The current cover of Time magazine depicts a modified image of Abraham Lincoln shedding a tear with the headline “Why We’re Still Fighting the Civil War: The endless battle over the war’s true cause would make Lincoln Weep.”
So that's how it ends. As NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd told Chris Hayes last night, the "price" for keeping Congress from cutting its minimal support of Planned Parenthood, was to make further cuts in other programs so that different poor and/or elderly and/or sick people get hurt.
Supposedly State Senator Obama passed the nights in Springfield playing poker with the Republicans. Which he just did again.
We don't know the details and there'll be lots I will hate. That's democracy. Elections do have consequences. We lost last fall, and this is the result. The Americans who took a seat at the table, who chose to vote in November, won that hand and are now picking up the chips. That's as it should be. They're entitled to have their views reflected in what the government decides to do.
By Ramona on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 12:26pm | Politics, Humor & Satire
FRIDAY FOLLIES: Maine again. Gospel Teens, Homeless Artists, and all that's Rich
Oh, man! Maine's rookie Tea Party governor, Paul LePage can't get a break. He's still getting all kinds of flack for taking down those nonessential murals showing nothing but the damned hoi polloi, but on top of that, he got word that 63% of the mural was paid for by a Federal grant and the Feds aren't looking kindly on his hotshot actions. Seems he broke an essential clause in the contract that clearly stated he was supposed to notify people and give them a good reason for pulling those murals from those walls, and then those essential people would have to agree. So if the Feds demand their money back at current market value, which would be higher now with all the attention, it's the taxpayers who would have to foot the bill.
But once again, Big Business demands the action and the taxpayers get stuck. Life just keeps imitating life.
By Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 04/08/2011 - 11:29am |
It started with a meeting of managers on Tuesday morning. Every manager in this federal facility except for one is fairly young, in their early to mid 30's. There is was, the one guy who had been there for 25 years. At 50, he'd seen a lot of people come and from here, but he'd spent his entire working life at this federal facility, loving his work. He was a professional, but had also been a member of the union for that same 25 years, and he had been concerned as of late, that too many young people didn't seem to see the need for unions.
By Donal on Thu, 04/07/2011 - 10:42am | Technology
With new gizmos, drugs and financial instruments appearing all the time, it certainly seems like technical and scientific innovation continues fast and furious from the 20th century.
Administration officials said that nearly 800,000 federal workers would probably be told to stop working if a deal was not reached in the next two days. Small business loans would stop. Tax returns filed on paper would not be processed. Government Web sites would go dark. And federal loan guarantees for new mortgages would become unavailable. Speaking to reporters on a morning conference call, a senior administration official said the cumulative impact of the shutdown “would have a significant impact on our economic momentum.” New York Times
I have to admit that I still haven't quite gotten over seeing the Oscar winning documentary, "Inside Job", which is described by its director, Charles Ferguson as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption". I found myself especially depressed by the part America's most prestigious educational institutions have been playing in this corruption. This is as if America's mind itself were corrupted, with unimaginably negative consequences for the country.
By William K. Wolfrum on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 1:34pm | Humor & Satire, Media
TWITTER - Twitter users of all political stripes were covered in a layer of Liberal goo on the site today, as Liberals from throughout the United States simultaneously exploded and gooified the joint following the rapid-fire news that Glenn Beck was leaving his Fox News program and that Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice nominee
By Michael Wolraich on Wed, 04/06/2011 - 11:44am | Politics, World Affairs
Israel supporters rejoiced on Friday after international jurist Richard Goldstone recanted some conclusions from his investigation into Israel's military actions during the Gaza war two years ago.
"If I had known then what I know now," Goldstone wrote in a Washington Post op-ed, "The Goldstone Report would have been a different document."
...
The Israeli government and its supporters have long denounced the Goldstone Report as deeply flawed and complain that it has tarnished Israel's reputation. On Sunday, in fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans "to reverse and minimize the great damage that has been done by this campaign of denigration against the state of Israel."
But while Israel's supporters and detractors alike often take the importance of the Goldstone Report for granted, it's worth considering the extent of the "great damage" done to the state of Israel since the report was released and questioning what such investigations, accusations and condemnations actually accomplish.
The deficit was caused by the financial crisis and the resulting recession, which will cost the U.S. $500 billion a year in tax revenues going forward. Absent the recession, the "trillion dollar deficits" we're worried about now would be half trillion dollar deficits and we'd be talking about how to grow our way out of them.
Absent the recession and absent two wars (one justified but mismanaged so as to still be ongoing even though it should have been a short military operation, one that didn't have to happen at all) those half trillion dollar deficits would be even smaller.
This afternoon, as I was driving along, I saw a monkey. In my new surroundings, there is nothing remarkable about seeing monkeys on the side of the road. Nonetheless, I still find it super cool. The monkey I saw today was acting strangely, just sitting there, shoulders hunched, back to the road. It looked almost like it was in shock. I had about 50 yards to wonder why. That's when I saw the second monkey. Same size, same color, decidedly less alive, sprawled across a highway lane, having very recently succumbed to death by logging truck.
Dr Tainter fielded several questions after the keynote lecture I just posted. Some of his responses are a lot more direct than his presentation, particularly his answer to the very last question:
I Haven’t Totally Given Up on Obama, but as My Late Wife Used to Say, He’s Working My Last Nerve
I haven’t totally given up on Obama . . . yet. But I thought I’d write this article just to ensure that there’s no need for speculation about how many of his more politically sophisticated base views the current political landscape.
I’m an Obama supporter, but I’m not an Obama cheerleader. While I agree that President Obama has done more for this country in the short time he’s been in office than any president since Franklin Roosevelt, presidents are not only assessed based on what they do, but also what they fail to do. So in spite of the fact that he’s saved America from a second Great Depression, his success in that area pales in comparison to what he’s failing to do – aggressively confronting America’s most insidious domestic enemy and the most serious threat to our democracy since the Civil War, the current GOP leadership.
Late last year, as The Daily was setting up for its launch, I wrote a few sample columns that never saw the light of day beyond the various product testers and decisionsmakers within News Corp. This was my first one, about Paul Ryan, who just today came out with a plan to "fix" Medicare by killing the program and moving future retirees back into the private insurance market that was historically so bad for retirees that we needed Medicare to fix it.
PIERRE, S.D. — 