Joe Lieberman; Liar for the Ages, Speaks on Single Payer Health Care....

Why oh why did I let myself start this? It was only a matter of time, if I sat here long enough that something about Joementum Lieberman was gonna come flying at me in such an infuriating manner as to shut down all other activity and force me to...rant!
Here ya go: I was innocently on Talking Points Memo lifting the picture in the post below, of Al Franken's senate plaque, (which will become, I'm sure, a tourist attraction immediately, Just like the Ethics Office plaque!) when I saw this little bit of film from my Jr senator, Joe:



Isn't he brave to stand against the public option, alone in the wind? Isn't he a real mensch?
Well, considering that old Joe is only in office due to a platform of lies and a twisting of the ticket, which should be made illegal if it isn't already (they were working on it last I heard,) CT was the capital of insurance in the country, and it used to be that you couldn't spit an miss an insurance agent willing to sell you some great low cost health insurance.

Then somehow, a couple of huge corporations began gobbling up the small private insurance agencies, and then suddenly they all decided in lockstep, not to write any policies at all for individuals. The next step was to create the Husky program for children in the state; a program that Joe and his buddy in war, Chris Shays, took great pride in...except that...oohh...there are very, very few providers in the southern half of the state. Reimbursement is so low, and oversight and paperwork are so overbearing, that there are very few providers for children here. Of course, the hospitals have deals with Husky and they also have the infrastructure to handle the billing, so, many low income people were forced into emergency rooms and clinics.

At a certain point, recently, actually, a company named Charter Oak came into the picture as an entity created by the state to oversee providers of a Husky like program for adults who are also unable to get health insurance. The problem there is that not only has Charter Oak taken over Husky, (it was previously outsourced, of course, with many problems,) There are no providers who will take this insurance; even the hospitals are wary.

There is a law on the books that doesn't allow any insurance company to deny private insurance to any individual due to preexisting conditions, and I realized that at a point that private insurance had crept back into Connecticut, so maybe I should check it out. But, here's the rub, they can legally deny you insurance if there is a state run plan available to you, regardless of if the plan has any doctors that take it. So the creation of the Charter Oak entity ensured that none of us could actually get insurance written for us by an agency that has providers!

The Governor has taken some flak for this, of course, and its a work in progress. If they just took the Medicare reimbursement model, but made different levels of payment depending on your income, it could be a viable option. But they won't do that it because they want to make deals with large insurance companies and drug companies themselves! When Joe Lieberman opens his mouth to say anything about insurance, he is likely to start patting his own back for being the first state to offer health insurance to all of its children.

The truth of that is pretty disgusting; a middle class income means that each child's insurance costs $195 per month. There are two huge practices with long waits and waiting rooms full of children of color, that accept the Husky program. Husky A is for the very poor, and Husky B is for the middle class and up. The closest heart specialist who takes Husky is 2+ hours away by car (if you have a car and money for gas.) A surgery on my son's legs took 1.5 years to have approved, and then was canceled on the evening before surgery when they realized that only the surgeon was approved but not the operating room!

My family pays cash for 90% of our health care, and around here if you don't have someone helping you out, or unlimited funds in the face of medical problems, you can just kiss your health or the rest of what you've built all these years, goodbye.
If we were to get someone like our long term child psychologist involved, he would have to accept payment of $15 per session. He has been down that path and would prefer to see a few patients pro bono than to deal with this bureaucracy!

A pediatrician gets $19 per visit and for they they are accountable for every drug, and liable if anything goes wrong. And on top of that they are overseen by boards of nurses and "experts." The insurance companies, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield, create arms specifically for this program, so we had Blue Care Family Plan, which was Blue Cross and Blue Shield of CT, but with no providers and totally different standards for us as opposed to their corporate clients. This is how bad it's gotten: Blue Care Family Plan jumped ship because Charter Oak took over and they felt like the oversight of Charter Oak would limit them in some way. There is a profit to turn here, because Atena just created an arm for this program and signed on.


But that's not even what sprung to mind when Joementum, all wind-blown and handsome, jumped off the screen at me with his wisdom! No, its his wife, Hadassah, who is a well known big pharma lobbyist, and more recently was a consultant to Hill and Knowlton , PR firm to the unlovable and questionable, with clients such as the big tobacco firms , among others, who hired H&K to counteract the fact that smoking is hazardous to your health! These are bad people, and as much as Joe has been slaving away for the big payoff job that he should be getting from friends of Bush when he is voted out, (and he will go bye-bye, considering that he hardly has a supporter left in this state after what he did,) Hadassah has been slaving harder. Lets just say that I wouldn't worry about their retirement nest egg.

Can you say conflict of interest? Joe Lieberman should recuse himself from any talk of health care or drug coverage, and yet, he jumps right in the middle of it. And why does Joe do anything? Well, because HE knows whats best for the people of CT, and the people of America, experts and consultants be damned...he knows. Who does that sound like to you? Oh yes, George Bush, our previous president and idiot in chief!

So, If Joe Lieberman is talking about Medicare part D being a great blueprint for anything besides toilet paper, ask your local pharmacist how old or lower income people with catastrophic illness pay for their drugs when they hit the donut hole suddenly? Why is it that the most needy people in this country, with catastrophic illness requiring sometimes thousands of dollars of medications per month, are the ones suddenly hit with a bill for the pills that could mean the difference for them between life and death? Ask the pharmacist what happens, especially now that the credit card companies have turned on the people, and cut down everyone's credit limits and raised their minimum payments and interest rates?

He is worried that we are not going to have fair competition between insurance companies? That's what hes worried about? There is no competition at all. Not only can the government no negotiate with big pharma on the large amounts of drugs that they are buying but the general reimbursement prices are fixed anyway, and the insurance companies are paying their CEO's record bonuses, as they rake in dollars earned by scrambling their own drug lists and insisting that patients take older drugs that are...oh, let me see...recently I heard a referral to something that was actually speed. Its cheap and it kills!...but just so long as the CEO gets his payout!

That's what Joe is about when he speaks out as Representative of the minority of Americans who don't want a single payer health plan. He is for corporations that have more money than they know what to do with; He is for the big consulting fees that his wife gets from those very companies (and strangely, its hard to figure out where shes working these days,)
and he is really about who owes him what, and when the payoff comes; because heaven knows, Joe has been bought and sold so many times, they cant even scrape the price tags off his back!
Remember, this was one of the only few guys next to Bush himself and Barney the dog who thought that Iraq was going great and that we had to stay there till victory or bust!



This is disgusting, and all i can say as a resident of this state is that I wish Joe would shut the fuck up until we can vote him out!

Joe Lieberman Misused $387,000, and All We Got Was An Article About John Edwards!

I know, I know...the John Edwards debacle was and is stunning, heart wrenching, and life changing, and now its back in the headlines in all its glory! Edwards announced today that there is a federal investigation going on into his campaign funds (.... to determine if certain funds disbursed to the company of the woman that he had an affair with were legally transferred, or if there was some nefarious plot to shut her up and keep her in grand style ...with their maybe love child...) over the sum of...um...$114,000, give or take.

Look maybe you can keep your baby's mama in a nice trailer park for that amount, but it seems to me that this might perhaps be production money, as she was the videographer on the campaign trail, and anyone who has had to shoot for hours and then spend hours editing down footage for public consumption will know that an amount like that is chump change. Did he pay her to go away? Did he buy her jewels and furs? Who knows and who cares?



His career is ruined for now, and it seems to me that it serves a whole portion of others in the political and business spectrum to have his voice shut down because of what his message was and is. So, yeah, hes an idiot narcissist who imploded, and he's lucky that, from the outside anyway, his family has survived....If you've read my previous posts on this subject, you'll know that it interests me little to hear speculation about the details of this stupidity, and if he misused 100 grand of campaign funds, I'm sure that there have been worse crimes committed...oh, like the Clinton's real estate bamboozle and Bill Clinton's flirtation with the young Monica Lewinsky. I'm sure that never, ever happens in the halls of power....right? What kind of time and money are we willing to waste because of the hint of a sex scandal?

Which brings me to Joe Lieberman, our favorite Jr. Senator here in Connecticut. Today in the local Stamford Advocate, we were treated to a large piece on the news of Edward's probe, and then a page or two back and in a small box, was the news that Joe himself is also under investigation for misuse of campaign funds. This is a story that is not being covered by much of the media, except for snippets in our local papers here in Connecticut, and only by the Connecticut blogs such as My Left Nutmeg, which has been great all through the nightmare that has been Connecticut politics for more years than even Bush was the national nightmare. The New Haven Register had this story about Lieberman, as if his misuse of funds was just a blip that a small fine would take care of; a civil penalty of $50,000.



The Register also had the same article on Edwards that was published in the Advocate, (but which the Advocate hasn't, as of this time, put on line; nor have they put up the Lieberman story.) The Edwards article talks about his buried career and how he is finished, the turmoil of his marriage and any other projections that the writer could come up with because, heaven knows there isn't much in the way of facts there; not the gay in the bathroom stall/affair with a male page sort of deliciousness brought to us by the now defunct republican majority; now THOSE were facts!

Still, the article makes the Edwards situation sound like he took pallets of cash to another country that we had invaded illegally and just lost it with no explanation....oh yeah,that's the former President of the United States, who we can hardly muster the balls to investigate on charges of real war crimes, much less the money misspent, lost, given out with no explanation, and pocketed in conflicts of interest such asHalliburton/Blackwater & it's subsidiaries/Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld/Tamiflu/Aspartame.

Look, I'm not an apologist for Edwards. I'm as disappointed as anyone who was a true believer in his message, and who was mortified to find that he didnt get out of the race, and continued to wield his delegates, knowing that this was likely to come out. But here's the deal, Edwards is not in office, nor has he been nominated to any cabinet post. He is old, tragic news, in a very interesting election cycle, who will likely have his second act as they all do in show business.

Joe Lieberman, on the other hand, is still actively jumping parties out there and holding his chairmanships on some pretty importantcommittees, (Homeland Security and Government Affairs to name but two.) He is a sitting senator and as much as his crony's have forgiven him for his insane campaign to get back into that seat, the people of Connecticut largely have not.

Why this isn't a bigger story isn't much of a mystery to me, because I was there and saw the tactics of the Lieberman campaign first hand. I worked for Ned Lamont during every free moment I had and manned a contentious poll on election day. The Lieberman investigation was about a whopping $387,000 that was given out improperly, and much of it was to stage a ground war here, when he hadn't planned much campaign presence at all because he was so sure that he would win! When faced with a real lack of volunteers, the campaign hired ground teams to disrupt Lamont's events and basically make a nuisance of themselves. They plastered much of downtown Stamford with Joe signage, which was illegal, they ran through the streets of anyplace that Lamont was appearing and jostled in front of TV cameras with signs that they, themselves didn't understand, and they menaced even old folks and parents with babies in carriages with their aggressive actions.

At a Lamont speech in Greenwich I asked some of the kids, (they were all black for that event and it made the white Joe T-shirts pulled over baggy clothes stand out all the more, as if a crowd of black kids on Greenwich Avenue weren't enough in that stogy old-money town!) if they knew what Joe stood for, and they said no, that a guy in a van offered them $60 per day to wear the t-shirt and support Joe. Later when someone I know asked again, the amount had been raised to $100 per day. A kid said that he didn't know who Joe was or what he stood for but that it was just a job and he was following orders. At the time I was down in what is the inner city of Stamford quite a bit for some personal reasons, and on the cul de sac circle of the cluster housing that now replaces part of the old projects, a white Joe van would drive up and kids would go up to the van looking for work.

At the time the army recruiting offices were active in just such neighborhoods because these were the kids likely to go for the bonus money to go to Iraq for an indeterminate amount of time. Was it right for Joe, who supported the war and had no answers on how we were going to handle the military in Iraq or when they came home, to have children working for him against their own interest? Was it right to pay the on the ground volunteers in a political campaign who don't know what they are representing? I told a few of them that he was pro war and they shrugged, like teens do, and said that they didn't care because it was a job. I felt like that white van circling the entryway to the neighborhood that held all the poor in this city separate from the very rich and thr quickly dwindling middle-class, was preying on these kids, and that they should have been as against the law as any predator enticing kids with cash or candy.

Joe was a strong Bush supporter and allowed himself to be used as a representative for the democratic party implying that some of us were pro Bush and pro war. In reality, Joe was in a world of his own and the only pro war people around were those who were afraid of the terra, and who bought the victory line against the facts presented by experts. That was not what the people of Connecticut wanted, and as our representative we let Joe know that in the primary when we chose Ned Lamont to be our candidate. Joe wouldn't take that laying down and he jumped parties to run as an independent, thus getting elected on the Republican vote and the votes of those who had known him for years here and who either weren't paying attention or who thought that he would come to his senses.

Those kids didn't understand that on key issues Joe was not for them and that they were actually working against their own interests. But that was another Rovian tactic that seemed to work well when used in many different cases. Many of them were very young and in no position to represent one candidate over another, but cash talks, and when a small amount wasn't enough the ante was upped.

Well, we would soon come to find that the way the campaign was paying out for these services was incorrect and illegal. But for Joe, who is still seated on his committees and who was welcomed back with open arms and a standing-O by his coworkers in the senate, even after he lied to his supposedconstituents , dumped his party, and let us know in no uncertain terms that he knew better than we did what was best for our state, this was a non-starter. Therules don't apply to guys like Joe; that's the old Bushism that was not only shot down, but smeared into a paste and is now being washed down the same sinkhole that it slithered out of so many years ago; before Reagan, before Nixon...back, back, back to the barons of power who set the stage for the wealthy to maintain their prominence by creating a permanent underclass to fight our wars and tend our lawns, middle-class be damned!

Joe Lieberman has been sheltered by the media of this state and the country for no reason at all. He has been allowed to conduct the business of paying his fine in relative privacy, and in light of other investigations that are getting bold print treatment, he has been favored as always, by a system that protects its own. The end is near for Herr Lieberman and his little Hadassah, so they can return to the country club in Westport where he has been seen airing his furry little body in the pool. He can write his book and take a nice cushy job like Hadassah has. He has certainly represented the interests of big business and war in his years in office enough to deserve something with a corner office and a seven figure salary.

Meanwhile, is it really worth the small civil fine to persue this matter with Edwards? It depends on how serious the powers that be, in whats left of the old guard of the federal government, want him silenced for the long term. However long, it wont be forever, because regardless of bad personal choices, which are just that, personal, the message of the two Americas still rings true, and as much as a watered down Obama will try to address the poverty issue, he is not a bulldog on this issue like Edwards is. So, we will see what happens, and just when you think that hes gone for good, like our friend Elliot Spitzer (who in polling today was overwhelmingly preferred over Patterson as Governor of NY...in fact they want him back!) the second act will arrive.

c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

Tired?

"....put your hand on the arc of history and bend it once more for a brighter day....."
-President Elect Barack Obama, 11-4-2008.

Barack Obama didn't just suddenly become the President of the Untied States last week. During the the past couple of weeks he has exhibited an almost unnatural calm and an air of destiny..His grasp of the situation made it seem like this day was almost just a formality, and besides the fact that those of us who watch this stuff closely have been twisted in worry that the machinations of men or technology might prevent that which seemed a foregone conclusion, it felt done even before the states toppled.
The Obama family, along with the Bidens looked so crisp and shiny on the hi-def, and the hope in the moist eyes of the crowd ...the tears streaming down Jesse Jackson's face...the celebrating throngs jammed outside of the the white house fence; because its really ours, you know!
As an exclamation point on the historic change that has taken place, the new guys have opened up President-elect shop here. I find it heartening and touching because it is not only,as Jill says, a big hat tip to the Dean-genius grass-roots Internet explosion, but it asks us for our input and stories; it engages all Americans to reach towards their leaders and tell them something...anything....And, I don't care if its just bullshit that some secretary is skimming over in the basement by the standpipe...Its a moment in history that will exist on the Internets and in the ether for as long as this little ball falls around the sun.

Its been a long 8 years, and the trauma of it for some of us isn't gonna just rub off...celebrating the end of the Bush era and the dawn of hope, and realizing the importance of this thing; something so small and taken for granted; that in the face of fear and threats and the tight grip of a huge machine backed by big business robbing us blind, we have our vote, and with that we can do something. It is less about the top spot than it is about the landslide of defeats across the country!

Its that Chris Shays lost BIG, which is a big fuck you to Joementum Lieberman. Here in CT people were saying that Joe has been neutered....Just ask Harry Reid, and watch Joe hem and haw and squirm while he tries to explain again how it was such a hard decision for him to make to throw his party under the bus because he thinks he knows whats best for the country!..and after watching him for months, standing behind John McCain, my supposed democratic representative, ignoring every promise he ever made, in order to to step over the dead bodies of public servants who really wanted to improve the country in order to improve his own lot in life...too caught up in a doctrine that he really didn't seem to grasp...on that required him to be the Jew sacrifice in the end days scenario....Fuck Joe and fuck Chris Shays and their weak-assed supporters who knew they were bad for us but were afraid of the unknown, or who just wanted their fucking tax break to remain intact at the expense of our entire s0ciety circling the drain ! So long...don't let the door hit you on the way out. Maybe now we can get to work on real statewide health care and reforming our social services division...not to mention putting the money back into our schools!

This is where the sacrifice begins, and though President Elect Obama only hinted at it in his victory speech, I hope that he really lays it out well, so that those who expect the country to bounce right back will begin to understand how deep the hole is that we are digging out of. This is gonna cost money and its gonna take time. Its gonna require concentration and an attention span, or at least trust in our leaders to be moving us back towards being a society that serves all of its people. In a global era, Americans have to realize some stark truths; we are not on this planet alone and we don't each automatically get a flat screen TV just for being born. Credit cards are not just free money, and no one owes you anything beyond the best society that we can build as a society together, realizing that we are only as strong as the children that we educate and give a hand up towards knowledge and success.

It was a historic night, and the pessimist in me is a little voiced devil on one shoulder whispering that they're all liars while the hopeful kid is pushing forward thinking maybe, maybe, maybe...
In Jesse Jackson's face you could see the years of the years of marches, the blood of his friend Martin laying on that balcony that day, the failures and struggles and inhuman treatment that has left its enduring mark on us all, but yet still allows our society to produce this shining and beautiful moment.
Obama accepts his place as if its was always destined to be that way, and perhaps it was.

I like him. What I don't much like these days is the American people, half of whom seem content to be greedy pigs regardless of what is going on around them. There is a shamelessness in this country that has grown out of this idea that all we are good for is to be consumers and that we deserve stuff...lots of it. I think that encouraging Americans to be come producers again might just get our asses in gear. Maybe high tariffs on imported goods, like the crap at Walmart, might just snap us back into a world where everything isn't so disposable.

We are blessed with this land that used to be a land of abundance, and we have squandered our principal away at the roulette wheels of unfettered capitalism. It is not our right to be the most powerful or the richest and safest nation in the world. we have to work for it and use our great fortune in so many things to enrich society as a whole rather than just a select few who seem to have forgotten the trickle down part of this setup.

In the beginning of this bizarre nightmare, a few bright lights shone out of the Internets and the radio box, (forget the TV, besides West Wing as a total fantasy of what could never be,) as another great punctuation mark on the Bush years and all that has torn us apart, Jill had this from Crooks and Liars: Irrelevant!Well worth a look if you want to keep in mind the faces of those who dragged us down and who continue to pander to the lowest urges in the human animal.

And for those of us who have felt compelled to document this or purge our tortured souls or try to make some change by yelling like Who's on an elephant's trunk somewhere, visit the Weblogs nomination page and be either nominate a favorite blog, or look through the nominations (in the comments under each category,) and click the little plus sign or number after the blog that you want to be counted for! I'm gonna mention that Brilliant at Breakfast is nominated for Best Blog, best political coverage, best mid-sized, and Jill as best individual blogger. Also look for my all time favorite, Driftglass, under the same categories, and my little RIPCoco as one of the undiscovered gem, all the way at the bottom. Show some love, and nominate anyone who you think deserves mention! If you have a blog, snag a badge and post it, and send your readers over.
Never before have I been more grateful for these voices that have actually, literally saved me during this time...as well as for the outlet for myself. I'm not sure if I'm even going to still have the political voice in me as things settle; I'm thinking about it. Right now, I'm just exhausted and hopeful....at least there are going to be some grownups in the house this time around; how far the American people and the bureaucracy allow that to go will have to be determined.





c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

BREAKING: Palin's Daughter Preggers...Again? Palin's Lies, McCains Gambling Problem, and The Big Brother Backdoor Strategy....

Breaking News: Sarah Palin just confirmed that her 17 year old daughter, Brillo, is 5 months pregnant and is gonna marry the father, Levi, and keep the baby. Supposedly McCain knew about this pregnancy before choosing Palin as his running mate.
These people are so full o' lies that its mind boggling in its enormity. Read on for more on ungodly partnership of the dysfunctional Alaskan with the PTSD Gambler.
(h/t to my Mom and her diligent monitoring of the Bill O'Reillys of the world...know thy enemy!)

I'm looking at MSNBC's coverage of Gustav barrelling ashore in Louisiana and throwing Michelle Kosinski off camera, intercut with pictures of ....er...walls, which are the levees not quite up to snuff, we're told, because the project is supposed to take until 2012. At this moment the wind driven water is reportedly pouring over the tops of west side industrial canal walls of New Orleans like a waterfall...they might actually be breached by the force or punctured by loose ships floating around (and how did that happen with so much advanced warning?) In the 9th ward the walls are holding so far because the wind is not blowing directly there yet. It all depends on the speed and direction of how this thing turns around. Tornados have already been reported here and there but they don't seem to be touching down.

Bad and evil girl that I am, (and feeling like most people in the path of the storm are out or trying to be secure...they at least have the information...I have been wandering the city streets with a smile, thinking that never could payback be so targeted as to force the republican party to conduct business in the shadow of this. They are unable to postpone the business of the convention by law, so as the "stars" of the party fall away leaving the silly democrat troll Joementum Lieberman, mother Palin, and McInsane hisself trying to figure out how to not appear in split screen against the embarrassment reminder of what his party finds important. If we had to have big storms...and we do, with the environment as it is, and as part of the normal course of things...the timing of this thing is perfect!

On to the unbelievable joke that is Sarah Palin....and wasn't that her riding the air on her bike in the storm surge? (I've got to work on learning to photoshop!!)
John Cole nails this situation at Balloon Juice with the unbelievable news that McCain's people are finally now heading up to Wasilla to look into Palin...now....Here is what hes got:
According to the Washington Monthly, democrats doing opposition research found out that no one had checked the archives of the local papers up there (they are not online in full and archives have to be searched in person if one wants to do a complete search.) The former Republican House Speaker for Alaska expressed surprise that Palin was chosen because no one had come to Alaska to do any research on her. Only just now have the McCain people reserved rooms in the local hotel...just now?.....
Is this part of McCain's tendency to gamble (one man's maverick is another man's idiot when it involves expensive fighter planes or, heaven forbid, national security,) or part of a bigger plan (more on that to come?) More to come on the high stakes gambling addiciton of McCain....but keep it in mind if youknow anything about PTSD, addiction, and the 12 steps...we are dealing with a pretty old guy who has been through major trauma in his life and remains in denial about much of it. At some point soon we have to look at this seriously and not through the lens of David Gregory's failed climb to the top of broadcasting.

I could have guessed that Palin has flip flopped on the bridge to nowhere, that she is not real sharp on historical facts about America, was likely a member of the Alaska secessionist movement before jumping into mainstream politics, and is unclear about what the VP job entails. She only just got her passport in the past year, so those...ahem, Faux News...who feel like she has international experience because she lives close to Russia...well....

The issues about her kids and the maternity/paternity of little Trix or Snap, Crackle, Pop, is less important than the lies involved in how the issue was/is being handled. The holier-than-thou conservative right can come up with some of the best lies when its their foot in the bathroom stall of the solicitous cop next to them, or their kid having the baby out of wedlock.

Regardless of who actually gave birth to Twig, I say from personal experience and all the medical advice I've ever gotten, not to mention airline safety rules, that one does not get on a plane when one's water has broken and one is in labor. After the first child, the labor process tends to vary in that it can be very, very fast or can be troublesome...and from what Ive heard and experienced in my lifetime of being a mom and from other mothers, subsequent babies are usually born quicker than initial ones; sometimes surprisingly quicker. So, why would anyone in their right mind (especially one who purports to care for the health of the unborn,) get on a plane in that condition? This wasn't a short flight either; we're talking Texas to Seattle to Alaska to a small town hospital. She went specifically to a small town hospital knowing that the kid was going to have Downs Syndrome and probably would have special needs.

This was a very high risk pregnancy and actually, regardless of how she got back to the small hospital, she shouldn't have even gone anywhere at that risk level.No one in their right mind, and who has access to the best health care in the country, would do that! Setting aside gossip on the intertubes, I've got to say that I question the woman's judgment in all matters if she took such a chance with not only her own health but with the health of the baby and with a number of planeloads of people. Is it right to take a chance of making a plane, or connecting flight, make an emergency landing? Is it right to expose her unborn special needs kid to the bacteria involved in all of that travel? Finally, is it ,medically possible to break your water and yet show no signs of pregnancy or labor over the hours spent travelling? Possibly....but unlikely. The whole explanation shows poor judgement in the best case scenario and a real tendency to lie (with the possibility of insurance fraud and endangering airline safety) in the worst.

Then there is Troopergate...but I'm in a hurry this morning. 87% of Alaskans believe she lied about it and I agree. Here is what Josh Marshall has on it. Its minor in the scheme of things, but these things add up, and what really is troubling is the McCain campaign's lack of due diligence.
Maybe he is a gambler...er...maverick...but, who is handling him? If there is institutionalized denial apparent before we've even gotten to the issues at hand then what can we expect when the next disaster arrives? More of the same, as they say.

A rumor is being floated around that if Palin were to have to step down then the obvious choice would have to be Lieberman. Check Christy Hardin-Smith at FDL's exasperation and questioning about all of the same stuff here, and then peruse the comments there or at Kos or anywhere else, (soon to be on the M$M...not!...until, that is, it happens in their faces or Rachel Maddow forces it out,) that the real plan is to have Palin step aside and put Joementum in the slot when its too late to do much about it.

Its the Big Brother Backdoor Strategy that those of us who try to relax and forget with reality shows know all too well. See, the head-of-household (or nominee in this case) nominates 2 houseguests for eviction. One is often a pawn, because when the veto is played that nominee can be removed from contention for eviction and the real target can be slotted in with no chance of being saved by the veto. If this is a backdoor admission of Lieberman onto the ticket, then I'm impressed...though its been sorta clumsy by Big Brother standards. But hell, it indicates that someone, anyone, in the McCain camp turns on the TV at all; forget news or the internets...just plain old pop culture TV will do at this point.

I don't see how this whole thing isn't a joke...but....I couldn't believe most of what Bush was doing while he was doing it either. Depending on the American people to actually think about this and weigh possible outcomes of their voting actions is a non-starter. There must be some way to produce this into a reality show that will grip the masses in prime time and spell it out s-l-o-w-l-y and carefully. The security of the nation may depend on it.

Vocabulary and Doubt..... Propagandizing the Word "Victory" as the New Patriotism...

Remember back when BushCo was pushing us into Iraq, when the UN was still over there, and we were waiting on reports to find out what was really going on? My sister slapped a bumper sticker on her minivan that said "Bomb Iraq? NO!" I was with her in the sentiment, as anyone who has seen my car bumper through the years will attest to, but I was wary of the language, because I wasn't quite sure what the outcome of the UN inspectors was going to be and I was still in denial that America would do something as crazy as actually divert our troops from Afghanistan to Iraq and in fact "bomb" them ("back to the stone age," as the survivalist working at the local video store said, spittle flying.)

Back then, as the Rovian spin machine began to blend the terms of 9-11, Afghanistan, and Iraq into easily digestible sound bytes with a threatening undertone and the fear of being viewed as un-American somehow for questioning our leadership, I was overcome with defiance. From the Impeach lawn signs that grandpa used to crawl up the steep rocky slope to pull down (because it only takes one crazy with a moltov cocktail!...not that he disagreed, you understand,) to my "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" bumper sticker addressing the bold twisting of the power of belief, and using the framework of religion to sell their war. I read a study years ago that people who commute in cars or just drive alot actually learn quite a bit from bumper stickers. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember being impressed enough to consider my bumper as a teaching opportunity, regardless of if I felt frightened of how others might react. So far I get alot of thumbs up for my " My Child is an Honor Student, But My President is an Idiot!," and the like, though lately I had an Obama sticker taken off the car in Manhattan (I'm hoping because it was unusual and someone wanted to use it!) and Ive gotten a few fingers on the highway. Am I un-American for expressing my disgust with the state of things? Should I be frightened because my words might cause some people to act violently towards me?

9-11 sent us all into a spiral of what might have been national shock, fear, or depression, and the Bush White house, with Karl Rove in the wheelhouse, manipulated and played that up to great effect with the undercurrent message being a warning that we must support the executive without question or risk death at the hands of terrorists or worse: being labeled un-American.

In April of this year, BushCo began circulating memos that warned of the power of the use of certain language because of its ability to inflame religious tensions and, according to MSNBC

U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."

"Regarding 'jihad,' even if it is accurate to reference the term, it may not be strategic because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world," the report says.

Further, just as of this year apparently, words like "jihad," which beyond the U.S.'s common use of it to imply the waging of a holy war, supposedly means to do good, and "mujahedeen," which are just those involved in a jihad, are supposed to be cut from any official discourse. Likewise, "violent extremist," "terrorist," and "Islamo-fascism" have been deemed inappropriate as highly inflammatory. The reports also note that use of these terms increases the star power of terrorists and inflames relations with regular Muslims, who have nothing to do with terrorism and don't much like their religion attached to what amounts to fringe groups.

Too little, too late, you say? The British published similar reports last year, and I don't think I would have to Google far to find these and many other inflammatory terms used by our very Commander in Chief...often...lately...on television from the rose garden...from the oval office...while dropping his Scotty on his head from Air Force One...When has the man NOT used these talking points again and again to inflame and frighten the American people, while apparently breeding more contempt and new baby terrorists all the time?

This is just another pathetic example of the use of language as a propaganda tool to start and continue unrest and to germinate fear and blind obedience in the people of a nation. Loose lips sink ships, but what if those loose lips are your President's? I know that he is gonna be viewed for all of history as a dummy, but look at how frequently the dummy repeated what the ventriloquist fed into his backflap...look at how insidious these few words have been...and wonder, as I am, how many innocent people died because of a couple of very smart guys who decided to use deep psychological manipulation on a lulled and frightened populace, in order to achieve a goal that will likely play out to be one of stone cold self enrichment.

A week or so ago DINO-republo-freak Joe Lieberman appeared on Faux News Sunday representing the republican point of view in a debate against real democrat Evan Bayh. In one of those unreal exchanges about the war old Joe threw around the talking points and buzzwords shamelessly, referring to victory and how the surge had worked, when it must be clear to all thinking Americans by now that victory is a relative term that can be used in any number of ways, and the effectiveness of the surge is questionable at best. Not one interviewer or pundit seems to be able to ask the question of what victory would look like exactly because the term seems to be attached to supporting the troops. In my estimation, this is some sort of leftover plug from the "cut and run" days and it really does a disservice to the troops because it implies that anything less than victory is not acceptable. If victory, as it has been historically viewed, is really not possible in this theater then the troops are damned to failure.



OK, I get it that Joe is caught up in the talking points and is working with a deep neocon belief in the cause of "spreading democracy," (aka. controlling the oil for mid-east domination, fun and profit,) or whatever flavor of kool-aid they were passing out that day, but as a Connecticut voter and someone who worked on the Lamonte campaign, I have to say that what he is saying does not represent me or anyone I know. Not even CT Republicans are onboard with this pap, so where does he get off heading into territory that betrays all that he ran on and even every other more conservative viewpoint in his state? This man so clearly lied to his constituency to get into office. He used the fear and lies of the vocabulary just as surely as he is following at the heels of John McCain and whispering the new jargon into his hearing aide. Joe Lieberman is delusional and so is John McCain, but they are using the new talking points to great effect.

McCain implies that we would be cowards to withdraw, and that there is some sort of shame in ending this war without achieving its objective. The thing is that the objective has been stated and restated a few times by the Bush administration without anything concrete that one might hang onto, and there remains, even in the face of the Iraqi government asking for us to set a timeline, no clear way to declare victory or mission accomplished, or even just get the hell out of there without the leadership of this country deciding that they are going to make it OK to end this thing. There will never be an easy withdrawal, and even in Obama's best case scenarios we are looking at a long drawn out process involving much loss of life, and probably tremendous heroics of the brave soldiers who are tasked with this nearly impossible task.

What does victory look like? The Iraqi people waving flowers and candy at us as we ride our tanks out of town and into the bellies of huge transports? Can we ever go home?
From the White House's Victory page itself comes this confusing bit:

* Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.
* Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential.
* Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.

None of these goals are even close to being accomplished, nor are programs in place that even seemingly function in the general direction of an orderly return to self governing. The next section gets really bizarre:

* Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror. Failure in Iraq will embolden terrorists and expand their reach; success in Iraq will deal them a decisive and crippling blow.
* The fate of the greater Middle East -- which will have a profound and lasting impact on American security -- hangs in the balance.

Impossible to accomplish, as far as I can see...and really scary if we don't! I suppose that if we replaced the "Iraq" with "our huge embassy serves as our base as a central front in the war on terror and controlling all oil production in the region..." oh wait, our presence creates more terrorists, so no matter how many stinking embassies we build over there, we cant stay if we are serious about stopping it's growth....hmmmm....

The concept of retreat, defeat and/or victory do not apply to what is going on in Iraq. The more that Bush apologists are allowed to throw these phrases around, the more America believes in the fairytale unattainable goals of fighting them over there so we don't have to here. Further, these words should offend us every bit as much as the anti Muslim words and the words that increase the star power of terrorists that are in the memos being sent around now by the white house....now, after Bush has used the terms a million times...and how many times will John McCain imply that our troops are somehow less than brave if they leave without the indescribable and unattainable victory that he...er, Rove... has in mind.

Our acceptance of these words from the likes of John McCain or George Bush, and their surrogates, is the first step down the path to submission and the very real unAmerican act of not demanding full disclosure and accountability from those that we elect to represent us not only in our own government but to the world.

RIPCoco
Brilliant at Breakfast

Big Oil Returns to Iraq...Mission Accomplished!

Just as DINO Joe Lieberman (D-CT,) is clearly not gonna support his party's candidate for President; neither will he be supporting democratic congressional candidate, Jim Himes, to replace Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT.)

Best buddies, Shays and Lieberman, have visited Iraq together some 20 times, and held tight to their shared rosy, pro-war stance until just before the '06 elections, when they both began to waffle and turn, only to change back once they assured themselves that their positions were safe...if only temporarily. They are sharing chairmanship of McCain's presidential campaign's CT "leadership team," and from the way that the two of them have been acting, they expect positions in the McCain cabinet. Its too bad that CT voters were so short sighted, misled, and plain old terrified of the unknown, to vote these guys out. Its too bad also that the two of these crony's can hold hands while saluting their leader, in the name of bipartisanship, which is really just shared neocon vision by any other name. They are sure of the fact that we will be "victorious" in Iraq (which means...what?) and don't care how long it takes or how many die. Lip service paid to bringing troops home is just that; lip service. But what is going on is more insidious than just one turncoat and his brown-nose buddy; its about the movement to actually take over the country while we all slumber in our denial. Scared of the "terra," and worried of "losing" or this idea of "cut and run," I doubt that most people could explain what any of that means in real terms or what we are doing there int eh first place. They can, however, explain how hard day to day life has become in this country and most of what people talk about having changed can be attributed directly to this administration and this war.

The Stamford Advocate, my local paper, today had a great letter about Christopher Shays and his praise of the new big oil deals, by one Scott Kimmitch. What struck me was not the facts about Shays and how dirty he is, because its clear or not to the individuals in this state who likely like Shays because of his manner or his smooth lies, but his clear definition of fascism, which is something that every person in this country needs to understand:

Handing out no-bid contracts to big oil companies headquartered in the two countries whose leaders conspired to mislead their peoples into a criminal war sends the wrong message to the world, particularly if you understand the word "fascist." Fascism is the seamless merger of corporations with national leadership, producing a belligerent nationalism accompanied by suppression of citizens' rights.

Fascism happens when the corporations call the shots and the government connives to let them do it. Why not let oil companies around the world submit bids to Maliki's government and let it work the way private enterprise is supposed to work? Why let our government put pressure on Iraq in the name of corporate favorites?

I actually read this at the local firehouse while a bunch of the guys were taking a CPR refresher exam, and I managed to find a highlighter and highlight it, leaving it on the desk so that they would find and read it. Alot of them are not going to vote because they feel so burned by the system, and lied to by their party. I can only quote facts, because the emotional part is tied up in some of their own service in Viet Nam, and having to face what that war was for...and really, the facts are what you need if you're anyone who cares about the lives of soldiers and the future of the young people of this country.

So this is what its come to. Even if much of this were only partly true, it would be worth taking a good hard look at. You can say that we don't have a Hitler leading that march, and maybe Bush is in his lame term, but that doesn't mean that a Hitler doesn't appear out of this...a deranged and mentally damaged man who's got a clearer and better plan for the victory of the country...someone like McCain, if he weren't so bat-shit crazy...or, maybe somebody pulling a McCain's puppet strings as if he were say, a George W. with a Cheney behind him...
I-m not saying that McCain has a chance, because I don't think that he does, but if it all works out, we will have spent 8 years as close as any of us should ever be to fascist rule. This is what I call a close call...and if the republicans were somehow able to pull a reasonable candidate out of their asses we would be in shit trouble, because Americans are uneducated and complacent.



To reiterate: American big oil corporations being able to take back Iraq (...help them with their oil problem, perhaps?) is not what we went there for. We were gonna help them run the oil for the people and then the rebuilding and the war would pay for itself...remember? For the American Government to allow our big oil corporations in there no-bid, without a parliamentary decision on how they want to structure this deal is to go back to the days before Saddam Hussein kicked out the western players and nationalized the country's oil. For the US to put in place the exact same players from the deal before the nationalization has a damning sort of scent to it...like, we went in there to spread democracy? Capitalism? And now they want us to believe that the Iraqis "need" western modernization and expertise in order to make money on their oil? (Like they need sustained electricity still, and buildings without failing plumbing systems, because our private corporations are so, so, great at building infrastructure!) They couldn't ask anyone else who is maybe less conflicted in their interest? Forget those other countries who were shut out of the bidding...This is OUR corporate oil...maybe we'll get a little trickle down from it...in theory, we could; but in truth we won't...And don't expect the Iraqi people to benefit from this either.

So, this is the face of fascism, and it really makes me sick. I'm sure that the Rovian machine can drum up enough outrage and anger to make half of all Americans believe that our corporations deserve this because we've done so much "work" over there, but lets not forget that we broke it...we bought it...and its ours to fix, not gut of its natural resources. And with such an unstable leadership there, I can imagine that the contracts will be long...
So, did we go there for oil? Yeah...we did.
And Chris Shays, my Congressman, is PROUD of the American oil companies that will put themselves in danger's way (but, oh, is it lucrative!...yes it is...)
It will take another strongman dictator to nationalize the oil again...till then, I wonder how much of that profit is gonna go to rebuilding the country? How much of it is gonna go to huge bonuses for CEO's and other players? And will the price of oil drop substantially again? Why should it?
Mission accomplished!

Bits and Pieces from a Scattered Week....

Reasons to be Cheerful:

This week, Wednesday the 28th through Friday the 30th, Marc Maron once again takes the microphone at Air America Radio, in the American Afternoon slot from 3PM to 6PM. Stream it live from the Air America page, or get the podcast there...or spring for Replay A/V
and go crazy saving all kinds of stuff that you always miss and wish you could grab for your MP3! NO matter what you do, drop a note to pcollin@airamerica.com and let him know what you think about the programming and who should be on the station that was at one point arguably, the voice of the liberal movement in America.

Don't forget the Seder V. Maron VoD-cast, which happens live most Tuesdays at 11AM EST, and is available on demand here. It's an evolving, technologically glitchy, hilarious romp through the minds of two of the most brilliant political and comic minds out there.

Whats up with Seder and his jack-of-all trades tenuous perch at AAR? Who knows? Its hard to believe that pcollin at air america dot com would let slip such a multi talented and reliable guy, not to mention a great broadcaster, but I've seen them do worse...much worse, so....I just don't feel anything anymore except sadness for the end of something that was great at one time and the real inability of any number of new management characters to do even a couple of right things. I guess we'll see.

In interesting news:

Scott McClellan is the latest rat to jump ship, with a book that basically throws the Bush White House under the bus. So, when does the criminal investigation start? Is Rove even gonna answer his subpoena in that other matter? Its nice sometimes to see how predictable rats are when a ship is going down. It adds back a little of that lost universal order.

Meanwhile:

Our beloved hero, Brad, of Bradblog, posted a little funny here
from The Satirical Political Report, which claims that the Supreme Court has blocked reruns of HBO's Recount (which has Emmy buzz)...He really had me going for a second there as I was thanking God that I DVRed the thing because of the constant interruptions around here....But, honestly, the real reason to be cheerful is that Brad is out there traveling round and reporting back the most incredible information on what is happening on the ground across the country regarding our voting rights, our voting machines, and if our votes are really being counted. This is some of the most important work going on in the country right now, and this guy should have a mandatory viewing, prime time TV show, right in between Merv Griffin's Crosswords and Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, just to make sure that Americans are getting this...it could be like one of those Most Wanted shows and maybe at one point the villagers would pick up their torches and it could become the best reality show ever!

In news of another of the most important jobs out there right now, the one person who has gotten a book on the shelves that dares to pull the curtain back on old man McCain, author, blogger, pundit, Cliff Schecter, is appearing Friday, may 30th, from 6-8PM, in Washington, DC at a book discussion of the fantastic and revealing, The Real McCain (available on the RIPCoco front page Amazon widget or the front page Brilliant Amazon Widget, meaning that we endorse it and suggest it!) The discussion is being held at the AFL-CIO headquarters, on 815 16th St., NW (RSVP: John Goltz at 202-508-6938.)
if I were able to get there, I would SO be ensconced at the George Hotel and eating one of those Chinese salads from the downstairs food court at the station, then wandering round the hollow mall on the hard mud field wondering what the fuck went wrong, before running over to the AFL-CIO for what promises to be a revealing look at a complex guy amongst the denizens of DC, where the air is permeated with politics in this most interesting political season ever...(and maybe somewhere out there someone might find that key for Maron.)
My suggestion meantime: Buy this book! Read this book! Give it as a gift! Many gifts! Your favorite republicans/independents/undecideds/Hillary Clinton supporters need this book! Check for it at your local bookstores and make sure its right up front on the current events table!

Look, just because McCain has the faded aura of hero doesn't mean that he doesn't have problems and skeletons...and it doesn't mean that he is qualified to run this country, considering what he's saying, what his record is, and the whitewash job on his health. Just because he lived through some of the worst tragedies that come from war, doesn't mean that we shouldn't do the necessary research before half the country considers handing him the football...right? You'd think that they would want to do this research themselves, but they don't seem to want to know.

Worried about things? Have trouble believing anything at all? Lost your religion? Here ya go:

Fuck it: The Ultimate Spiritual Way check it! and then sign up to receive a regular Fuck It thought in your email!

John C. Parkin argues that saying Fuck It is a spiritual act:
That it is the perfect western expression of the eastern ideas of letting go, giving up and finding real freedom by realizing that things don’t matter so much (if at all).

This is The Fuck It Way

...And finally, 19 days and counting till the launch of No Ignoring!, Mike Boettcher's ground-breaking Iraq/Afghanistan project that will span 15 months and show us, up close and on the ground, in our soldier's own words, and as a fly on the wall in the major war zones that we are responsible for, what is happening. Lets bring awareness and personal sacrifice back to the concept of war, and see if some sort of ownership doesn't give us some pause when it comes to escalation of any sort. Lets see how the soldiers really feel about what is going on over there. This is going to be an interesting unfolding project with many arms, and I will be following it closely as it kicks off and heads out to war for a tour of duty exactly the length of the actual soldiers. Be careful guys! Keep your heads down!



And, speaking of war...The old man just keeps talking:
"By the way, I will never surrender in Iraq, my friends....and we are winning!" That was John McCain today in a speech in Denver on nuclear non-proliferation, in which he tried to frame himself as the more JFK-like candidate, (he was interrupted by anti-war protesters 3 times!)
Speak for yourself Bozo! You can never surrender all you want, wandering round the 8 mansions talking to the portraits of dead beer scions and their patrician wives, you can rail on and on to your lobby buddies before nodding off in your own drool, or tell it to you oncologist, but don't include anymore of our American troops in your plans, you befuddled old man.

Joementum Lieberman is gonna HOST that Hagee Rapture ready Throw down, July 22nd!! What a sick fuck Joey is. First he moved back to Stamford (my town,) where all his own friends and supporters hate him for lying (I'm talking about a 180 on the war, just 2 weeks before the election, and then another 180 back right after!) and then he embraces a guy that is so putrid, so horrible, as to be unbearable...talk about self-hating! This is the pinnacle of craziness. Earth to Joe: they only want you to lure the coming rapture...then they will dump you! Are YOU ready for the rapture?
Christians United for Israel, indeed! Kish mir en toches!



Which leaves me speechless...what else could anyone say ever again?



c/p Brilliant at Breakfast

John Edwards Rocks MTV/MySpace, Thursday at Noon EST; Michael Moore on Oprah at 4 EST

I just got a message from Tom, who was for the longest time, my only friend on MySpace. Now that I've made some virtual pseudo-friends on my chronically neglected site there, I hardly ever hear from Tom anymore. But that Tom, boy does he know me! He sent me a notice out of the blue last night that today at noon EST John Edwards will be appearing in a live forum brought to us by MTV and MySpace, here.
Apparently, users will be able to IM their questions to Edwards live.
I love interactive forums like this, and even though I'll have to skip this one because of prior commitments, it seems like a good thing to have a look at.
I hope that he has a chance to comment on our growing Iran problem.
Joe-the mole-Lieberman has been a busy little bee in helping the republicans lay down the groundwork for any war that Bush may decide to come up with as he exits stage left.
Passing the embarrassing thou-shalt-not-dis-Petraeus Amendment was bad enough, but the Lieberman/Kye Amendment was destructive in allowing any wiggle room at all for these war mongers...and why were either of these pieces necessary?
Its almost as if the dems are tripping over themselves to try to prove that they are tough on the middle east, when polls already show that most Americans believe that they are.

Here is Jim Webb on this mess:


Oprah is doing another big health care show today at 4PM EST, and it features not only Michael Moore, but the DC health insurance lobby. The theme is "Sick in America:It Can Happen to You."

Petraeus' Fluff Ball, Krugman's Hardball, Congressional Softballs, and Rudy Guilliani Has No Balls!!

Today Paul Krugman joined the well deserved pile-on urging Congressional Democrats to take a stand and act like they have some balls when General Petraeus testifies about the white house penned report on Iraq this week. It is unreal that we are at a point where we are looking at our representatives as cowards who are afraid, not as much of what we might think of them, but of the political bubble-world of Washington DC that seems to be so hermetically sealed that any statement of dissent is treated like a huge achievement. I think that these politicians might do themselves a service by taking a look around outside of the beltway, because Americans are disgruntled, to say the least. According to Krugman, we should plan on the report to be a bunch of bullshit, twisted facts, and numbers:

Here’s what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he’ll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq — as long as you don’t count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs and people shot in the front of the head.

Here’s what I’m afraid will happen: Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus’s uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won’t ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they’ll desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops.

This report is just a piece of fluff which cherry picks information down to the smallest detail, but clearly overlooks the secondary (or, hell, primary at this point,) effect of this occupation on what is left of Iraqi society; in that we might perhaps expect an increase in crime, not just because there is an increase in crime but because we are there and have disrupted everything...of course we have to count those deaths!

Its clear at this point that Bush likes to have something going on that lets him feel like he is "kicking ass," but alot of us have known for a long time that he is a sociopath riding a hobby horse, and even the doubters are beginning to realize the truth, so why are these white house Rovian operatives allowed to shape the debate? How dare any of them call Democrats who question this clearly erroneous report unpatriotic? And where do our representatives get off backing down after promising to go and deliver a strong and brave message for us. The founders would spit on the way that their hopeful plans have been twisted by this crowd. What kind of cowards do we have running this country?I hope to hear something from someone, maybe even a question that makes sense, but I'm not hopeful.

Krugman notes that Petraeus "...has a history of making wildly overoptimistic assessments of progress in Iraq that happen to be convenient for his political masters." And if its true, as Krugman believes, that the democrats will be accused of being unpatriotic no matter what they say or what happens, then I would hope to hear some all out probing of this report and perhaps even some dissent and protest. One thing we can be sure of is that this report is not likely to hint at the very real need for, and the strong possibility of, a draft.

So why bother with this piece of theater? Because Americans like to see committees and circumstance, and guys in suits acting like they are actually solving problems. Americans also like symbols...like, um...Osama Bin Laden, as the universal bad guy killer. Its a shame that Fred Thompson chose now to belittle the importance of the Bin Laden symbolism to American culture, considering that the government already has the pre-release of Bin Laden's yearly 9-11 commemoration tape, and the outrage is already palpable, even all these years later.

Thompson would do well to pull himself up by his bootstraps, get out of his limo, and try to take the pulse of the American people a little more carefully. What the hell is this guy doing talking about where he thinks Bin Laden is? We haven't caught him because we are in the wrong place doing the wrong thing, and the last thing we need is the suggestion that we should invade another country for the hell of it, when its clear that the guy moves around pretty easily in the Middle East and its gonna take good intelligence work to find him.







In other disgusting news, apparently Joementum Lieberman is co-chairing a meeting of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Monday. Again we are in a position where this pseudo liberal "I" who is supposedly caucusing with the Democrats, (but always threatening to flip to the other side,) is going to be the one representing the left side for balance...I have alot of trouble getting my mind around this! This guy gets to keep all of his committee posts and chair all sorts of meetings...representing US!...and who will ask the important questions about our security? No one...forget it.
Its gonna be a clown parade, with Skeletor Chertoff leading other top officials in making assessments about our security and how safe we are..,or not.... The clear fact that we are not safer now than we were before 9-11 points to more of the same; especially knowing how the reports are presented and how afraid our representatives seem to be to make waves.

Its been another day in the car listening to news, podcasts of Ring of Fire, and an old Majority Report rant by Janeane Garafolo about cognitive dissonance, (which has long been one of my favorite subjects.) She was talking about the woman who had the face transplant and the story of how she lost her face: passing out from drugs and alcohol and waking, but not realizing that the dog had removed her face for some reason...that is until trying to light a cigarette and, oops, what the fuck?? Janeane likened the strange shocky feeling of having just had your face eaten off by your dog to what has been going on in this country. Its strange how well some of those Air America shows from over a year ago still hold up...and sad that they still apply, even though the truth is out. Everyone knows that this is all wrong, but they just look uncomfortably at each other and hide their cowardice in some sort of idea of respect for the office and protocol. Fuck that! The feeling of embracing the lie because one can't come to terms with the fact that one was wrong in the first place, or over-identification with the lie, is the only way that some people can live with themselves. Its a form of mental illness that drives itself, in that the stress caused by conflicting belief and evidence needs to resolve so the truth is actively shifted in order to relieve the stress....and then there you are; your dog just took a bite out of your face...but it all makes sense because....because...because...it does!

Here I am in my house of cement pouring, alarm going off, firemen swarming, and contractors moving piles of my laundry round the basement, strangely quiet...for a minute...seeing what it might be like to feel like everything was OK out there...but then, on the news comes Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, who is, against all odds, holding his own in the weak Republican field...the debate, ugh...the news ugh....How did this happen? How did he manage to plow under his extreme weakness as a human being and a leader? His popularity is not dropping the way it should, which worries me, and makes me think that the American people are, as usual, not paying attention.

That Rudy has the nerve to say that he is not a perfect person but was a strong leader in NYC is just laughable. The idea that he could even fill the position of dogcatcher is incredible; but then...look what we have now!
The reign of Rudy in NYC was a strange time of knee jerk over-reaction to Dinkins and his PC liberalism. The swing was not so much to the right, because Rudy is pretty left on social issues, but more towards the Reich.

Among other insanity the homeless folks that were all over the place were hassled all the time and told to move on, with no place to go, and it was said that a large number of them had moved underground into old subway stations or were given one way tickets to places like Bridgeport, CT. I kept wondering where those people went...it was like they were just loaded on trucks one day and removed. The idea of just jostling sleeping people over and over is sort of inhumane, and the lack of real programs to help people made the whole exercise rather abusive.

Rudy set about defining the rules of what he felt was right, as if he was the arbiter of all things social, artistic and monetary. His people were less than sophisticated, and the whole thing echoed a strange mafia novella with goombas and good-fellas. Yeah, Rudy played tough, and he reversed some of Dinkin's soft policing measures, but his real focus was not on infrastructure and safety, but on surface and shine. This was not good management and it alienated many, many people...real New Yorkers for one, were disgusted, and many people who work to make the city work were disgruntled. He didn't solve problems so much as to sweep them away and make things look pretty. But, as we know about those shiny apple Republicans these days, the core is rotten, and sooner or later the worm is gonna crawl out. I'm just waiting for Rudy to blow. He not only lacks the personality for the office but he is rotten to the core.

Rudy left us in a very vulnerable position while he shined up his command center that was in the middle of his universe...with a big target on it. For anyone who doubts that Rudy absolutely sucked as a leader, and for anyone who thinks that it might make sense to have a strong guy like him at the helm, take a visit to The Real Rudy and lift the rock on old Rudy. I don't say this lightly: for anyone who might ever consider giving this guy a job with big responsibility, do some research. Your life may depend on it!

Mazel Tov....Stumbling Round Israel....Tripping Over Joe Lieberman...Again...

Why can't we discuss Israel? because its a big pain in the ass, thats why.
Greetings from the hell pit that my life has been lately, and my recovery day from the wonderful bar mitzvah yesterday of a fantastic kid who I have watched grow into a really great person. It was touching and funny and I really enjoyed it. But because I'm somewhat of a "negative" person or something, (I prefer a sort of Woody Allen before-the-fall, neurotic-ish, realist, NYC, outlook...thats not all that negative is it?) My perception of things is always about what is happening between the lines, inside the message, and I agonize so much about all this organized religion stuff. But this temple and rabbi always get me because the Israel issue is BIG...and that sticks in my craw a little...and why? Because the ideas that are swirling around this community and this country, and what people end up feeling and acting on regarding the hardest issues that we face these days involve a sort of stark fear..

Liberals pussyfoot around this issue because its such a sensitive spot and it seems to hit every soft spot of emotion and fear possible. The passion involved makes it impossible to argue it, much less fight a war over it. In dealing with something that inevitably leads to religious issues, I've found that its best to not set foot in that taboo land of god.How could I possibly understand faith? Its something that I lack, for better or worse...except for a faith in nature and certain people...far fewer these days and ever dwindling. I also don't know as much as I should about the political details of the holy land, probably, because I reject the idea of religious war and I don't believe that any god that exists gives a shit about land and temples or shrines and governing entities deciding who gets what . I think that if there is a test to being human and gaining entrance into whatever heaven might be, and if its in the scriptures or written in the skies, it must concern how easily a soul is able to let go of these earthly things, and understand that there is no control over anything, much less who gets the rights to one holy place or another. It also must be somewhat about how we treat our worst enemy and the weakest among us...right? And something about looking within and questioning our motives and the societal standards and rules set up around those motives.

If we can't see ourselves in every person out there and have empathy for the struggles of others, then what good is it if we own the ground that god's son walked on? Its only a piece of dirt...how does that compare to a life? Or is life really that cheap?
The human animal has always migrated, and there have always been wars, along with barbaric behavior, in order to gain control of whatever the Spice resource of the time is.
Today at part 1 of the epic bar mitzvah, of the guy with the turtle above, sorta like a young man now, I saw a bunch of people that I've known for more years than I can remember passing me by. And again I was in that pew wondering about what goes into this wonderful community thing that unfortunately also includes giving up a certain amount of logic and reason and accepting the feeling of a very definite line of separation between these people and...others outside of this place. These are the chosen people, after all. I'm not denying that. I think its good to have a well developed ego and feeling about purpose in this life, but what of the rest of us...the...er...left behind...what about us?
Who was I and how did I get through all of everything for all of these years? Who are these young adults and how did they get so big? The boys were shrugging off their mothers fixing their hair or patting their shoulders; the girls were in little cliques and talking in code, holding their phones, and flipping that young shiny hair around. Its all so young and fertile and...scary....because the time really did fly by like nothing. But still, we've all been busy, busy, so its not yet porch and rocking chair time. We still have weddings to go through and grandchildren too, I suppose (though I have been notified by my young alien that he intends to give me NO grandchildren....whatever...I'm beyond trying to reason with the creature until he is at least 18...because he knows everything! And he can see the future!)

During all of that hugging of people I hadn't seen in so long, and measuring all the kids against my vaguely changing self, (at least I hope I'm not changing as fast as they are,) the "liberal-politics-blogger" and how is it going thing came up over and over...to which I had to explain that I've been away and so crazy busy, etc...and that this blog of not much content, is not what I do usually, and all that...yeah, not much posting going on lately....
Along came a dad who I guess I have known since nursery school in the little schoolhouse up the road, and we have met the family again since Will has joined the son in a different school. I was talking about blogging, with some friends, and especially a friend who started a business/bakery that makes snacks for kids with food allergies, and who is adding a blog to her site, when dad piped in that he is a friend of Joe Lieberman and worked on his campaign and has been involved in politics himself. Silence. Should I go there?
Don't do it Melina! Don't jump! But, you know me....
"I have to say...well, you must know... that Joe is not my favorite person in the world, though I would like to talk to him, if I can find him."
So, my friend with the food allergy site glazed over and moved on to say hello to other friends. My other friend just sat there glazed and unbelieving that I was actually going there, and looking to the side for escape possibilities. I bit:
"I actually was just in Chicago with Ned Lamont. I worked on his campaign. I LOVE him! I hope he runs again for anything."
And then I went on to say that I know that Joe has a great voting record, and that he has been not so bad for us. But the problem is that he thinks that his skewed view of the Iraq war is compelling enough, against the views of all the experts and in siding with a view that only George Bush and Barney the dog support anymore, to tear the Democratic party apart, not respect our wishes, and threaten over and over to take his vote to the republican side. This goes against what his constituents want and we have made that clear. The majority of us don't want him to be doing what he's doing, and yet he keeps speaking out in favor of the war...at the same time speaking to us in a condesending, paternalistic fashion, which makes clear that he believes that we are children who dont know our own minds.
I then took a breath.
To which he said: "Well then, how do you feel about Israel?"
Hmmm...How do I feel about Israel?
I was trying to say that it was complicated and that I don't believe in war for land...that perhaps it has a strategic purpose in the Middle east, and that I really don't know enough about all the details to speak on some of these issues....
And, fuck it, I'm a PC liberal...and we don't talk about this subject.
But heres the rub: Joementum Lieberman uses the psychology of fear about the Holocaust/Israel, and it somehow bleeds into a line about Iraq and Iran, and how the Middle East is "gonna blow up," and how unsafe we are. I felt myself mouthing that "be afraid, be very afraid..." line....That mushroom soup with the puff pastry mushroom floating on top could soon be a mushroom cloud!

Part of this is just Joementum talking points , and there is a pretty big fear of the middle east, in general, going round. What it would mean to us if it "blew-up," which seems pretty selfish somehow, because if it blows up (and I think that this rhetoric line involves wars and civil war and Iran taking over Iraq and becoming that much more powerful,) but mostly what it comes down to for many, many people is this myth that Joe is somehow holding Israel together all by himself.
And we don't talk about Israel...or do we?
Supporting Israel is to honor the fallen Holocaust victims. I hear this alot.

I finally said to the woman next to me (a very smart woman, I should add,) that America is NOT deserting Israel no matter what any of us think. And she said that she was not so sure. She said that some of the women at her synagogues had said to her that if Obama got in they were worried about America's continued support of Israel...and also said that if he was the nominee, even as vice, that they would vote republican! Republican!!

She didn't say that she felt that way, but I was sort of plunged into another reality, almost a splash of cold water, shaking my head to try to wake up...
I was tired...it was a long day...and I couldn't see any of this ending well or helping anyone come to any great conclusion. So, I ended the long night of part 2, disco party/sit down dinner, by talking to a friend's husband who I had never had a chance to really talk to...and we had alot in common and he was fun to talk to...so there...I had to flee to a sympathetic and agreeing listener...and talk tech, agreement politics, and recovery.

OK, here is my point: Do I know enough about Israel? No...not enough to know the ins and outs of the legal wrangling. But, I really don't believe in war, especially in the name of "god," whatever that means anymore.
What I really don't believe in, is American children being taught that they are in danger of another genocide and so they should always know that they are really wedded to another country that they are supporting from afar. I think that American children need to be raised American, and that they have to know that if there is another attempted genocide, we will all stand up and say NO! This would presumably be part of the superior American education system that is teaching decision making and philosophy and ethics...oh, wait a minute...never mind....

To this, I've heard " Well, they didnt stand up and say NO last time, did they?"
But you know, genocides have been going on since the beginning of time and even more recently since the Holocaust, and there is even one right now in Darfur. Why is it that the Jewish genocide was worse, and deserving of a country of its own?
At one point the dad said that (well, you're a Jew, right? ...No, my mom isn't, so I'm not, Oh...) hadn't I ever experienced antisemitism?...
Uh-Oh.... there I was with a black kid who lives part of the time in the "inner city," such-as-it-is, of my town, and please don't tell me that antisemitism is worse than the racism that people of color experience all the time. They can't even hide their difference...so don't tell me that you are saying that this piece of the barbaric human experience is any more poignant and deserving of a separate state than that; not for the antisemitism reason anyway. Its all bad and its all the very vilest of human nature to attack those who don't look like them, worship like them, live like them...fill in the blank....is Israel purely about reparations?
As I looked around the synagogue that morning, I noted that there was but one girl of color, a light skinned African-American girl. Why is that? Why is it that no black people can afford to live around here? Someone actually said to me that there are no black Jews, to which I said, ...um...NO?!

And anyway, this synagogue experience is supposed to be all about welcoming anyone in the community who wants to drop in for services and a bite. Its really quite nice and welcoming with kids running around and people whispering and shuffling. Its like a microcosm of real life minus racial diversity and plus a cantor. The rabbi is a cool guy who is a rabid Red Sox fan, and often uses baseball metaphors to make his point. It's just unfortunate that the mass transit system here is totally unreliable and on the weekends its worse...so its not like many people of color are walking down the street. No, they tend to be pretty much corralled down by I-95 where they were put in the first place.

The thing is that this sort of racism is still a huge problem here in America; and its your America where you need to direct some of your attention... because this meddling in the middle east in order to ensure the safety of Israel ,(and the oil...don't forget the oil,) and something about terraists, is only making us less and less safe here...and more and more fearful of people who look different and live differently than we do.

Call it a series of strategic military outposts, call it our need for oil, call it anything, but don't call it anti-semitism or say that its your real country. Your actual country is here under your feet, until you move over there and take citizenship or dual citizenship. Most people I know wouldn't think of moving there permanently, but they have this blind support thing going on. Its a nice place to visit and it makes them feel closer to God, so who am I to question?

I am all for that actually. Faith is a fantastic thing.... But how many people do you want to have died in a civil war in a country that will never right itself until we are out of there, and how many kids should die to protect a country that was created as a deal with a people who needed or wanted a land of their own...? Here is where I don't know enough...
My big question of the night was : And how will you all get there when the next holocaust comes? Airlift? Ship?...whats the plan?

In desperation, the dad parried with a "But If we pull out of Iraq, it will be carnage."
Thrust: "If we stay its carnage."

"God wants us to have Israel...no shit...its in the Torah."
"God wrote that?"
"Yes!"
"On paper?...they didnt have paper back then. On leaves? On rock? God told man??"

So man, in his imperfection, has translated what he heard in his head??? And a zillion years later we are still living by those rules? Oh please....I was saying something about metaphor and the study of theology and the guy wanted to know exactly-which-scrolls-and-bibles-I-have-read...so as to...you know...argue them with me, point by point...but I was finished already when we were talking about how the thing came into being in the first place...there IS no argument past that on the content...is there? Its a matter of faith..which I don't possess....sorry...Its really tragic for me, I know...
See, at this point I start to go all Marc Maron, internally. I want to assure you all out there that this was in no way loud, and it happened over a 12 hour period of time, in that certain people were seeking me out to finish, and I was ducking...here was a full grown man, and a hall full of people for that matter, who, at the root of this whole thing, believe in a theory that relates back to a story told to man by a being who is rather invisible and who flies...then the man wrote it down...miracles...more magic...and here we are!

I'm not putting down anyone's belief because I know it brings comfort, but its at moments like this that I know that I am one of those Sun God folks...In that early man worshiped the sun because it was a tangible thing that they could see and it gave them food, warmth, and light; that makes sense to me. In the same way, I am in awe of the nature that I am surrounded with, and the unplanned way that grandpa has kept this place somewhere between wild and falling down, has given me a real respect for how the forest can send its tentacles into your walls and take your house down very quickly, just as a buck (deer, not my dog, Buck,) will stand outside my back door and stomp his hoove at me rather than run away.
Is that a physical ecological cycle or is it magic made possible by god?

Whatever gives anyone comfort in this world is a good thing, just don't use it to launch wars on my dime and with the kids from my country, unless there is really, really good reason...and Im sorry, there just isn't enough reason here.
Just like anything else, we are supposedly learning in our religious practice, and it goes in cycles that could be hearkened to the political cycle. So, If you elect the cowboy who you would like to have a beer with; if you dumb down education; if you don't care enough to get up from the couch during Who Wants to be a Millionaire, (at least to turn on Olbermann or Jon Stewart so you can learn something,) then this is what you get. If you raise your children to think that they are of an embattled people who are always in danger, you might not like what you get ultimately. Its all an experiment in human psychology because this holocaust stuff is pretty new in the scheme of things. In a hundred years everything will be different and if the planet still exists they will surely look back on this little episode as nothing more than insanity that gripped a powerful nation and caused many deaths/did alot of damage before things swung back the other way. So what does it matter anyway> Am I making some big point or something by just being there and being the one who people talk to about this stuff?

I guess that it was the Joementum thing that really got me. Here it is mathematically:

If Joe=Security for Israel=Security for the Middle East=keep the Iraq War Going=Bomb Iran=Vote Republican for SECURITY..because you should be afraid, very afraid...well, something is wrong....because the whole things equals that we are LESS FUCKING SECURE!! And no one can deny that; not even Joe.

Will the American people go for it again? I don't know. Some of this stuff is knee jerk with this crowd, but there is a whole world out there, and especially in the inner city who are wondering what Joe has done for them. Because, let me tell you, the all-children-in-Connecticut-have-health-insurance line is bullshit. Most of them may have something, but no one accepts it except for some downtown clinics, and you have to be a Rhodes Scholar with alot of time on your hands to get something like an operation approved...unless you go to the emergency room...and even then, you can be billed later if its not pre approved. But at least the hospital has a deal with the Husky plan and there is someone there who has gone to school to know how to deal with this stuff. And I would like to hear Joe speak to the unregulated utilities, and the public housing...the list goes on, folks...lets get Chris Shays in here too...he rides around on this magic carpet just as much as Joe....

One more thing, and this is for Ned Lamont who is one of my heroes, and who I would gladly support again: Two families were standing and talking and laughing about how proud they were of their kids getting involved in Joe's campaign and really working hard at rallies and with the signs, yelling. And I said, (I am such a kill-joy...they must just cringe when they see me coming...)
You know, where I go in the inner city, Joe sent big vans down and he hired black kids for $60-80 per day...sometimes a 12 hour shift...to wear a Joe T-shirt and be transported to rallies (often Ned Lamont rallies,) and cause a commotion and raise hell. I saw a bunch of them running up and down Greenwich Avenue. I also saw some of them instructed to push their way to the front of a crowd when Weicker was giving a speech for Lamont, and hold signs for Joe in front of the TV cameras. In doing that they also pushed and stepped on some pretty old and feeble people, not to mention ME. Now I am pretty strong and tall, but some of these kids were huge and more than a little menacing!

The thing that I found totally outrageous is that Joe's campaign was paying these kids money to support a cause that they didn't know about at all. I asked them if they knew what Joe stood for, and the few that I spoke with didn't, nor did they care, they just needed the job.
But the rub is that these kids live in a complex where very few people can get ahead in Lieberman's Connecticut. If the utilities are unpaid they are cut off. The utility companies have a 3 strikes, non negotiable policy these days. Once they cut off the utilities, the project starts eviction proceedings because its in the lease that utilities must remain on or the tenant will be evicted. If a tenant falls behind even one payment on their utilities they lose the option to pay by the budget plan, and they start getting hit with huge bills...and let me tell you from my side of town, these utility companies need some sort of regulation because they have a monopoly, no matter how much lip service they pay to offering an alternative...its not happening...and they keep raising rates. This cluster housing is a shining star that Joe and his people hold up as Connecticut's great advancement in helping the poor, but they give people an apartment a shoddily constructed house that looks nice form the outside but is made literally of plastic and they adjust the rent according to the income of the tenants, the lack of jobs and whatever is going on...BUT, the offer little help in the way of helping people understand how to balance a budget, how to have a checking account, how to pay bills, and they have no way of helping all of the families that need help when it comes with the utilities. The one social worker who helps the 230+ families in this complex works through a community center that is funded privately by one donor who saw a need and made this a permanent fixture. But I'm not seeing the city government stepping in regarding the fact that this one social worker cant possibly help everyone in the complex, and that the utilities have adopted a zero tolerance policy. I also see things like the supermarket being moved a couple of miles away, across the street from another big new supermarket...city planning at its best...and that the free WiFi provided to all of downtown stops at the edge of this community, so few people have access to the Internet unless they go to the community center. One emergency, one Dr bill, one mistake, and its over...

It is these kids who will eventually have to join the military for a signing bonus in order to bail their family out, bail themselves out, or just survive...

This is Joe's war...and they didn't even know that they were supporting the war by earning those few bucks wearing a T-shirt and handing out fliers.
I found that more perverted than any wide stance or page scandal. $60 or $80 a day doesn't go far, and neither does and additional 25 grand signing bonus when you think that someone could maybe go to college and earn a lifetime's worth of income....and that is nothing compared to what these lives might be worth if they had hope for the future beyond throwing themselves to the military because there are no jobs, and anyway, who can make it on minimum wage?

How much is a kid from the inner city worth these days? Apparently not much to Joe Lieberman and the people who he is scamming with the fear card.
So Joe is keeping us safe using these children...and its not working, but lets throw some more bodies in there just to see if we can turn it around against all odds...using these very children. But hey, they got a free T-shirt.

So, maybe they hate me, or just roll their eyes when I come around. maybe I HAVE to talk about this stuff because I cant do that "oh it's just to stressful for little me" thing. I don't see where politics stops and life begins. At what point do we get in our SUV's and drive away from the problems? I can't, because the people who are struggling to get by in this world, whether they have learned to work the system so are scam artists, or are honestly trying to get ahead, are all part of our society and all a product of the programs that we have created and canceled, for better or worse. So, there is no way to just go on with life and say "no talking politics tonight because its just too much for me" These people are us...aren't they? Couldn't each one be our brother or sister?...thats how we have to look at this.
What else is there?

Joe Lieberman Rubs Elbows With the R&F... Don't Come Round Here No More......

So what does Joementum Lieberman do after spending his morning with George Snuffleupagus spouting nonsense? He goes swimming at Westport, Connecticut's tony public pool, The Long Shore Club.
My sister was there with her kids watching Don Jose swim laps and telling herself that there was no way that this was really Joe himself. He seemed to be all alone, and the pool and club is exclusive to Westport residents, requiring a town sticker on whatever vehicle is used to enter, so it seemed odd to her that she wouldn't have seen him before....
My sister is a pretty funny girl, and her description of his unmistakable white hair and the white coating of fur all over his tiny body (OK, OK, we're a very tall family, so everyone is tiny to us...but especially Joe-Joe,) was just great...and finally, she had proof of identity by a few people saying "Hi Joe," and a few others going up to him and shaking his hand...so, she could say with all certainty that it was indeed him. She just found it strange that he was alone, accepted at the club with little fanfare, as if it was a usual occurrence in the town that sports many celebrity residents, and pretty funny that he was so furry.
I was, of course, saying "...and you didn't go up to him and talk to him?? You didn't ask him about that performance with Snuffles that morning? You didn't ask him if he was now living there?" "you didnt ask him when he wants to start pulling troops out of iraq?" But she is shy-sh, and people in Westport just don't do that, and certain girls clearly have forgotten their Brooklyn roots, and turned to mush...Like, wouldn't I have jumped right in the pool and swam alongside him asking him questions? Wouldn't I follow him into the men's locker room or to the resident's only beach?

And thats the rub: Joe would never be able to walk down the street, much less go to a public pool in his home town of Stamford, or in the town where he supposedly lives, New Haven, nor in the town that he recently claimed to be moving back to, Stamford, nor in any place in Connecticut that is not extremely rich, show biz, and/or somewhat conservative. Joe used to be at the diners around here and having town meetings all the time, but now we don't see him at all.
And if I did see him, I would have some questions for him. First would be, how could he possibly think that he is representing anyone in Connecticut? Even the Republicans disagree with him. In what world is his service in government only reliant on his own personal feelings inside himself, as opposed to the feelings of his constituents?
The other thing is that Joe aggressively attacked Ned Lamont for being a rich, Greenwich guy who had belonged to a private swim club as his children were growing up, that was not fully integrated, or some such.

Here is the thing, Joe doesn't, as far as I know, live in Westport, though he may be able to get a town sticker wherever he wants one. The two places that he claims as "home" have such inner city problems that you would never find the likes of Joementum at a public pool unless it was a photo op and he was wearing a flak jacket. No, Joe is swimming at Long Shore for exercise and to hang with the peeps in the public like a regular, uh, Joe.

No, our boy Joe wouldn't be doing any of those cute public appearances that he used to do when he was making like he was a democrat of the people, who actually cared about issues in Connecticut. Ever since Joe decided that he had an important voice in international issues of blood and guts and war, and ever since he went all independent and became like...sorta like,....the decider. Well, not THE decider, but, maybe a pimple on the decider's ass...and when one is in the line of fire alongside the decider, one can't be putting oneself actually in the line of fire, especially when that involves answering questions about what the hell you're doing in the name of the people? Who is it that you think you're representing? because its no one I know.

The thing is that the peeps in Westport are very, very rich and the schools are very, very good...and it is lily white up there. Joe is moving on up in the world, and he would much prefer to rub elbows with the film and TV crowd in Westport than to hang with anyone who might actually question him.
Nope, Joe don't come around here no more....
The one thing that has to haunt old Joe, though, is that even in Westport, the people may not bother you much, they may leave you alone, but almost none of them voted for you. Its a very liberal town.

Oh, and here is the furry little Mr Liar now, thanks to YouTube; Watch him lie, and twist, and blithely tell American families that we HAVE to give this till September, because...well, just because...
But this time round the Veracifier intercuts other expert analysis of the same situation....which gives you a pretty good overview of things. Interesting when you get more than one point of view at a time....like, almost what it would be like with a fairness doctrine!








Oh, and regarding the Scotland "bombing?" Lookee here:


And Keith Olbermann's excellent report here:

Israel, Iran, Iraq, Lieberman Speaks w/ Foot-in-Mouth Again...Half-Breed Is All I Ever Heard.....And Tony Soprano Through The Looking Glass.....

A couple of weeks ago I was at the bar mitzvah of a close friend's son, and had the opportunity to talk with another friend's husband from here in Stamford, and a certain not so little community of Jews in and around Revonah, from which has spawned the likes of Senator Joementum Lieberman. We were looking at the glass cases of Jewish memorabilia and I was commenting on how my grandfather has a piece of camp money just like what we were looking at, framed on his wall....an old friend or business acquaintance had given it to him when Grandpa was doing something or other for Israel in the olden days. There was something about me declaring in some way that a part of my family had done something for Israel and the Jewish community in New York that sort of emboldened him into thinking that I was of the like mind that is whispered in the Jewish community here.
The wife, a friend of mine who is liberal but who seems to draw the line in what we can discuss, at Israel (and believe me, I don't think this can be discussed, any more than any religiously driven war can,) knows most of my politics and was literally stuffing her husband into the car as he exclaimed "I hope that Bush just hurries up and attacks Iran and gets it over with for the sake of Israel, before hes out of office...."
I think I was screeching, "ARE YOU KIDDING?" as I saw her lips moving furiously behind the Volvo glass and they proceeded to wave nicely and drive away...clenched teeth probably muttering about how I'm not one of them...not really...My Mom is a catholic, don't you know!...never was, never could be...thats the heart of it; Whats your Mom?
One thing thats really gotten to me about a big part of the Jewish community here (and probably in general) is that they worship Israel as a promised land in such a knee jerk fashion, and if I ever get down to really talking with most of these people, their feelings are not based in logic and reality, but in fear and indoctrination. I know people who go there for summers as if its their country home, people who plan to be buried there, and people, like this guy, who want to go and settle the front lines there and be a human shield to protect Israel from the evil Palestinians. I should add that his wife poo-poohs that, and says that they will, of course, never do that. But that doesn't stop them from indoctrinating their kids with this deep love of Israel as their REAL country and where they should be sending their resources. And to hear her son talk about the deep spiritual feeling that he got from being in Israel with a big group from his Jewish school in the yearly trips they take, added to his other trips, and how he wanted to raise more money for Israel...well....
whatever....
I'm working with people in the inner city and busting my ass here to try to get computers and supplies to the "other America," which John Edwards speaks of, and which exists in greater and greater numbers right here, next door....people who cant get jobs and until recently, an uninformed voting block of young people who felt like they had no say in anything...so why bother voting...? That is until you lose your country twice to election fraud that made each and every vote count so much that...well, it would be a different world right now if nader had stepped back, and if every kid had voted...and if everyone who wanted to vote had been able to.

Another friend, who is much less involved with the whole synagogue world and more liberal and involved in the American community here...this community of immigrants and a rainbow of people outside of the Revonah Woods world, ...her older son's bar mitzvah project involved bringing canned foods to the poor in our town here....Social jews like I grew up with who havent gone overboard and carefully reach out to all of those around them.
My feeling is that if you are an American and you see that there are lots of problems here...you are educating your kids here and you have a career here...you pay into the system here and expect to retire here...and expect your grandkids to be raised here...then you may be an American, not an Israeli. The huge American investment in Israel has to do with many things, with fear being key to alot of the heavy support that I see. I'm talking about people who, if you question them closer, have been raised in synagogues and homes where they have been told that when there is another Holocaust, they will need a land to flee to. This is stated as if the Jews are the only group that have or will ever have a Holocaust type of crime committed against them...and, in my mind, in the same world where the Darfur genocide is happening right now, how can any of this make sense?
If, and its a big if, there were ever a holocaust here, we would all band together as Americans and fight it...not flee to another country. To expect less is a slap in the face to me and every other American halfbreed shiksa spawn, not to mention gentile and/or human being, including the Muslims, who it is said, are told by the Koran to "kill the Jews."....
When does the insanity end?

Its one thing to hear this stuff from old people in their 90's who were in the camps and who's parents fled the Nazi's or the pogroms or whatever. Its wholly different to see my peers: educated, liberal, Americans in their 40's, with careers and families, disolve into the line of "the rabbis always said..." or "we were raised to think..."
What do you think now? Where is your information coming from? And who told you that Faux news was incorrect on most issues but the ONLY network that was truthfully reporting on Israel?
These are all things that Ive heard on a daily basis around here...and things that I never wanted to go into.
Part of it is my very real hurt from the Jews in my life making it clear to me that I was not a full fledged member of my father's family because my Mom is a Catholic. But this message also came from people who are "social Jews" and who never took the time to try to officially convert us, much less to attend any synagogues regularly themselves. But somewhere there is the idea of not only having male heirs, and that sexism thing, and also having real Jew male heirs, that seems to jump across all logical reality and rest somewhere in between the cracks of the Western Wall....
"Thank you god that I was not born a woman..."
Yeah, right...good luck with that, bub!


If you are an immigrant you love and support your home country, but you also embrace your new country as your own...especially a couple of generations down the line?
I am an American out of Russia and Germany and Sweden and off the Fucking Mayflower, and Im a little tired of people funneling money to other countries for whatever reasons that are not about actually about helping people for humanitarian reasons!
Lets be clear once and for all about what our reasons are for supporting Israel or Darfur or Iraq and Iran, and if they make any sense along the way, OK?
You left your family behind to try to blaze a new trail in a country where there is more (though less and less) opportunity than where you came from? OK...
You want to spread our brand of democracy to a country that hasn't asked for it? Not OK...
You want oil, military bases, and land for your own land....I can understand that on some level, so OK...(it at least makes some basic sense from a certain point of view.)
You think that a holocaust is coming to your people and you think that God gave you the land of your God, where all sorts of religious things happened and that were written on stone and on papyrus leaves ...and then told through generations...and then some thousands of years later the UN decided in some back room dealings to GIVE you God's lands officially....and you have to flee there because you are unsafe here...?...less safe than any other group in particular?
Its a little far fetched to me....a long religious war ensues and no one will ever back down? Not OK....
I will be able to accept it all when this guy and his family, and Joe Lieberman and his family, move to Israel and give up their American citizenship in order to protect what God has left to them. Otherwise, what is it exactly that Joe is talking about here?
I cant embed the video here yet, but the link just above will take you to Joe's comments on Iran and our need to go in there and show them who is boss...not like, a ground war mind you...but use of force in one way or another , regardless of what it would mean to the balance of things, diplomacy, our inept leaders...just use this fucked up administration to carry out what is the Jewish line around here, and probably elsewhere; Iran is a danger to Israel and America needs to take it out.
Screw the crap about military bases and whatever else Joe is spewing...he is full of lies...and Mark Green has removed Sam Seder, Marc Maron, and anyone else from the airwaves who will speak out about this...(well, maybe Randi....but last I heard, she wont speak about Israel.)

I have no real dog in this fight except that I want to stop the war, bring our troops as close to home as we can, as quickly as we can...and I really want to see America start working on border security, import-export security, and re-regulation of big business and the divide between the CEO level and the workers in this country...the Two Americas as John Edwards would say....health care...and a turn towards a basically more socialist form of democracy. The unregulated, unexamined growth of capitalism has been a disaster, and its not gonna work...so, again, we have to turn this boat around before it hits an iceberg.
I think that ultimately, even in these strange times that we're living in, the human suffering involved in this piece of things already is more than is morally acceptable to most Americans.



Yesterday and last night I kept trying to write a post here that was going round and round in some fun house mirror-broken image that life seems to have become for me these days. I was talking about how maybe none of this or anything is real, and how it seems almost like a grand kabuki dance representing the deep dysfunction inherent in the human condition (yes I have been reading a very old translation of Bernard Henri Levy's Barbarism With a Human face...and yes, I know that its probably not the best thing for me to read right now...) ...and also a repeat of what this species seems to do over and over again...Which has something to do with the definition of insanity, right? But its not even the expectation of a different outcome, because this time God is real, and this guy knows what hes doing, that has me in a twist; its the weakness with which we take for granted the swarm of paparazzi on the screeching Hilton's car, her anguished face and mental illness splashed across the Post, because this picture is what WE want...we want it; and what the public wants , the public gets...the specter of McCain AGAIN given feature slot o' Sunday time to spew HIS garbage......
AND the return to negotiation of a political party that we put into power recently to go and do our bidding, as if we really didn't mean END THE WAR!....and its the very loud hole in our press coverage of how devastating the worldwide outcry against America has been as Bush makes his tour through the waning moments of "power," or whatever they are calling that particular psychopathology anymore. Lame sociopath....
Friday, somewhere between Kieth Olbermann pulling his ear piece out, because he too is 3 weeks behind on the Sopranos and he didn't want to hear the guest commentator's wrap down of the last few episodes, and midnight, I decided to stop what I was trying to do and watch a mini Sopranos marathon so I could stop humming loudly whenever it comes up on whatever new show I'm watching....and to avoid the inevitable spoilers for the rest of the week as this thing gets deconstructed.
And there, in the last episode when the three pronged death plot is put in place, and slo-mo blood flies, between the glaring mention of Sylvio being in "critical condition," (because Miami Steve keeps his options open,) and Tony going to sleep cradling his uzi (...in what I think might have been his mother's bed...?...ah, who knows?....,)I was again struck by the universality of what seems to be basic human animal instinct...and just a little bit of history repeating...
These people are not my friends and I don't think Ill miss them. I grew up with one too many people like that in Brooklyn.... and when it comes down to the cocktail party where a dazed and confused Melfi is, finally, after all of these years, looking at the situation and saying to herself..." you think so?...hmmm..maybe I'll have to check that out..." Like that was the first time she really looked into what was going on...? PLEASE!!...I just sort of lost it. If it wasn't so true to life, or what passes for MY life, it would be laughable.
You know who she reminds me of? Condi Rice!! A highly educated puppet for whatever leader makes her feel like a woman out of control and a man in control all at the same time....and she falls for it hook, line, and sinker...its fascinating and powerful and sexy and fun....and it has an ideology and intellectual basis that gives it some reason...but does that make it right? And has she or any of us struggled enough with the ramifications of entertaining the emotional basis of this type of pathological, aberrant behavior, explained away as necessity or illness or whatever...and is it aberrant behavior anyway?...and how does that make YOU feel?.... But what compels her to set aside common logic and treat this guy, even after she realized what was going on? Would it be the same if he was, say, a pedophile as opposed to a murderer and crime boss? Both types of sociopaths cant be cured and use the psychological system to strengthen themselves...so why would one be acceptable and one not?...ah, its social....:
The sleazy Bogdonovitch, playing himself, no doubt, uses Melfi's dangerous patient as a titillating cocktail conversation booster for his own bored and boring purposes. ( Hey now, there is a shrink I'd like to confide in...not!!...but then I thought he was reprehensible from the get go.) Suddenly then, in the light of her half drunk shrink friends, she could see clearly the line she had been straddling for too many years. ...or at least the need to read the fucking study...sheesh!
As is usual in these matters, the shrink is more fucked up than the patient...or was it supposed to be partly about that anyway? Like, were we supposed to take her seriously all of these years?

How does one put one foot in front of the other, moving forward with such surety, effecting the world, but not ever stopping to look at what the repercussions are?....like, what if you're wrong, or you missed something? Does it take a huge table of your peers gossiping snarkily to make you go, "hmmmm....I should look at that." What is it with shrinks these days?


And then, what of George Bush and his crew...his doctors, his psychopharmacologist, his advisors..? The bubble of yes-men has surely broken enough that he can see who is screaming at him to look closer at what the people want....or, at least to look at his own legacy, if nothing else!
What is that all about if not the ongoing delusion of a sociopath and his enablers?

So, like a count of the dead in Iraq since the Democrats decided to vote to fund the surge, maybe Melfi has to take a look at who got killed while she, a professional with a duty to report abuse or murder, turned a blind eye and, in fact, supported his sociopath tendencies.
And Melfi is not real...its the Bushies who need to take a good hard look at themselves and, for lack of a better explanation of what the fuck has happened to this country, go directly to jail...or at least step down and slither away like the snakes they are.

If this is some sorta Kabuki representing all of man's history from the primordial ooze, to the intelligent design mid-section (which people sorta halfway have to believe when the alternative is the nothing but blackness beyond this place,) to George Jetson's "Jane, stop this crazy thing!" its a slo-mo dance of the absolute ...denial and power and surety to a fault, yet all based in fear and control.

This is the ME generation's reality, which is that individual interest seems to trump even the survival of the species or planet....so ME must go on somehow and you...um...ME... should be able to take it with you/ME/I.
And nothing is really wrong with that because its instinct to feather your nest at the expense of others...and that is a great argument for Darwinism in and of itself! Self delusion about you and your kind does nothing if not move evolution along in one way or another.

But, Don't we wreck everything ultimately? ...and dont we do it over and over again in a predictable manner?
And sometimes it seems to me that its the artists, the empathetic commentators, the emotional liabilities, who are not bound to survive in the grand scheme of things. People who think and feel are probably on the way out, folks...surety is in, no matter what it takes down with it. As long as God is on my side, I know what to do...whats right...and I'll have fries with that!
That may be the base of the neocon movement and the mafia and humanity, when it comes down to it....
Ethics and morality and the endless agony of the poets...the philosophers and comics...gone!
Its hedge fund time, baby!!

I keep thinking that there is the possibility that they know something that we dont...and its probably that the niceness and order that we are trying to impose onto the barbaric animals that we really are,...impose rules by any means possible,...is folly. We are not built that way...and its not necessarily kindness and gentleness that is seen in the Bible, unless you pick and choose among some certain things that Jesus said in the New Testament...OK, OK, OK....
Maybe I'm delving a little too close to that all popular Catholic belief that mankind is born bad (bad, bad, bad!)....I don't mean that at all, (I only got that halfway anyway...the other half is Jewish neurosis; which maybe also translates to bad, but not fromt he same root....) I just mean that if we are to deny the base animal form of humans, we cant ever deal with the parts of ourselves that want to control all the oil in the world, much less the neighborhood and asbestos dumping.
As far as Tony Soprano being the everyman representing the neocon movement and their cluelessness about their own sociopath insides (...but then, I don't know how much sociopaths are really in touch with their insides at all, or how much they feel that the rules of society relate to them in particular,) I cant say much more,....
But I did want to say that that Jill bowled me over Saturday morning with her take on the state of things as seen through the Sopranos lens, over at Brilliant at Breakfast, and probably said alot of this more concisely than I ever could in my wandering wordiness.

So long Tony...if he lives or dies...well, I don't care, and I'm not so sure that is the point or if it matters anyway . It seems to me that the real essence of this whole thing with the family, the kids the pool, taking out the garbage, and living the "real life," is the image of Tony in the bed cradling his "gun"...Did anything thats happened over all these years make any difference in Tony at all? The therapy? The deaths? The attempted suicide by his son?....I don't think so...
I keep thinking that at the end of the last episode he will wake up from a long, long dream and put on his suit and go to his job as a stockbroker in Manhattan or something...wouldn't that be the cherry on the cake? The Who Shot J.R.? ...man, was this a big waste of time manipulation or what?
Have we really looked into ourselves and learned from Tony? Can you learn from a bozo sociopath?...just remember that no one ever really changes...ever...
I'm not saying that I haven't enjoyed the ride, and the cinematography and the scenery of my childhood...but I'm glad its over. Lets move on.

Big Love is back on Monday...the surge continues and no plans to pull out are forthcoming, I get the watch the entire Tudors season on DVD, and Big Brother is starting soon.
Not only that, the bird store is brimming with babies...pin feathered, half naked, squawking, screaming babies...(and Todd there at midnight feeding them, ...and hearing the squawking on the phone....and I can only equate it to having an infant human, in the exhaustion and circle running that goes on every spring in that world....)
And I need someone to come here and build me a little chicken coop (if you know of a carpenter who needs some work!) I want a couple of chickens.
And just now, in the supermarket parkign lot, a man with a "Jesus Saves" cap on came over to tell me that he could tell from my "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" bumper sticker that I would understnad about the chemical trails in the sky and the unmarked planes dumping chemicals over us...how the sky was trying so hard to rain...how he could see that I believed in the rapture and he was glad I did....and I just said that none of it mattered except that we have to end the war(s) and bring the troops home...sort the rest out later.
And he said, "you know, the first time I voted for Bush it was because I was convinced that he was a man of faith...it was completely about his religion...then I realized that he is not a religious guy. Who was it that said that when you get to heaven in the rapture the people there are not going to be who you thought would be there at all...?" I told him that I didnt believe in the rapture and that if there was any chance of any of these people being there that I will take my chances with the alternative...but that no God that I could ever imagine, determines the afterlife fortunes of one or another person based on some earthly ideal made up by...um...man!
something like that...I dunno...
The sky is full of chemicals and the internets have been down all day...and finally Dell and Cablevision have BOTH taken responsibility for the insane amount of tech problems that Ive been having here...so maybe the end times are near! I'll know when my network finally works smoothly that its time to prepare for the rapture...Until then, its just goona have to be some sort of backing up of that sucker until youre sure that its not goning to the big garbage can in the ether....(where it maybe belongs anyway...yeah!)