate Film Program back in the 1980s. She was my teacher and we were terrified of her gruff New York accent and attitude which was only a veneer for a caring and intelligent woman.

The heyday of the NYU Program was slipping fast, mostly due to the enormous popularity of film schools across the country. NYU was becoming a money-making corporate entity and some of the old timers like Ellie seemed to be in the way of a new image the school wanted to portray. Her last years at the school were a constant political battle for students and the art of film.

She hung in there as long as she could showing Orson Welles and John Ford movies and La Belle et la Bête and teaching film editing.  She was a film editor and documentary filmmaker of some renowned.

(CBS News (She was fired for including President Eisenhower's "beware the military, industrial complex" speech in their televised documentary of his life.), Martha Graham: An American Original in Performance,  A Dancer’s World, An American Family...)

Film Editing was her second profession after her early years as a chemist.  Teaching was her Third Act.

She got a small auditorium named after her at NYU...but when she finally retired, the soul went out of the school along with all the increasingly antiquated film equipment, like hand-cranked sound synchronizers, moviolas and film splicing blocks...and the old projectors that chewed up old French new wave or Italian neo-realist film prints...

After I finished school, Ellie gave me a job working for her to help me pay off my student loans and I was able to work on her last documentary...appropriately about a teacher.

Somehow...and it is probably worth a novel in itself, I travelled to Moscow with her in 1989 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the VGIK Film School started by Eisenstein in 1919.  One brief story I’ll share is we went in search of the Moscow Arts Theater...home of ‘The Method’ and Stanislavsky...the mythical directing and acting philosophy that breathed life into Marlon Brando, James Dean, Lazlo Benedict, and Elia Kazan...and the NYU Gradate Film Program under Ellie Hamerow.

We found the old theater in the early afternoon and walked into the empty lobby. The doors were open, but the place seemed deserted.  A man in a dark suit handed Ellie a rose and escorted us into the theater...on the stage was a casket with a large photo next to it of one of the actors from the theater troupe. They assumed Ellie had come to pay respects...she looked born and bred...her boots, her head popping out the top of a heavily-scarfed, long black coat...all 5' 1" of her...so we joined the line of mourners.

We had a young interpreter from the school with us and he found the administrator of the theater and told him that Martin Scorsese (me) and a famous American film producer (Ellie) were here. So he came to see us and though we didn’t fool him, we scored some tickets to the theater the next night, and Ihe gave me a poster for the 100th anniversary of The Seagull.  

The next night, we got to see a play that was banned since the 1930s by Stalin himself. Ellie was in heaven. There we were sitting in the front row at the Moscow Arts Theater watching a play in Russian. Our translator was there, kind of filling us in on what was being said and of course there was Ellie's running commentary as though the performance was taking place back at NYU in one of her classes...

Again, a story for another time...but Ellie had written a speech for the VGIK Film School celebration in which she was going to scold the Russians for Stalin and ruining the promise of communism...

After Ellie retired and the years started piling up, some of her contemporary friends began to get ill or even pass away. I would get a phone call from her telling me that Mimi or Ruby couldn't make the performance tonight at Lincoln Center and would I like to go...I saw my first Shostakovich with her and my first Tudor ballet...and my first opera...(a four-hour Semiramede where I didn’t realize that Marilyn Horne was supposed to be playing a man).

She introduced me to the Manhattan cocktail...she couldn't drink anymore, but she wanted me to order one so it sat on the table through dinner so she could smell it...she ordered it the way she liked it: gin, dry vermouth, a dask of bitters and a twist lemon peel.

She was a teacher, but also, always a scholar. Into her eighties she was taking classes at Columbia University. In her late seventies she decided she needed to read the Bible and took a class. I would get a call from her. “What do you know about The First Nicene Council?”  or “Have you read Aquinas?  Let’s have a nosh and talk about it.”  So I would wrap up in a scarf and coat and gloves and take a cab from my East 55th Street apartment to her West 89th Street penthouse and we’d get coffee and something to eat and discuss religion and inevitably movies.

I moved to Los Angeles over twelve years ago and only corresponded with Ellie at first by phone and letters and then dwindling to a few emails and a long Holiday card.

I wasn’t there for the dementia or the need to put her in a home, or for the end where I am told she simply refused food and shortly after, died.

To live such a life and to take it to age 91...Not bad Ellie, not bad at all. You are remembered and cherished...tonight over a Manhattan, Ellie-style.

So, Alan Grayson Was Right...

Former Congressman from Florida, Alan Grayson

Republican Party

Treasonous: 1. violation or betrayal of the allegiance that a person owes his sovereign or his country

“The Republican plan for dealing with the exploding cost of health care is to phase out Medicare and replace it with a system of subsidized private insurance for elderly Americans, starting when people currently 55 and under reach retirement age.

"The rest of us have got ample time to try and plan our lives so that we can adjust to reality here when you look at the numbers," Cantor said. "Again the math doesn't lie."  Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Numbers may not lie, Congressman, but you sure do.

What's A Good, Practicing Catholic To Do?... Follow The Beatitudes?... God Damn It!

    

"...More than 75 professors at Catholic University and other prominent Catholic colleges have written a pointed letter  to Mr. Boehner saying that the Republican-supported budget he shepherded through the House will hurt the poor, the elderly and the vulnerable, and that he therefore has failed to uphold basic Catholic moral teachings...."

Just what are super-Catholics Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and John Boehner to do?  Burning abortionist at the stake just doesn't go over well anymore... 

In a statement on the Vatican  website, Pope Benedict XVI made a bold “call to action” for “all people in all nations.”

"...We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink, as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish.

The bold remarks came after the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) presented new evidence on climate change to the Vatican..."

The true hypocrisy of the 'moral majority' is about to under-reported by the American media.

911 Responders Need To Be Screened For Terrorist Ties... Does This Include Marvin Bush?

"A provision in the new 9/11 health bill may be adding insult to injury for people who fell sick after their service in the aftermath of the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks, The Huffington Post has learned.

The tens of thousands of cops, firefighters, construction workers and others who survived the worst terrorist assault in U.S. history and risked their lives in its wake will soon be informed that their names must be run through the FBI’s terrorism watch list, according to a letter obtained by HuffPost.

Any of the responders who are not compared to the database of suspected terrorists would be barred from getting treatment for the numerous, worsening ailments that the James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation Law was passed to address.

It’s a requirement that was tacked onto the law during the bitter debates over it last year..."

Let's run everybody associated in that fateful day through FBI screenings..

If Socialized Medicine Is Communism and Un-American... What Is Shipping American Jobs That Make Medicine To Communists Countries?

"Ten years ago, no one would have thought to go to Shanghai," said James O'Malley, a former Pfizer researcher who now runs the New London biotech firm Myometrics.

"It's an acknowledgment of labor cost and high intellect in China," added Larry Rothman, a respected industry blogger.

So Obamacare is socialized medicine and socialized medicine is communism and communism is bad...

China is a communist country...

But... Chinese workers are smarter because their socialism educates the masses to be smart enough to make medicine and,  America's capitalism does not support an education system that makes our workers smart enough to make medicine...

So Pfizer needs to move to communist China to make medicine...  plus American workers want too much money... so there is the profit motive, too.

I would rather have socialized medicine in American and nationalise the pharmaceutical industry and keep the jobs here, please... and maybe educate American workers to create medicine... sounds like a worthy endeavour... kind of win/win... for Americans... who cares what we call it?

And How Are These People In Charge? ...We Elect Them?!

"House Republicans will wait until the budget fight this spring to attack Social Security head-on. But in the meantime, they're coming after America's favorite entitlement at an angle. In the current spending bill, they're proposing to slash the administrative funds that federal employees use to run the program. Democrats warn this will lead to furloughs and other service interruptions that could delay checks and prevent new retirees from enrolling..."

I just don't understand how, from the citizens of the Untied States of America... this bunch of thieves, liars, anarchists, traitors and just mean-spirited, wealthy, hypocrites... and did I mention mostly stupid...

get elected to run our country. Am I wrong or is it election after election after election we do this to ourselves?

Is this what the Founding Fathers had in mind?

"...The Republicans claim the cuts amount to about $1 billion below what President Obama requested. But when dig in deeper, Democrats have found the cuts add up to about $1.7 billion -- a hefty chunk of SSA's operating budget.

This includes rescinded stimulus funds, and the $500 million SSA currently has in its reserve account to meet legal requirements and other operating expenses.

This comes at a time when the Social Security Administration is already stretched thin. SSA is operating under a hiring freeze because its current allocations are too low. Democrats warn the cuts would cause blackout periods in SSA's operations, and create a huge backlog of claims across the program.

And, of course, things get even worse for beneficiaries if the spending impasse isn't bridged, and the government shuts down temporarily."

Some Health Care Fun Facts... February 13, 1961

As I posted before, JFK's Presidency is on Twitter... @Kennedy1961

The John F Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston has begun chronicling the former US president's 1,000 days in office on the micro-blogging website Twitter.

Today's tweet is about Social Security and the JFK Administration's attempts to bring what will become Medicare (after his assassination)into the Social Security System.

Here is a little run down of health care events going on in February of 1961 as President Kennedy attempts to bring that evil socialized medicine to the elderly.

February 4, 1961 The American Medical Association established its Political Action Committee (AHPAC). Its purposes included information to be provided physicians and others regarding Government activities affecting the medical profession. It especially involved a drive to prevent the passage of a health insurance program as then being advocated.

February 9, 1961 The President's Health Message was the first of its kind ever to be devoted exclusively to the need for a health care program.

February 13, 1961 H.R. 4222, the Health Insurance Benefits Act of 1961, proposing a program along the lines set forth by the President, was introduced by Representative King of California. S. 909, a companion bill, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Anderson. The House bill was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

February 20, 1961 President Kennedy submitted draft proposals to Congress for improvements in old-age, survivors and disability insurance programs.

(And just for good measure... let's check in on Lee Harvey Oswald in 1961... remember folks, Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union, but on February 13, 1961, started writing to the U.S. Embassy asking about coming back to America...)

The Hypocrisy of Conservatism In A Nutshell... Ayn Rand: Welfare Queen.

  "Critics of Social Security and Medicare frequently invoke the words and ideals of author and philosopher Ayn Rand, one of the fiercest critics of federal insurance programs. But a little-known fact is that Ayn Rand herself collected Social Security. She may also have received Medicare benefits.

An interview recently surfaced that was conducted in 1998 by the Ayn Rand Institute with a social worker who says she helped Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, sign up for Social Security and Medicare in 1974.

Federal records obtained through a Freedom of Information act request confirm the Social Security benefits. A similar FOI request was unable to either prove or disprove the Medicare claim..."

What a sad story... pathetic, really. I am just glad we live in a society that would offer help to the elderly, even when that person has done nothing to deserve it. Well, so much for Objectivism.

Obama Care Starts Firing The Big Guns In 2011

Starting January 1,  2011 another layer of Indonesian, Kenyan Socialist Health Care kicks-in... and we are all going to love this, especially those of us with mothers, fathers, grand mothers and grand fathers... regardless of Party affiliation... or Americans reaching retirement age... and that is a lot of people.

There are two stars of the 2011 implementation:

The first will dramatically clamp down on insurance industry waste, abuse, and excesses. Starting on New Year's Day, insurance companies will have to spend at least 80 percent of the revenues they receive from premiums on actual health care. Not on salaries or overhead.

In 2011, the law will begin to close the Medicare Part D coverage gap -- the infamous "donut hole." Seniors who reach the donut hole will now receive a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs, the first step in a 10 year plan to fill the hole completely. Seniors will also now receive free annual checkups, screenings and other preventive care.

I think even the Tea Party is going to be raising a cup to these benefits.

Here is a link to the specifics of the benefits year-by-year.

 

Saturday Musings: Guest Blogger - Sarah Dunant - The Baby Boomers

Here is a BBC Radio essay from Sarah Dunant.

She rips through a brief history of the generation following the Greatest Generation... the greediest generation.

Now 60 years on... what is the Baby Boomers' future and what is thier legacy?  They got, created or took everything they wanted... now what about death...

Grab Your Ankles For The Next Few Years

"The White House on Thursday defended granting waivers to some employers from a key provision of the new health care law, saying it was the best way to keep people insured until the law fully takes effect.

At issue is a new requirement banning annual caps on benefits, which began phasing in last month. Many employers and insurers that offer low-cost, low-benefit insurance plans known as "mini-med" plans would not have been able to comply with the new requirement without raising monthly premiums to virtually unaffordable levels.

So the administration has granted 30 waivers to date exempting companies from the requirement for a year.

Waivers went to companies including Jack in the Box, Cigna and the company that insures some McDonald's workers, and another 114 applications for waivers are under review by the Health and Human Services Department. One waiver request has been denied, but HHS declined to identify which company was involved.

"The waivers are about ensuring and protecting the coverage that people have until there are better options available to them in 2014," when the health law is fully implemented, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. "We want to ensure that in the time that it takes to implement the law and to give people better options, that they don't find themselves at the mercy of an insurance company jacking up their rates. And that's why those waivers were granted..."

This Can Only End Badly For The American People

The pain-in-the-ass Left wasn't even expecting nationalized heat care or single-payer... we wanted a public option... but what we got is Obamacare... and let someone try to explain that to you...

Several health insurance companies have announced that they are ending insurance coverage for children because the new law won't let them turn away the sick ones anymore. ...

That's right - WellPoint, CoventryOne and others are refusing to issue new child-only policies because the companies will no longer be able to deny coverage to children with "pre-existing conditions." They blame their actions on the new health care law, not their own greed. Even for the insurance industry this behavior is surprisingly brazen. They don't like the rules, so they're going to take their ball and go home..."

Jesus Hussein Christ...

This will end badly because no Democratic Senator is going to stand up and demand action against the Health Insurance Industry... and you can bet your ass that President Obama is not going to lift a finger to help the American people. He's done his job, he's given us Heath Care Insurance Reform... in his mind, we should be carving his head onto Mount Rushmore... we are on our own.

The Health Insurance Industry will win. Senators will get richer... kids will get sicker.

Look Like The Innocent Flower, But Be The Serpent Under It

"The makers of high fructose corn syrup want to sweeten its image with a new name: corn sugar. The Corn Refiners Association applied Tuesday to the federal government for permission to use the name on food labels. The group hopes a new name will ease confusion about the sweetener, which is used in soft drinks, bread, cereal and other products.

Americans' consumption of corn syrup has fallen to a 20-year low on consumer concerns that it is more harmful or more likely to cause obesity than ordinary sugar, perceptions for which there is little scientific evidence.

However, some scientists have linked consumption of full-calorie soda — the vast majority of which is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup — to obesity.

The Food and Drug Administration could take two years to decide on the name, but that's not stopping the industry from using the term now in advertising..."

Saturday Musings: 'All Or Nothing At All' Edition

So Apple is going to distribute free cases so their iPhone 4 users won’t touch both antennae at same time, disrupting their signals. Has anybody done research on what the side effects are of having two active antennae in your pocket sitting next to your balls all day?

-----

So Congressman Boehner (R-OH), one of the biggest assholes in the House, announced he wants a one-year moratorium on all new Federal regulations… and if the Republicans take the House this November, he may just get his, and Corporate America’s wish… in time for Christmas… that and the repeal of the Health Care Bill. Republicans, you gotta love ‘em.

Corporate America wrote the Health Care Bill and Corporate America wrote the new Financial Regulations Bill… Republicans couldn’t have written better, less helpful to Americans, kind of embarrassing bills unless they simply… wrote no bills at all or did away with Financial Regulations and Health Care protection… ah, that’s it. 

The difference between Republicans and Democrats are Democrats write bad, corporate-sponsored legislation while Republicans don’t do anything.

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Thirty-two U.S. soldiers took their own lives last month, the most Army suicides in a single month since the Vietnam War.  Last year, a record-breaking 245 soldiers committed suicide. The Army seems on track to surpass that number this year, as 145 soldiers have taken their lives in the first half of 2010. 

What is it about those two wars that make our boys want to kill themselves?  What do those two wars have in common…?

In a touch of unnoticed irony: Col. Chris Philbrick, head of the Army's suicide prevention task force, told CNN. "I have no silver bullet to answer the question why."

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And now scientists are saying there really isn’t such a thing as gravity… well that what the hell am I doing still stuck on this fucked up and doomed planet!

Saturday Musings: 'Old Europe Screws The Pooch' Edition

So I’m digging what I’m reading about Long-Term Care (CLASS Act) in the new left-wing, Kenyan, socialist health insurance plan, because some day I am going to be old and I am sure there will be no Social Security money available then, so either I work until I die or I get some long-term care for when I get Alzheimer’s... because this is America baby, and nobody rides for free.

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Is President Obama’s Blue-Dog Democrat stand on the issues just a transition to a future more liberal Presidency?

I can’t believe that America will slip into the FOX News utopia of Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck…. Oh and Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. The vast right wing conspiracy has been uncovered. They stand naked before us, mouths dripping with blood and other precious bodily fluids.

And if it weren’t for the alternate media found on the Internet, blogs and foreign press sites, we would all be Republicans by now.

-----

Here is a link to ACTBLUE, this is a start for 2010 and 2012. I know it’s hard to trust elections in America, I’m still angry over voting for Gore and getting Bush, Jr. and voting for Gray Davis and getting Schwarzenegger and voting for Kerry and getting Bush, Jr. again… I mean this is embarrassing. 

We should be embarrassed.

Here is an example of what I hope for: because the Republicans in Congress have held up the extension of unemployment benefits and the National Flood Insurance Program out of spite and hatred of all things Democratic, when the worst flooding in 100 years hit Rhode Island and other parts of the Northeast last week, the people are screwed… They are Katrina screwed. 

I expect, I dream, I hope that every Republican running for office in these districts is thrown out of office in 2010. Will they be?  Will the national, corporate media cover this story as a Republican Congressional failure?  Progressive blogs will.

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And what is Easter without a look at the state of the Catholic Church...

Pope Bends-for-dick XVI (aka: Joey Ratz) is up to his miter in boy-butt trouble with a global round of child sex abuse cover-up charges AND complaints of Gestapo-like strong-arm tactics by his shepherds on the youthful flock. Catholic Priests just can’t keep their hands or other appendages off the kids. Maybe it’s time for a nice African or South American Pope. 'Old Europe' just can't handle the duties anymore.

And so on this holy of Holy Days,let's go to the videotape: (and check out #4... it has been debated on FOX News a lot lately.)

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
for they shall possess the earth.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice,
for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Saturday Musings: 'Hit The Decks' Edition with Guest Bloggers Gore Vidal and John Meroney

John Meroney interviewed Gore Vidal for The Atlantic. 

Here are some excerpts from Meroney's whirlwind interview. There is lots more from Meroney and Vidal if you follow the above link to The Atlantic.

You  said earlier this month that you now wish you had supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries instead of Barack Obama. You said that she would make a better president.

Well, I was in a thoughtful mood.

Do you really wish you had supported Mrs. Clinton?

She would have been a wonderful president. As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I’ve always been very pro-African-American – or whatever phrase we now use. I was curious to see what would happen when their time came. I was delighted when Obama appeared on the scene. But now it seems as though our original objection to him – that experience mattered – was well-founded.

The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy prompted a flood of coverage about him and his career. In 1969, you said in an interview, “By 1972, Kennedy will be just another politician whom we have seen too much of, no doubt useful in the Senate but nothing more. By 1976, Camelot will not only be forgot but unrestorable, if for no other reason than that Arthur’s heir will by then be – cruelest fate of all – unmistakably fat.”

I should think that’s rather well observed.

What is Ted Kennedy’s real legacy?

It’s nothing. But I predicted that at the beginning, when Jack started backing him for his U.S. Senate seat. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who was a loyal Kennedy courtier, agreed. But Jack was funny about it. He never took Arthur seriously. He always called him “the movie critic.” (Imitating JFK’s accent) “What does ‘the movie critic’ have to say about this issue?” He liked to tease Arthur.

What did Schlesinger say about Ted Kennedy?

On his own, he went to Jack and said, “It’s in the papers that you’re working behind the scenes to support Teddy. You can’t do that. You’re making an awful lot of trouble for yourself. You’re going to be accused of nepotism and worse for backing a boy who isn’t considered first-rate.” Teddy had been caught cheating at Harvard – and all the things that Republicans like to write about. I asked Arthur, “What did Jack say to that?” And he answered, (imitating JFK’s accent) “Teddy’s not running against George Washington.”

So where is President Kennedy’s place in the pantheon of liberalism?

Jack was not a liberal. Why does anyone want to pretend that he was? When it came to matters of race, he behaved pretty well. But he wasn’t terribly interested in it. When he famously rang up Mrs. Martin Luther King after Rev. King had been jailed – well, Harris Wofford thought that one up. It was all the work of others who were liberals.

They were his closest advisors.

I remember when he was putting together his cabinet, he said (imitating JFK’s accent), “Do you know anybody who’s suitable for Secretary of Agriculture?” I said, “No, I don’t. And I don’t want to know anybody who’s suitable for Secretary of Agriculture.” Jack said (imitating JFK’s accent), “Well, that’s my problem. I don’t know any people.”He came up with Dean Rusk. He said (imitating JFK accent), “Who the hell is Dean Rusk?” I said, “Well, he’s your Secretary of State, I’m told.” Jack said (imitating JFK’s accent), “Oh, yeah, that’s right. He is.” When Jack got bored, he would tap his front teeth with his index finger.

Shouldn’t this be a golden age for the Democrats? They finally control both houses of Congress and elected a president.

But they don’t have a reason.

Do you blame Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi? Isn’t she a good leader?

Well, I’m not in the House, so I can’t tell you. If one wants to know about running the United States House of Representatives, look at Henry Clay. He ran it. But he’s totally unknown now, of course. I think, “Dear God, if only Henry Clay were speaker.”

One question that has been repeatedly asked since the economic recession began is, What exactly got the country out of the Great Depression? Do you think President Roosevelt’s policies were responsible for fixing the economy?

It was mainly luck. By 1939, the Depression was back. Unemployment was huge. Roosevelt didn’t have any quick fix. Remember, the New Deal, Works Progress Administration, and Civilian Conservation Corps – all that happened years before. Roosevelt was riding a storm.

So what policies of Roosevelt do you most admire?

I had supper with Mrs. Roosevelt at Hyde Park, and she said (imitating Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice), “My Franklin and I were very impressed with something our son James did when he got back from serving in the war.” Mrs. Roosevelt said (imitating Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice), “You know, it was James who convinced the President to create the G.I. Bill of Rights.” That policy changed the whole class system in the United States. Before it, you had to be a doctor’s son to go to college. After that bill, everybody could go.

In one recent interview, you referred to FDR as a great man.

He was a very great man.

But you opposed his foreign policy.

Well, of course. FDR was damaging the Republic by his imperial ways.

You’re pictured in this book doing an imitation of FDR during World War II.

Yes, I was in Alaska, the ideal place. Roosevelt sent me there.

You and Ronald Reagan have at least one thing in common: he did an excellent imitation of FDR as well.

Mine is better.

In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?

I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?

I’ve certainly never heard that take on the story before.

First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn’t resemble anything that we’re now being told.

What do you mean?

The media can’t get anything straight. Plus, there’s usually an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing going on with the press – lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.

What are “American values”?

Lying and cheating. There’s nothing better.

So you’re saying that a non-Jewish director wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught up in a sex crime scandal? Such a thing wouldn’t be an issue for Martin Scorsese?

Well, he’s an absolutely sexless director. Can you think of a sex scene that he ever shot?

You describe the New York Times as a newspaper “notorious for its dullness and hostility to excellence of any kind, other than thievery.” What do you mean by that?

Ask anyone who was a writer in the 1940s and 50s. If the ghost of Ernest Hemingway were here, he would explain it to you. The paper was a bunch of dull hacks.

During that period, the paper didn’t review any of your books. You’ve said this “blacklisting” was a blessing.

It was. My first book was in 1946. Eighteen years later, when I published the novel Julian, the paper caved in and finally reviewed me. Everybody told me that Julian, a very complex story about the apostate emperor of Rome, wouldn’t sell. But it was number one. The Times’ reviewer, Orville Prescott, came out of retirement to knock me. Now that’s dedication. I complimented him in public.

The Hearst newspapers wouldn’t review your books either. Is that ban what led you into writing for Hollywood?

Yes. You don’t think I wanted to write “Ben-Hur,” do you? I was stuck. One right-wing rumor about me, which I don’t appreciate, is that I came from an enormously rich family. I never inherited 50 cents from my family. They didn’t have it.

In a 1969 interview, you say that you’ve been on your own since you were 17.

Yes. That’s when I went into the Army. It saved me.

So Hollywood was a way to write and make a lot of money?

Well, you didn’t really come to Hollywood to make a lot of money. You could, however, make a living. But I had two hit plays on Broadway back-to-back. That seldom happens.

Did the process of writing a screenplay come naturally to you? Was it difficult?

I’m a writer. I write whatever I choose.

Who is the best leader in the Democratic Party right now?

 Do you mean, Who can give the best speech? Who can raise the most money? Look, I’m not a sentimentalist. Nor am I a romantic. I don’t believe in the Great Man theory of history. Great men come along very seldom – and when they do, it’s pretty bloody. But, as Chancellor Bismarck once observed, God looks after alcoholics, little children, and the United States of America.

Three More Years! Three More Years! Nancy Pelosi and Bart Stupak Buy President Obama Three More Years Of The Long Game.

 America was treated to a full day of our Congress being creepy, lying, false, ingenuous and some even slightly insane. Television totally unsafe for viewing by children.

The Health Care Reform Bill was passed by Congress. 

"Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote. Republicans were unanimous in opposition, joined by 34 dissident Democrats.

A second, smaller measure — making changes in the first — cleared the House shortly before midnight and was sent to the Senate, where Democratic leaders said they had the votes necessary to pass it quickly. The vote was 220-211."

Now we can all breath easier and let the Republicans and the Media scream for a few more days, start trying to figure out what the hell is in the bill and look forward to the elections of 2010 cleaning the House out of some of these conservative Democrats and asshole Republicans.

That would be change I can believe in.

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President's signature on the health care bill:

   1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
   2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
   3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
   4. Free preventative care for all
   5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
   6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
   7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
   8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
   9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

Saturday Musings: "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." Edition

Health Care, Health Care, Health Care.

Pass the lousy bill just so we don’t have to see the lunatic fringes of the Republican Party dancing in the streets, covered 24/7 by the lunatic Media.

Pass the lousy bill because even Dennis Kucinich’s reputation has been destroyed by this thing.

Pass the lousy bill because President Obama is crying that his Presidency is riding on it.

Pass the lousy thing and move on, because this bill will be bounced off the news cycle so fast and buried by both Parties. This bill was a year in the making and is going to disappear overnight. Some of the provisions don’t kick-in until Hillary’s first term.

As far as Health Care Reform and Insurance Reform, expect nothing.

As far as pet projects and boondoggles go, Federal funding for abortion doesn’t bother me, abortion is the law of the land… what bothers me is cigarette smokers. I don’t want Federal funding for Health Care for anyone who smoked for more than one year… I can negotiate that time limit… President Obama, give me a call.

Well good luck this weekend everyone in Congress. I hope you all got what you wanted.

Friday Video: FDR's Second Bill of Rights

President Roosevelt promising America something his followers wouldn't keep.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Dipped, Rolled And Covered In Nuts

"But Kucinich was persuaded by Obama to switch his vote on the health-care bill -- not because he likes anything about the measure, but because of the same sentiment often voiced by Obama's foes: A defeat on the legislation would destroy Obama's presidency.

"One of the things that has bothered me is the attempt to try to delegitimize his presidency. That hurts the nation when that happens," Kucinich reasoned at a news conference Wednesday. "We have to be very careful," he continued, that "President Obama's presidency not be destroyed by this debate. . . . Even though I have many differences with him on policy, there's something much bigger at stake here for America."

There is a lot of hate out there right now for Dennis Kucinich from both the Progressive Democrats and Republicans. Non-progressive Democrats don't give a shit about anything, so they don't matter.

A defeat on the legislation would destroy the Obama presidency? Really?

Sounds a bit exaggerated, but remember, this is the Health Care Reform Bill what President Obama wanted. He crafted it over a year: No Single Payer. No Public Option. Anything Conservative Democrats Wanted. Anything the Insurance Industry wanted... it is all in the Obamacare Bill, and this is truly Obamacare.

If the Obama Presidency hinges on this vote, who's fault is that?

So if Dennis Kucinich decide to save the President... what does he get? Three more years of the Obama Presidency!

God help the Progressive Democrats because this is not going to save anything. Health Care Reform is fucking dead. There will be no rebuilding it. Progressive Democrats are dead as a force in politics for the 2010 and 2012 elections.

But Obama's legacy is safe according to the pundits.

Okay, So Here's The Plan... Remember The Long Game...

"The White House is beginning its final push on health care this week, with senior adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to express confidence that the bill will pass.

"We'll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week," Gibbs said on "Fox News Sunday." "Whoever sits here at this time next week, I think will not be talking about health care as a proposal, but as the law of the land."

So the chicken-shit Democrats actually may have to vote for something this week... the Insurance Health Care Reform that President Obama let the Insurance, Pharmaceutical and Health Care Corporate Complex write for him.

So, let's pass it, sign it and call it a progressive victory, and now that we blew a fucking year doing nothing of any real political import, let's give the reform of the Reform over to Howard Dean, admit we were wrong for putting Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office and let's spend the next three years trying to be brave enough to have a progressive agenda and start running the right wing morons and the conservative/corporate media off the rails.

"Don't stop thinking about tomorrow..."... oh, sorry, wrong theme song.

Saturday Musings: 'Who Was Thomas Jefferson For Four Hundred, Please' Edition

Is the Senate doing more harm to America than good?

Why not just have a body of representatives, like the US Congress, maybe add some here, lose some there, based on population. Have a Supreme Court, that seems like a good idea on paper and a talk-show host President. Sounds like a good idea for a Constitutional Republic to me.

The United States of America is going to be barely recognizable by the end of this century. Our great grand children are going to be stacking Wal Mart shelves for the Chinese.

I have been reading some interesting things about the whereabouts and actions of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld on 9/11 by Peter Dale Scott (The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America). Those two men were and are insane. The damage to the Constitutional Republic may be irreparable.

I like alternate history. I think all young people should read more of it. I guess they will have to when their history text books are going to leave them unaware of Thomas Jefferson’s role in the history of this country.

What is really strange though is most little conservative white kids won’t be reading these books; the little brown ones will be by most predicted census counts. So who and what are these books for? Revenge of the old white guys who are still mad that Richard Nixon was forced to resign by hippies? I mean come on; both Kennedy Brothers didn’t satisfy you all?

I have absolutely no reason to trust that the Democratic Senate, House and President can pass an Insurance Health Care Reform Bill. And if they do, I really don’t care at this point because the bill will, based on our Constitutional Republic's track record, do more harm than good.

HBO was showing a marathon of Band of Brothers yesterday. I don’t remember it sucking so badly. How many gum-cracking Italians from Brooklyn fought in that war? I’m glad they waited for Norman Mailer to die before airing HBO: The Pacific. This ought to be a doozy.

Saturday Musings: 'No Means No' Edition

President Obama held his Health Care Summit, something he should have done during his first year in office when the hope and change still hung heavy in the air and the Republicans were on their knees.

Once again, the President seemed smart and honest and sincere. The Republicans seemed like jerks who didn’t care about the American people.

It was all fascinating to watch and see what a weak group of people American political leaders all are.

At the end of the summit, the Democrats had some plan that the American people couldn’t understand: Why wasn't it a public option?

What is a public option?

How does it work?

I assume it will help, but am I being taxed?... still not clear.

The Republicans just said the Democrats are losers and they are not supporting it.

Once again, Obama offers less and less and the Republicans say no and no and no.

Mister President, stop asking.

This has been going on for over a year and the American people are sick of it and confused.

If the President and the Democrats don’t pass a health care reform bill very soon, then I don’t want to hear anymore about it.

7 ½  hours on TV arguing with Republicans doesn’t make up for the lack of bold,. progressive action in your first hundred days, or even your first year. The bully pulpit only works when, after stepping off it, you do something.

As you said yourself to Senator McCain, the election is over… but that was a year ago, and there is another one in 2010 and if your plan is to wait for that… then I don’t want Obamacare, either.

Thank You Mister President For The American Civics Lesson.

Shorter President Obama at the Health Care Reform Summit:

“All right, all right, damn. Enough with the talking points you teleprompter reading, John McCain-looking, bunch of scaly, old, white-assed, elevator button-dicked, scotch-breathed, millionaire mother fuckers.

I invited you here instead of arresting half of all y’all.

Now it goes like this; I’m listening and I'm looking for some sense of understanding here. I jerked-off for a fucking year to Republican bullshit on health care reform. Death panels... blow me.

Either you do something with me and we all celebrate and get a piece of history’s pie, or I’m moving on without you, by any means necessary, ha ha ha.

Now I lifted the rock and let America see you slimy pupas for what you are, so either turn into butterflies or bury yourselves back in the moss. 

Now get the fuck out of here and onto FOX News where you belong."

Shorter Republicans:

"Muslim."

"Socialist."

So What Do Think, Does America Commit Suicide On TV Today?

So President Obama and the Democrats are going to sit down with the Republicans to talk about this health care reform stuff that has been going on for a year now.

The last time the Republicans let President Obama loose in their cage, he pissed all over them.

You know this time there is going to be a little reality TV-type' melodrama, not just shouting "LIAR"!, but maybe some full on lunatic-style howling and screaming from the GOP... maybe even some pistol waving.

President Obama doesn't have the strongest hand, but he is the best bluffer at the table, and the Republicans are holding nothing. Their cards are blank.

On the other hand, The Republicans are nuts. They say anything, lie constantly and don't understand the issues, but are ruthless at this game and the Media will be right there backing them up.

Civil discourse? Senatorial debate? Aristotelian logic? I don't think so.

I think we are going to witness American democracy committing suicide.

Is President Obama A Health Insurance Industry Mole?

So after a year of being frustrated by President Obama's mishandling of Health Care Insurance Reform, and having to put up with Obama allowing Republicans to kick reform (and Democrats) around and stomp it until it was just about dead in the curb... the Democratic Senate started to revive hope for the 'public option' last week and health care reform suddenly looked like it might actually survive...and then...

President Obama comes out with his own White House Health Insurance Reform and guess what... no public option!!!

So has the President himself just drop-kicked the public option (supported by 70% of Americans) back down into the curb?

Come to think of it, President Obama has not supported, in any substantial way, the public option since his mercurial rise to the Democratic nomination and the Presidency.

All those secret White House health insurance company and Big Pharma meetings... makes a conspiracy theorist liberal Democrat wonder...

Saturday Musings: 'Who's In Charge' Edition

Until we Americans ride every one of our Media Elite out of town on a rail, there will never be peace in America. To see CPAC covered as if it was a double bill of Jesus Christ and Elvis at Madison Square Garden just sickens me.

It doesn’t help, and can’t be helped I guess, that even the liberal progressive blogs cover every fucking word, albeit snarkily, that these buffoons have to say.

Don’t blame the buffoons for trying to be famous or rich or powerful, blame the media for putting them on television and for lying to us all… and blame them hard.

A good example, David Broder… need I say more?

The folks you see on TV everyday need to be pelted with garbage every time they show their faces in public. Their children should be ashamed of them. Their heads should be shaved.

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Okay, so Al Haig is dead. Who’s in charge?

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So after President Obama dick-slapped the entire Republican Congress on national television, in their own ballpark without a teleprompter or even notes… the new criticism of BHO is that he reads from a teleprompter too much?

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DeRosaWorld whole-heartedly supports the 'Secession II' of the Southern States of America. I think it should be mandatory and then lets build a Mexican-border-type wall around it all and put windows in it so we can all watch the freedom.

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Speaking of President Obama, so are the rumors true? Did the Administration finally get around, after a year, to writing its own Health Care Reform Bill? Will a public option be dangled before us again full of hope and change? Oh, please don’t say it if it isn’t true. We love you, Mister President!

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Remember Evan Bayh from last week? Me neither.

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Flying airplanes into buildings to kill people and make a political point is terrorism. Anyone who jokes about it, supports it or tries to dismiss it are supporters of terrorism and spit in the face of all who died in the hijacked airliners, the WTC, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

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The FBI and Justice Department has officially closed their investigation into the 2001 mailings of anthrax-contaminated letters to Capitol Hill and journalists in New York and Florida, concluding that lone gunmen and suicide victim, U.S. Army medical researcher Bruce E. Ivins was solely responsible for the five deaths that resulted.

Hmm... can I poke around in this story for a while longer?

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Although I am a liberal Democrat, I am off to do something very all-American. I am going into the wilderness for a few days, heading up into the snowy mountains of California. I plan to commute with the gods and nature. Don’t worry; I am not taking a small plane. I am going to walk among the eagles and tree tops and breath clean air and think. 

President Obama Works For Republican House Victories In 2010

"We need to change the way we work with the other party as well. Now, I'm proud to be a Democrat," Obama said. "I'm proud to be a leader of this great party. But I also know that we can't solve all of our problems alone. So we need to extend our hands to the other side."

The president is also slated to host a bipartisan group of congressional leaders at the White House this coming week to discuss jobs, in what spokesman Robert Gibbs said would be a monthly series of such events."

WHAT?!

All right, someone needs to sit this guy down and explain to him how this works. Maybe Obama is a masochist, but I am not.

So if I understand this correctly, please be perfectly clear... you are going to try to work with the Republican Party on Health Care Reform and a Jobs Bill in your second year?

If the answer is yes...we are done, sir.

Saturday Musings: 'So Sad' Edition

So is the first 'Year Two' compromise from the Administration on Health Care that The Republicans won’t whip Obama on Health Care Reform if he quietly kills it?

Sad.

My fellow Americans, that body arrived D.O.A.

I am beginning to see the vast amount of corporate donations to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign paying off nicely. I wonder where this will leave us in 2012.

If the Democrats really do have the self-fulfilling prophecy of losing the Senate and the large majority in the House… will Obama move more to the left? Or is the only reaction to opposition for a Democratic a move to the right.

Someday… maybe someday a Democratic President will move left and bring the country along with it… someday.

Maybe the President read a little history this past year and realized the last time a Democratic President moved from right to left during his first term his popularity grew and grew… but then we shot him… and we never did get to see how that leftward acceleration would have turned out… because it never happened again.

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Sadly, whenever Jane Hamsher threatens a United States Senator with oblivion, they just get mean and move to the right, too. I wished she’d stop. It’s not working… see, Lieberman and Lincoln.

What is really pathetic about American politics right now is that the Republican Party is at its lowest point in decades. It is a Party full of fruitcakes, dangerous, old, choking-kind of fruitcakes, but fruitcakes just the same. They should be such an out of power minority that vast areas of this nation should not even be represented by a Republican… but sadly, no. They dominate or TV screens and our news cycles. they dominate this Democratic Administration.

And Left wing blogs repeat every word they say, you can’t escape Republicans.

I liked the SOTU Address and loved the Republican Q&A session later in the week, but I don’t trust that the momentum from those events will translate into any change in this most-compromising of Administrations. There seems to be a real fear behind closed doors of the Republican Party and the Right.

Sad.

Get Back To Work, Bitch

The White House will move health care reform to the back burner, in order to "let the dust settle" after Democrats lost their Senate super-majority.

Asked today if health care was on the back burner, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, "The president believes it is the exact right thing to do by giving this some time, by letting the dust settle, if you will, and looking for the best path forward."

You just got your ass kicked, Mr. President... you, not the Senate... in Massachusetts by a male centerfold who was pimping for his daughters during his victory speech.

Get your ass in into the Oval Office and work the phone.

Get on your bully pulpit and DO NOT wait to make some 'great' speech at your State Of The Union and think that is enough. Because it is not enough.

Fuck, man. Do your job. Lazy motherfucker.

President Obama Asks For A Reach-Around While He's Getting Fucked

"Mr Obama told ABC News any vote should wait until Scott Brown had taken up his seat, and lawmakers should seek to "coalesce" around parts they agreed on...."

Slow and steady loses the race.

Well, let's try bipartisanship with our 59-41 minority in the Senate.

Maybe Senator Centerfold will be gentle.

Saturday Musings: 'Corporatism Makes Its Move' Edition

Sarah Palin made her journalistic, pundit, FOX News debut last week and it was covered in the media and in the progressive blogosphere like Elvis was having another Comeback Special.

Has anyone run for higher office from the pundit chair? I know some are threatening to do it. We might get a couple of truly TV-generation races in 2010 and 2012.

It is sad to watch Palin go through the painful act of trying to sound as reasonable and smart as Newt Gingrich or Lou Dobbs for the FOX News and Progressive Blogosphere audience. (Yes… they have become the same audience…) This will eventually work and I will hear some college educated adult say…’you know, she actually made sense last night”

The few people that run things, the “They” who control our corporate generated lives do not respect Sarah Palin. She is their court jester and she may think “They” want her, but they really just want her to dance for them to entertain us. And we are watching and laughing and putting dollars in her underwear. I can’t avoid it and I don’t even have a working TV in my house.

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So this Health Care Tax Reform thing the Democrats have been jerking off for a year now may go down the tubes because of one special election to fill a Senate Seat?  How many times does this game show have to crash before we just cancel it. It's embarrassing.

The Corporations have won. The Republicans kicked the Democrats ass in the Democrats own stadium. They won when Single Payer was not put on the table by President Obama. They won again when abortion amendments in both houses pissed on the law and the Democrats let it happen. It ended when a public option of any kind was taken off the table.

Well, we will see on Tuesday if God’s will struck Senator Kennedy down so a Republican can take his seat to stop Obamacare.

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Speaking of God’s will. Good Lord, did that pact will Satin turn around and bite those anti-colonial, anti-slavery Haitians on the ass. This coming week is going to see a new level of Hell created. The Devil is not done with Haiti... and we are going to be forced to watch.

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I would like to see a reality show where Jay Leno, David Letterman, that read-headed, skinny guy, Jimmy Kimmel, that other guy from SNL all have to get 9-5 day jobs… for thirty years.

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I’ve bailed out the Airline Industry, The Automobile Industry and the Banking Industry. Why are they still the three headaches in my life?

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Oh, the war in Afghanistan is not going well, but the new government in Iraq is acting just like the American government. So I guess Mission Accomplished?

Duh: A word people use when the obvious is stated. - Urban Dictionary

"As I look back it was a waste of time dealing with [Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME]," Reid is quoted as saying about the White House in a forthcoming New York Times Magazine piece, "because she had no intention of ever working anything out."

Oh, for Christ's sake Harry.

If This Is What It Takes... Start Over... The Tax On Cadilac Health Care Plans Sounds Like An Idea By Someone Who Doesn't Know What The Fuck They Are Doing... Mister President

The Democrats and President Obama are just plain scaring people now with their obvious flailing around on a health care reform solution.

No one in America understands what you want to give us... including you. So maybe it is time to stop and ask yourselves what the fuck it is you want to do... and then do it.

Is it universal health care? Then do it.

Is it a public option? Then do it.

Is it make Republicans like you? Then keep doing what you are doing and they will love you for it. Because what you are doing is fucking away the chance of a generation.

President Obama's Long Game Moves Into Its Second Year

So here we are approaching the end of the first year of Change We Can Believe In.

How's the Hope holding up?

We were told this was a transformative Presidency. (Remember the Cairo Speech!?)  But it seems more of a slow transformation out of the clutches of certain death into a choking grip around our throat.

Bush, Jr./Cheney must be very pleased with their replacement. We know Wall Street is... for now.

So, my biggest problems with the Obama Administration are not his Nobel Peace Prize winning Afghanistan War and War on Terror policies. If he is really going over there to crush, kill, destroy, clean up and get out, great... go Long Game.

My really big problem with the President is his economic policy and actions so far. They scare and frustrate me.

He lost the greatest opportunity for fundamental, sane, fair, christian, 21st century, Democratic, economic change in American history since 1932. He blew it. If there is a Long Game, our team is behind by 100 points in the 4th Quarter.

Obama needed to start affecting a cigarette holder and slapping a New Deal on Wall Street instead of creating a living memorial to Robert Rubin.

If there is not a Long Game for economic regulation by the Federal Government then the Obama Administration will have FAILED miserably in this area.

Also, The Obama Administration's Health Care Reform Long Game is a sad, cowardly affair full of lies and total miscalculation of the political landscape of Washington, D.C.

Obama's critics who worried about his lack of experience had real reason to worry. He was either played or he is playing the voters of this nation.

If there is no Long Game for further, furious and far reaching Health Care Reform, then his Administration has FAILED miserably here.

Climate Change seemed like a combination of lack of expertise on the subject and outright cowardice of the issue. If there is no Long Game by this Administration on Global Climate Change, the Game may be over and none of the other policy issues really matter. It will be the End Times, brought to you by The United States of America.

We have three (maybe seven) more years with President Obama's Long Game. Both he and the Democratic Congress have tripped over each other in trying to take the mantle of power away from thirty years of Republican Party/Media ass-kicking. But we are all grown-ups and have the political scars to prove it. It has always been an uphill battle for the modern Democratic Party.

Nothing they throw at us should be a surprise. Isn't that what Rahm Emanuel is for?

The only way to win the Game is to play to win...or you will lose.

The best defense is a good offense and we need to see some offense from this Administration.

Get in the game, Mr. President, you're embarrassing us.

Saturday Musings: 'Yes We Can' Edition

After eight years of the stolen Presidency of Bush, Jr./Cheney and after a generation of the false conservative, religious right and media exploitation of America... all the Democratic Party can come up with is this group of losers?

The President has showed me nothing in his first year.

The Senate has been shown to be a corrupt body of corporate whores who have sold this country's government to corporate overlords.

Our religion has become a perversion of fanatical stupidity.

And the United States of America, a nation once loved and revered for its principles and its laws has become the nation that is most feared and most dangerous to the survival of the planet.

It was not so long ago, 1944 when FDR was in the White House and World War Two was still being fought, but the dream of democracy and the working class shown brightest and the Democratic Party were heroes and the Republican Party eunuchs on the side lines.

Whoopsie! This Is What Happens When Your Record Consists Entirely Of Your Candidacy

From Firedoglake:   "...And they have support from then-candidate Barack Obama. If you follow his logic – that if people have a chance to buy high-quality health care that is affordable, they will do so – then it holds that if people see the coverage as neither high-quality or affordable, they wouldn’t buy it. But under his plan, they are being forced to do it."

 ...He had all the answers back then...

Time To Drop The Gloves.

This piece on Emptywheel sent me reaching for the shotgun whiskey bottle. (Thanks Fallenmonk)

"Mind you, not only will citizens be required to pay private corporations. But middle class citizens may be required to pay more to these private corporations than they pay in federal and state taxes..."

Obamacare is a fucking nightmare. Yes, the Democrats in the Senate must share the blame and retribution of liberals  everywhere... and we are everywhere... but President Obama is the one we should all be mad at... and ourselves of course.

We elected a man we knew nothing about and we are learning the hard way.

Sad, Really...

President Obama gets pwned by Republicans and Joe Lieberman.

Most of the A-list blogs can't face the fact that President Barack Obama is nowhere near a liberal. Guess you should have checked the lack of  resume'.

I'm a little mad at my fellow progressives. I was told that if I were a true liberal, Hillary Clinton could not possibly be  my candidate for President... I had to vote for Obama. Obama was Change. Yes We Can.

Well, so far President Obama is an embarrassment to this liberal. This health care reform debacle, his Republican financial advisers and his Commander-in-Chief follies are enough to have me looking at possible liberal challengers for 2012.

Okay, I tell myself...maybe I wouldn't have like President Kennedy much after his first year and would have been proven wrong by 1963.

I know President Obama has three more years to his first term, but he also has a massive hole he dug himself. Why would any liberal Democrat support him at this moment in time, after seeing him perform after one year. This is all we have to go on and it is an abysmal record.

The word cowardly comes to mind, mainly because I know he is not stupid... and was obviously politically savvy enough to become President of the United States.

Well Mr. President here is a shovel, start digging yourself out of the hole you are in and climb onto that Bully Pulpit.

Why Is He Asking? The President Doesn't Know What He's Doing, Does He?

"Insurance companies will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or lifetime, and we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses – because no one in America should go broke just because they get sick." Barack Obama, August 14, 2009.

So why this?: A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.

And why the fuck this?: The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the negotiations. 

You are the President, man. Do something.

Saturday Musings: The 'protect the minority of the opulent against the majority' Edition

How does one teach a Civics class today? If you review the basics of American Government and then look at our government today, our system clearly has stopped working. In fact, it is harmful.

The House of Representatives is bad enough, but at least there is a pretty fair representation of the population.

The Senate is a whole other story. Who do they represent? Do the two Senators from California and the two Senators from Montana represent their constituents fairly?

Then, there is our Presidents. We elect and worship dumb men and we belittle the smart ones.

Something has got to give in these United States or we are not going to be a viable nation in the near future.

Our military is a bloated mess filled with undereducated working-poor. It is spread through with a cancer of contractors and secret CIA/Corporate raiders with totally different agendas then the soldiers that are fighting next to them.

Our financial system is a perpetual and legal date-rape system, organized to keep working Americans paying and dreaming and blind to the fact that they are poor and will never be millionaires.

Our public education system is Prep School for our prison system.

Our national media is a Praetorian Guard for our Corporate Puppeteers.

On that note… shove the health care reform up your ass.

Revolutions come from the ground up, when the people, the poor and tired and angry workers rebel and take the heads of the Heads of State… Revolutions usually have a few falls starts until their needs and strengths become overwhelming… this is going to be one hell of a century.

Honey, I Think Our Health Care Is Here

The Democrats are pathetic.

I do expect radical change and I expect it fast when a Democratic President is elected and he has a Democratic Congress and Senate... after the previous Administration stole an election and ruined the country on every measurable level.

The bully-pulpit should have been used to deliver a liberal, socialistic health care plan and pressure Congress to pass it fast. And it should have started the day the legislation was passed. Health Care is a crisis. The President's hands-off approach simply means the ball was dropped.

The Democrats should have clamped down on Wall Street and reforms should have been put in place immediately. The American economy is a crisis and should have been handled as one. People should also have gone to jail as a deterrent. The President's hands are in the pockets of his Financial Advisers and they are a criminal lot.

The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are Republican crises and should have been handled as such and shut down. The President was man-handled by the military and had no response.

As we approached the Obama Presidency's first year mark, I am can't help being reminded of the end of the movie The Candidate.

Saturday Musings 'Too Much Time On My Hands' Edition

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Whenever the Crazy gets turned up too high for me to deal with, I re-read some Hunter S. Thompson to put my life in perspective. The man knew how to cope.

I work all the time and having four days off in a row over this Thanksgiving holiday has given me time to think... which means it has given me time to worry...My thoughts on the week that just passed.

We have terrorists blowing up trains in Russia.

We have non-terrorists killing soldiers in America.

Tiger Woods wife is taking a golf club to his head.

Glenn Beck is on my TV, my radio and my computer every day. Even the progressive blogs feature every utterance of that man.

Sarah Palin is back and bigger than ever. She even has a porn-side show with her little hockey player.

Oprah is quitting.

Joss Wedon’s new show was canceled.

The dollar is falling.

CHASE bank keeps chasing me around like a fucking PAC MAN eating my banks as fast as I can open a new checking account. Don’t you guys get it. I do not want a CHASE account!

I thought I voted in a liberal President, hell, he was even half black! But instead I get a Republican who happens to not be a neo-con. Is that the best I can expect from the Democratic Party?

I didn’t do any shopping on Black Friday.

I recycle.

I have two fucking 15 year old cats.

I donate to KPFK.

I don’t eat as much red-meat as I want used to.

I grow my own fucking tomatoes.

I fly three thousand miles to see my mother at Christmas and the holiday costs me about $1,500 each year. I've already got the tickets and they cost over $1,200... so I'll be over my limit by 12/24/09.

I buy expensive health care through my job and I can only get one pair of glasses per year.

I don't understand Obamacare.

I’ve had the same three Netflix movies sitting on my TV for two months.

Everyone is getting Frank Sinatra's A Man Alone for Christmas.

I’ve read fewer books this year than anytime since I was 6 years old...

It was at this point I decided to find Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

A Great Society or A Great War. You Can't Have Both

In 1964 Lyndon Johnson was faced with passing sweeping legislation that tackled the nations problems in education, medical care, poverty, jobs and civil rights.

He was also faced with an escalation of our military efforts in Vietnam and South East Asia.

He chose war and the nation's treasure went to Vietnam. The Great Society never flourished.

Lyndon Johnson chose not to seek re-election in 1968.

American lost the Vietnam War and evacuated the country in 1975.

Today, President Obama is trying to enact health care reform. He needs to overhaul the nation's economy.

He is being pressured to escalate the Afghanistan War while the streets of Iraq still burn.

His choice is as clear as President Johnson's was.

The results if he chooses war will be the same.

We never got to know what the Great Society would have become if Johnson had said 'No' to war.

Maybe this time we can see a great society emerge from just such a Presidential choice.

Saturday Musings: 'Does President Obama Like Chinese Food?' Edition

A bunch of old rich white men, and maybe a few women, but they probably won’t speak, are debating whether or not to debate the future of American health care. This ought to be a real treat.

The United States Senate… what a pack of losers, bought, sold and scared. Not scared of their constituents, but of the lobbyist and the media. Whatever they come up with, I probably don’t want, because it is not in my interests they meet today.

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I heard that President Obama visited China last week. I saw it on the BBC. I tried to find some wall-to-wall coverage of the President abroad, but American TV didn’t  cover it. I wonder what the President and those 2 billion Chinese talked about?

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I wish the progressive blogs would write more posts featuring progressive people and less time on what conservative and crazy-right pundits had to say. I really don’t need a re-cap of what Glenn Beck said every day. I don’t watch him for a reason. I don’t want to hear what he has to say. A strange cycle some blogs have found themselves in… recapping the stupid.

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I have a good idea for health care… Medicare… and extend it to every U.S. citizen. How do we pay for it? Let’s try not fighting a foreign war for maybe like a decade and see how much money we save… or maybe only just fight one, you know, to keep us in shape.

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Can you imagine if President Obama announced the end of military activities in Afghanistan, effective immediately. And then he puts the 9/11 left-over terrorists on trial  in Manhattan and kind of just wraps up the Bush, Jr/Cheney era war on terror… you know, starts his own version of peace and security instead of trying to prop up what previous administrations have done…and starting in 2010 we have the Obama Doctrine. I wonder what that would look like.

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My television is dying. I have the last fat, really heavy, tube TV in the United  States. Last night it started to fade to black and then slowly fade back up to picture again. I thought it was just the movie I was watching, some strange film editing trick, but then the picture would turn purple and only fill half the screen, then bounce back. I guess it’s time to go flat screen, LCD, LED, HD and all that. I don’t watch any weekly series. I don’t have TIVO... I wonder if I can get by with just my computer.

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I broke my two month on-line book buying fast. I bought a birthday present that had to be shipped across the country. I bought my nephew Philip Caputo’s The Voyage.

Harry Reid and The Sorcerer's Stone

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Puss Willow of the Senate comes through with a pretty decent Health Care Bill in this era of failed bipartisanship. We shall see.

Firedoglake has already taken a shredder to the bill.

It looks to me like a bill the Right will hate, TV will attack and most moderate Democrats can live with. Sounds like a perfect Obamacare remedy for America's health care ailments.

That's not a pill I want to swallow, but... let's see what happens.

"His proposed health care bill would extend coverage to 94% of eligible citizens, the Democrat said...

It has been criticized by Republicans, who said they would block it from becoming a reality. Debate on the bill in the Senate is expected to be fiery."

Saturday Musings 'Republicans On My TV' Edition

Why are there Republicans? Because of television, I guess.

If people vote their conscience, their pocket book, their health care, their safety… Democrats would be a super majority.

The few folks that vote their prejudices would pull the Republican lever in the voting booth, but that does not send anyone to Washington or a State House.

It must be that the television lies to us… and we watch it and trust it too much.

I wish I could answer the TV back.

But that wish would be un-American.

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I did like the image of President Obama visiting Arlington cemetery and seeming to be taking his own council over the idea of perpetual war. I guess we'll see.

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According to PBS and Elizabeth Warren, the Credit Card companies are going to be sending hit men out to get us all before the February 2010 regulations kick in... so don't answer your phone.

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I chose not to purchase any on line music or books in October or November and I think I am tanking the economy. I am panicking the on line stores and getting flooded with incredible bonus emails... just in time for holiday shopping. Now that is gaming the market. I even went so far as to go into a book store on the way home from work one night... and pay cash.