“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Emma Lazarus’ poem makes me tear up. I’m proud of America’s immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my grandparents fled Russia.

I am instinctively and emotionally pro-immigration. I enjoy living in a diverse and culturally rich atmosphere that is Los Angeles. But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals facts– some uncomfortable –about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. If we are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant demagogues, we have to acknowledge those facts.

Some Facts About Mexican Illegal Immigrants:

There are approximately 12 million unauthorized Latino immigrants living in the United States.

Mexico is by far the leading country of origin for U.S. immigrants, accounting for a third (32%) of all foreign-born residents and two-thirds (66%) of Latino immigrants. The U.S. is the destination for nearly all people who leave Mexico, and about one-in-ten people born there currently lives in the U.S.

The Los Angeles Times reports that over 6,000 migrants have died in the Arizona desert since the mid-1990s, when border enforcement in California was tightened and migration routes shifted east into barren, deadly territory.

The average wage in Mexico is about $4.15 an hour and those in the agricultural industry make even less. Individuals can barely survive on those wages and families cannot. Currently about 40% of the Mexican population is below the poverty line.

Once a Mexican immigrant successfully crosses the border into the United States, they generally have two main goals. Their first aim is to send part of their earnings back home to their family and their second goal is to bring more family members to the United States. Eventually they hope to gain permanent residency (green card) and possibly U.S. citizenship status. Other illegal immigrants come with a different purpose. They emigrate to the United States with the sole intention of finding a job that will allow them to save enough money to buy a house or set up their own business upon their return to Mexico. Whatever the specific intentions of the Mexican immigrant are, we can agree that their main desire is to come to the United States in search of a better life.

Immigrants prop up metro areas. Despite a slowdown fueled by fewer jobs in construction and service industries, immigrants are helping metro areas such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and New York make up for the net loss of residents to other parts of the USA.

O’Reilly, Dobbs and other hate-fear mongers are wrong that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Administration, undocumented immigrants pay all kinds of taxes, including individual income, sales, property, and social security taxes.

Fiscal Implication of Mexican Immigrants From the Center for Immigration Studies (2004):

Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.

Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).

With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their legal status or heavy use of most social services.

On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.

Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth. Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them.

If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion.

Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal status — what most illegal aliens would become — can access government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments.

Although legalization would increase average tax payments by 77 percent, average costs would rise by 118 percent.

The fact that legal immigrants with few years of schooling are a large fiscal drain does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a net drain — many legal immigrants are highly skilled.

The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.

While immigration may have raised overall income slightly (about 1%), many of the poorest native-born Americans are hurt by undocumented immigrants. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. A study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 % more if it weren’t for Mexican immigration.

It is intellectually dishonest to say that immigrants do “jobs that Americans will not do.” This is true in good times and more so in these times. The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays — and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.

Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they’re here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country’s experience with immigration, “We wanted a labor force, but human beings came.” Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don’t pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.

From Paul Krugman, writing about the Bush-proposed “guest worker” program and about the fiscal issues  in a 2006 editorial:

Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.

We shouldn’t exaggerate these problems. Mexican immigration, says the Borjas-Katz study, has played only a “modest role” in growing U.S. inequality. And the political threat that low-skill immigration poses to the welfare state is more serious than the fiscal threat: the disastrous Medicare drug bill alone does far more to undermine the finances of our social insurance system than the whole burden of dealing with illegal immigrants.

But modest problems are still real problems, and immigration is becoming a major political issue. What are we going to do about it?

Realistically, we’ll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush’s plan for a “guest worker” program is clearly designed by and for corporate interests, who’d love to have a low-wage work force that couldn’t vote. Not only is it deeply un-American; it does nothing to reduce the adverse effect of immigration on wages. And because guest workers would face the prospect of deportation after a few years, they would have no incentive to become integrated into our society.

What about a guest-worker program that includes a clearer route to citizenship? I’d still be careful. Whatever the bill’s intentions, it could all too easily end up having the same effect as the Bush plan in practice — that is, it could create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers.

Earlier this month, President Obama held meetings on immigration reform with immigrant advocates and labor and religious leaders, with Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham, and with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He came out reiterating his “unwavering” commitment to comprehensive immigration reform.

Some Immigration Reform Proposals

DREAM Act

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) creates a path to citizenship for undocumented students who entered the U.S. as children, provided they have finished high school and attend college or serve in the military. Passing the DREAM Act would better enable hardworking students to attend college, find good jobs and further contribute to our economy and society. The DREAM Act would not completely overhaul our immigration system. The bill would only affect students who entered the U.S. before 16 years of age; the Senate version includes an extra requirement that the student be under age 35.

An estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate high school each year to face an uncertain future in this country. Only 10 to 20 percent of those who graduate high school are able to enroll in higher education. Though the bill directly affects a fraction of the undocumented population, it’s in our shared interest to see that it goes forward. Recent analysis from DMI’s Cristina Jimenez shows that passing the DREAM Act would boost our economy, strengthen our workforce and expand the middle class.

Schumer & Graham

Senator Chuck Schumer has been deputized by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  — himself a strong advocate of reform — to be point man on this issue for the Democratic Majority. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has worked with Schumer for more than a year to create a bipartisan immigration reform bill.

Not much detail has been released about the Schumer/Graham proposal, but it is likely to track fairly closely to previous bipartisan efforts at compromise:

1) Stepped up border and interior enforcement targeting smugglers, criminals, and employers;

2) A worker verification system to allow employers to easily determine who can and can’t work legally in the U.S.;

3) A process for getting people who have been waiting for permission to come to the U.S. legally through the processing backlog that can stretch to 20 years currently;

4) Legal immigration channels for workers and family members as an alternative to illegal immigration; and

5) A requirement that people who are in the country illegally register with the government, pay fines, pass a criminal background check, and fulfill other criteria to get legal status that would eventually allow them to apply for U.S. citizenship like other immigrants.

Representative Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat of Illinois, already has offered a bill that legalizes immigrants who show that they have been employed, pay a $500 fine, learn English and undergo a criminal background check, among other things.

Wrong Immigration Reform

Two words: Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Arpaio in the federal 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration agents in street patrols and in jails. This program must stop. Sheriff Arpaio has a long, ugly record of abusing and humiliating inmates. His scandal-ridden desert jails have lost accreditation and are notorious places of cruelty and injury. His indiscriminate neighborhood raids use minor infractions like broken taillights as pretexts for mass immigration arrests.

To the broader question of whether federal immigration enforcement should be outsourced en masse in the first place, the answer again is no. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano unveiled a plan to repair the rotting immigration detention system. The Bush administration had outsourced the job to state, local and private jailers, with terrible results: inadequate supervision, appalling conditions, injuries and deaths.

Napolitano wants to centralize federal control over the system that handles detainees. But she insists on continuing to outsource and expand the flawed machinery that catches them, including 287(g) and a system of jailhouse fingerprint checks called Secure Communities, which increase the likelihood that local enforcers will abuse their authority and undermine the law.

Programs like 287(g) rest on the dishonest premise that illegal immigrants are a vast criminal threat. But only a small percentage are dangerous felons. The vast majority are those whom President Obama has vowed to help get right with the law, by paying fines and earning citizenship. Arpaio and other Nazis like him should be stopped by reform, and they must be.

Why Democrats Should Pick A Fight On Immigration

Finally, there are very practical political reasons for the Democrats to spearhead immigration reform. Besides the clear moral arguments for fixing our corrupt, exploitive system, the long-term politics are plain: Latino communities nationwide are young, growing and increasingly ready to show up at the polls. And the certain-to-be xenophobic reaction of the GOP’s loudest voices today will not only motivate Latinos this November, it might alienate independent voters as well.

Obama’s embrace of immigration reform helped elect Democrats  in 2008. Latino voters arguably made victory possible in places as disparate as Indiana and Florida, and their political networks have only matured since. Throughout both the South and the Midwest, motivated Latino voters can strengthen Democrats’ hand. If the Democrats fail to address the immigration issue – an issue to which Latino voters are particularly sensitive and which helped drive their increased turnout in 2008 – the Democrats face even longer odds with voters in 2010.

President Obama is determined to pass immigration reform, but has acknowledged the challenges, saying, “I’ve got a lot on my plate.” He added that there would almost certainly be “demagogues out there who try to suggest that any form or pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable.”

Almost 400,000 immigrants were deported last year. Those deportations touch legal immigrant families — voters — throughout America, and they increase the pressure building within the Latino community for action. On March 21st, a huge national march will take place on the Mall to express the frustration of the immigrant community that even as deportations continue, there has been little action on immigration reform. The American people have been far out front of the politicians on this issue, overwhelmingly supporting comprehensive reform. Washington can still catch up.

Unlike healthcare reform where I have spent many hours researching the issue, I know very little about the substance of financial reform.  My gut says it would be better to have an independent agency for Consumer Financial Protection but some make an argument that a financial protection agency would be better funded under the Fed.  The first question that comes to my mind is why then did the Fed miss the financial crisis?  I am not a Fed woo woo by a long shot I just think of it as another institution that needs to be improved but there is nothing inherently evil with it and going back to some kind of precious commodity type of backing is far from realistic.  So I’m open to the Fed having jurisdiction over financial protection I just hope it’s done right with proper legislation, oversight and execution.

I can’t give many more details about Senator Dodd’s legislation but it does contain some language Paul Volker has promoted to help and prevent the “too big to fail” from happening in future.  The debate is starting and I’m sure the legislation is not enough reform for progressives and too much for conservatives but at this point in our political discourse I personally don’t view those perceptions as reasons to be against this legislation right now.  Probably if the HCR push ends soon one way or another I’ll research the issue more intensely.  Like every issue I like to cut through the partisan bullshit and decide for myself.  I also realize that even my expectations like on healthcare reform are not going to be realized in the first step because of the influence of lobbyists and the corrosive nature of our political discourse.

Click here to read the full article which contains a copy of the proposed legislation.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Monday unveiled a sweeping financial regulatory reform bill designed to prevent future Wall Street bailouts and to protect borrowers with a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau housed at the Federal Reserve.

During a press conference at the Capitol, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee emphasized the need for consumer protection, adding that the financial crisis and resulting recession were caused by predatory lending.

“The root cause of our economic crisis was a lack of consumer protection,” Dodd said, emphasizing that the current regulatory structure is “hopelessly inadequate.”

The consumer protection bureau would have authority to write rules governing all entities — banks and nonbanks — as well as the “authority to examine and enforce regulations for banks and credit unions with assets over $10 billion and all mortgage-related businesses,” according to a summary of the bill.

President Obama praised the proposed bill, calling it “a strong foundation to build a safer financial system” and saying that it provides the government with “essential tools to respond in a financial crisis, so that we can wind down and liquidate a large, interconnected failing financial firm. It allows us to protect the economy and taxpayers so that we can end the belief that any firm is “Too Big to Fail”.

Elizabeth Warren who proposed the CFP agency had this to say about Senator Dodd’s legislation.

Since bringing our economy to the brink of collapse, Wall Street has spent more than a year and hundreds of millions of dollars in an all-out effort to block financial reform. Despite the banks’ ferocious lobbying for business as usual, Chairman Dodd took an important step today by advancing new laws to prevent the next crisis. We’re now heading toward a series of votes in which the choice will be clear: families or banks.

I will not qualify her statements like some progressive pundits have so just present it and you can make your own opinions.

Well, looky here: a Public Option in the first draft of the House reconciliation bill (un-numbered yet), pg. 116, Subtitle B, Public Health Insurance Option.

http://budget.house.gov/doc-library/FY2010/03.15.2010_reconciliation2010.PDF

I suppose, if you are like me and favor a Public Option, we shouldn’t get too excited: the vote is a whole week away and Democrats are in charge…

(and maybe we should keep this under our hats until it passes just to be on the safe side.)

Texas has just officially doomed generations of their children to ignorance and being oddities in their grasp of history and reality…because neither of those items supported the political views of conservatives and Republicans.

I normally keep my quotes to a minimum but there is so much outrageousness here, I couldn’t pare it down:

From the NY Times:

Texas Conservatives Win Curriculum Change

By James C. Mckinley Jr.
March 12, 2010

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

Efforts by Hispanic board members to include more Latino figures as role models for the state’s large Hispanic population were consistently defeated, prompting one member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out of a meeting late Thursday night, saying, “They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist.”

“They are going overboard, they are not experts, they are not historians,” she said. “They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world.”

There are seven members of the conservative bloc on the board, but they are often joined by one of the other three Republicans on crucial votes. There were no historians, sociologists or economists consulted at the meetings, though some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

Dr. McLeroy, a dentist by training, pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the nonviolent approach of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

“Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians as well as Japanese were interned in the United States during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Terri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.

Even the course on world history did not escape the board’s scalpel.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?scp=1&sq=texas%20education&st=cse

This could be a very large post, but I will try to boil it down to what I perceive as the essentials.

What is the REAL problem with health care in America?  I believe the lack of socialized medicine is not the problem.  Or, more precisely, socialized medicine is not the cure.  Here’s one tiny example of how private health care can actually work.

I recently joined a medical group on the West coast of America called Kaiser Permanente.  They are a single payer non profit system.  Given their status, they have every reason to digitize their records and introduce efficiency at every stage of the operation to save money.  To date, they have achieved their goal.  This story is about my relationship with Kaiser and how they have responded to my needs.  I make no claims that my experience is homogeneous.   I’m sure some of the more taxed Kaiser facilities will give different experiences.

That being said.  I’ve had two experiences that have molded my view of this particular organization.  The first was with my wife.

Cindy is my wife.  One night, she woke me from sleep writhing in agony.  She felt like she wanted to vomit and her whole body was cramping.  It was horrible to witness.  I walked her out to my car and drove her to the Hayward emergency Kaiser facility.  Not 10 minutes away.  I slid her Kaiser ID card through the magnetic reader and the printer spit out a tag that I wrapped around her wrist.   Within 5 minutes, a nurse guided us into a private room where we were asked a series of questions including how much pain was being experienced and where.  Immediately, the nurse directed us out a door opposite the one we came in which was the emergency room proper.  Cindy was laid down on a gurney and administered morphine.  Then a cart came with an ultrasound device and they checked the area where she was experiencing pain.   It turns out she had an attack of pancreatitis (sic?).  During all this, her primary care physician was contacted at home and was administering advice on how to deal with this including an immediate MRI.  Cindy got the MRI and after all was said and done, she was fine and the pain was gone.  This all happened in a period of about four hours.

I challenge a for profit hospital to do the same thing as efficiently.

My next experience was with myself.  I had a bad blood sugar attack one day that led me to the Dr’s.  My hyperglycemia was wreaking havoc with my system causing me to be confused.  I was concerned that I was getting adult onset diabetes.   So, I approached my Dr and using a computer he prescribed an entire blood analysis.  He checked off everything from liver and kidney function to blood sugar and cholesterol.  Oh, and he threw in vitamin D deficiency among others.  I walked out of the Dr office and across the court to the lab and waited five minutes for my name to be called.  Then they took three blood tests and had me deliver a urine sample.

This is where the genius of Kaiser comes in.  within two hours, my blood tests started streaming into my email box.  The exact test results along with what is considered acceptable ranges.  Also, a hotlink to a web site that explains the test itself.  These tests are also copied to my Dr who then calls me and follows up with solutions to my health problems.  ALL AUTOMATICALLY.

Kaiser is a machine.  The perfect example of how health care needs to be ran in this country.

Kaiser is affordable.  Kaiser has no limits on what kind of service you can have and for how long.  Kaiser delivers it’s own meds so it controls costs.  It’s perfect.  One time I actually emailed my Dr when my lower back went out and he simply electronically ordered vicodin and a muscle relaxer delivered to the pharmacy.  No Dr visit needed.

The whole point of this is this:  If government sponsored health care was this efficient, they could cover everyone for little to no cost.   The fantastical solution to our health care problems doesn’t need to be an elaborate capital hill solution.  it just needs to be ran in an efficient manner by efficient people.

Trying to refine these a bit..

lemme know what you think..

be BRUTAL!!!!

..

..

..

On SARAH PALIN:

She said she’d attend the Convention.

Old Sarah still craved the attention.

She wrote on her hand,

copped one hundred grand,

then “donated” it to her own pension.

= = = = = = = = = =

She calls for a new revolution,

“We must ply to the strict Constitution”!

When asked what that meant,

her knowledge was spent..

and the rest was just more noise pollution.

= = = = = = = = = =

On CHENEY:

There once was a V.P. named Cheney,

Whose “vision” was bitter & grainy.

He tortured & swore

that we needed a war

but he turned out much worse than Khomeini.

= = = = = = = = = =

(variation)

There’s a putrid old fascist named Cheney

who delights in the concept of pain, he

denies that the cries

that his try’s to baptize

reap just more useless lies than Khomeini.

= = = = = = = = = =

On RACHEL MADDOW vs AARON SCHOCK:

There’s a vapid young freshman named Aaron

whose worldview is woefully barren.

He was clearly miscast

and was tied to the mast

When “Rach” made his world Sub Saharan.

= = = = = = = = = =

There once was a Gooper named Schock

whose spiel was a typical crock.

It was almost a crime

he was given the time

to watch Maddow just clean out his clock.

= = = = = = = = = =

On JOHN BOEHNER:

There’s a GOP lackey named Boehner

Who, for all intents, looks like a stoner,

He’d forgotten his task

to top his hip flask

filled entirely of orange skin toner.

= = = = = = = = = =

The Minority Leader was shaken.

A finger wagging was taken.

So he hemmed & he hawed,

‘tho his snit was a fraud

‘Cause he knew he was no Francis Bacon.

= = = = = = = = = =

On the CPAC CONVENTION:

So, they’re holding a cute, little meeting

where Limbaugh will keep overeating.

Beck will chalk the same croc

Dick will stock an ad-hoc

with Uranium needing depleting.

= = = = = = = = = =

On REPUBLICAN OBSTRUCTION:

All they want is to block & obstruct

any progress they feel should be chucked.

They’d rather still stay

then betray their cliche

of a time when their “values” just sucked.

= = = = = = = = = =

They bleat & they fete for “more jobs”.

They lob “blobs of green gobs” at the mobs.

Yet when Bills are proposed

their minds stay clamped closed

so they’ll recommence humping Lou Dobbs.

= = = = = = = = = = =

On HEALTH CARE REFORM:

They strive for a new “Waterloo”

by giving our Health Bill the flu.

But their pale rail will fail

as this ship has set sail

so we’ll bid their stale milieu adieu.

= = = = = = = = = = =

The wingers were set to make merry..

Our Bill they were ready to bury.

But then came this “twist”,

Some new grain for the grist.

Punked AGAIN, were they?

“Yes indeed, VERY!”

= = = = = = = = = = =

On GLENN BECK:

There’s this broadcast bufffoon known as Glenn,

who prays to the DEV!L (amen!).

He insights racial fights

‘tll some fan kills non-whites

which come to pass not “if” but WHEN.

= = = = = = = = = =

On NEWT GINGRICH:

There’s a throwback right winger named Newt

whose delusions remain so acute

that he inks what he thinks

will prove links he thinks stinks

but his foot, in the end, he will shoot.

= = = = = = = = = =

On BIPARTISANSHIP, the GOP CAUCUS & the HEALT CARE SUMMIT:

“Can’t we all get along?”, asked the Pres..

but they couldn’t care less what he says.

They’ll admit they don’t fit

& will quit with a snit

just like Lucy & Desi Arnaz.

= = = = = = = = = =

(variation)

“Let’s discuss this out front”, said the Pres..

but they couldn’t care less what he says.

When they cease to transmit,

they just quit with a snit

just like Lucy & Desi Arnaz.

= = = = = = = = = = =

On RON PAUL:

There once was a looney named Paul

who would like-minded loonies entrall.

He’d replace the black race

just in case they’d erase

his delusional masquerade ball.

= = = = = = = = = =

On COLIN POWELL’S DISCLOSURES:

We had a great General named Powell

who needed to throw in the towel.

His supply of a lie

went awry (my oh my)

Now he’s paying Dick back with a vowel.

= = = = = = = = = =

On JIM BUNNING:

There’s a putrid old winger named Bunning

who feels unemployed people need shunning.

His crusade to cease aid

I’m afraid did cascade

to his running when people came gunning.

= = = = = = = = = =

On JOHN KYL:

= = = = = = = = = =

There once was a winger named, KYL

who was to all working people hostile.

He believes they are thieves

as he weaves his pet peeves

into a mountainous steaming coiled pile.

= = = = = = = = = = =

&.. last but not least.. BART STUPAK:

A Congressional throwback named Stupak

who constantly flacks through his butt-crack

his tack to set back

womens rights with a whack

is just merely a hack at his nut-sac.

==

Yes this ad trying to destroy the democratic process was actually linked on a so called progressive website. I could be wrong but I doubt even people who want to kill the bill out of principle on the left don’t want to block the democratic process. I really don’t know what to say but this is way too over the top.

Please keep this in Speakers Corner.

I’m busy. We don’t want somebody sitting back saying you’re not holding the mop the right way.

Why don’t you grab a mop? Why don’t you help clean up?

“You’re not mopping fast enough.”

“That’s a socialist mop.”

Grab a mop! Let’s get to work.  ~~President Barak Obama

The American people by a popular majority of more than eight million votes selected as their President a candidate who had been attacked by his Republican foe as a radical who “began his campaign in the liberal left lane of politics and has never left it.”

If only. In truth, Barack Obama was never the Mao in pinstripes that the rightwing attack machine conjured up. His record on Capitol Hill was never “more liberal than a Senator who calls himself a socialist [Vermont's Bernie Sanders],” as John McCain wheezed at the last stops of a dying campaign. And he has never even been in competition for the title bestowed upon him by former Senator Fred Thompson during last summer’s Republican National Convention: “the most liberal . . . nominee to ever run for President.”

Thompson had apparently forgotten not just George McGovern but Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis, all of whom sought the Presidency as more left-leaning contenders than did Obama in 2008. And, as McGovern, an able historian, himself reminds us: Franklin Roosevelt put contemporary Democrats to shame when it came to embracing and advancing radical notions.

For we Liberals and Progressives, who find ourselves moving from the easy opposition stance of the Bush-Cheney horror to the more challenging position of dealing with the first Democratic President elected with something akin to a mandate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, it is important to see Barack Obama for who he is and his administration for what it can be. The best way to do this is by hearing the President in his own words.

After he secured the delegates required to claim the Democratic nomination, Obama found himself at a town hall meeting in suburban Atlanta, where he was grilled about whether having run as a primary season Progressive he was now shifting to the center.

The Senator was clearly offended by the suggestion.

“Let me talk about the broader issue, this whole notion that I am shifting to the center or that I’m flip-flopping or this or that or the other,” he began. “You know, the people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.”

“I am somebody who is no doubt Progressive. I believe in a tax code that we need to make more fair. I believe in universal health care. I believe in making college affordable. I believe in paying our teachers more money. I believe in early childhood education. I believe in a whole lot of things that make me progressive.”

I believe him. Those were not casually chosen words. Barack Obama knows exactly what it means to say he is a “Progressive,” and he actually understands the subtle nuances of the American left. This is a man who moved to Chicago to be part of the political moment that began with the 1983 election of leftie Congressman Harold Washington as the city’s first African American mayor, who studied the organizing techniques of Saul “Rules for Radicals” Alinsky, who worked with proudly radical labor leaders to defend basic industries and avert layoffs, who used his Harvard-educated legal skills to fight for expanded voting rights, who was mentored by civil libertarian legislator and federal judge Abner Mikva, who discussed the intricacies of Middle East policy with Edward Said and Rashid Khalidi, and who learned about single-payer health care from his old friend and neighbor Dr. Quentin Young, the longtime coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program. And, famously, Obama did not just make anti-war sounds before Iraq was invaded, he appeared at an anti-war rally in downtown Chicago with a “War Is Not an Option” sign waving at his side.

Barack Obama ran for the Illinois state senate as a candidate endorsed by the New Party, the labor-left movement of the mid-1990s that declared “the social, economic, and political progress of the United States requires a democratic revolution in America-the return of power to the people.” In those days, he was blunt about his desire to move the Democratic Party off the cautious center where Bill Clinton had wedged it. When he positioned himself for a 2004 U.S. Senate run, Obama said that he saw Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold-the lone dissenter against the Patriot Act-as the best role model in the chamber.

I celebrated Obama’s election as a victory for what the late Paul Wellstone described as “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” But knowing the ideals and values of the left is not the same as practicing them. As a Senator, Obama did not take Feingold as a role model. In fact, they differed on essential constitutional, trade, and Presidential accountability issues, with Obama consistently taking more cautiously Centrist positions. One of Obama’s first votes in the Senate was to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Dr. Young wrote to his friend. “I told him I was disappointed in him,” the veteran campaigner for peace and social and economic justice recalled. “Rice was the embodiment of everything that was wrong with this Administration. So, he called me back and he said: ‘Why didn’t you pick up the phone and call me? Do you think Bush would ever send to the Senate a nominee for Secretary of State who I could vote for? I said: ‘You are the constitutional lawyer. It’s about advice and consent, right? You should have denied him your consent.’ ”

The lesson that should be taken away from the Rice vote, and from the disappointments that have followed it, ought not be that Obama is a hopeless case. In fact, quite the opposite. In that conversation with Young, Senator Obama outlined the relationship that the left ought to develop with President Obama.

Obama was nominated and elected in 2008 by Independents and by Progressives, both younger tech-savvy activists who made his candidacy an early favorite of the blogosphere and old-school liberal precinct walkers like me. The Senator won the Democratic nomination because he was the only first-tier contender who could say that he had opposed authorizing Bush to take the country to war with Iraq. In the Iowa caucuses that would define the 2008 race, those anti-war credentials, above all other factors, made the young Senator from Illinois a contender.

Similarly, as he campaigned in key states such as Wisconsin, Obama’s call for a new approach to free trade agreements and for massive infrastructure investments allowed him to secure backing from labor and liberal farm activists at critical stages in the process. The Progressives who committed to Obama early on were the essential foot soldiers of his long march through the caucuses, the primaries, and the fall campaign. These activists formed a base within the campaign and the Democratic Party, centered on –but not limited to –the Obama team’s open website and blog, www.MyBarackObama.com, which did not always cheerlead for the candidate. In June, when Obama broke with Feingold and other Senate Progressives to support Bush’s rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Senator felt enough heat from his own and independent netroots sites that he was compelled to explain himself, making what Obama described as a “firm pledge” that he would revisit the issue as President to shore up privacy protections.

What Internet activists such as OpenLeft.com’s Matt Stoller did during the FISA fight was roughly equivalent to what Obama told Dr. Young to do back in 2005: “Pick up the phone and call me.” Netroots activists made themselves heard and earned a response from then-candidate Obama. And they can do much more with respect to President Obama. The netroots can get the public engaged, but instead, they have made the public demoralized. Instead of providing suggestions, they have only complained. They have been reactive and not proactive.

One way to influence Obama and his Administration is to speak– not so much to him– as to America. Progressives need to get out ahead of the President. Highlight the right appointees and the right responses to deal with the challenges that matter most. Advance big ideas and organize on their behalf; identify allies in federal agencies, especially in Congress, and work with them to dial up the pressure for progress. I am not seeing much of that at all—but I am seeing a daily barrage of criticism. I am not seeing any discussion of what has been accomplished or what we specifically want accomplished. Indeed, we could take a lesson from rightwing pressure groups in their dealings with Republican administrations and recognize that it is always better to build the bandwagon than to jump on board one that is crafted with the tools of compromise. Don’t just critique, but rather propose.

Sixty activists from The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, Physicians for a National Health Program, and Progressive Democrats of America and allied groups met one week after Election Day at the AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington with Michigan Congressman John Conyers, an early Obama backer and the chief House proponent of real reform, to forge a Single-Payer Healthcare Alliance and plot specific strategies for influencing the new Administration and Congress.

The point wasn’t to teach Obama about single-payer. Seven years ago, he told the Illinois AFLCIO: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody . . . a singlepayer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

Since then, Democrats have taken back the House, the Senate, and the White House, but perhaps in name only. We have learned since the election that too many who call themselves Democrats are only Democrats on some issues. Single-payer was never on the table, and in retrospect, I can see why not. The President’s statements, his strategies, and his appointments evidence a caution born of the political and structural pressures faced by every President. Whether the previous, more progressive Obama still exists remains to be seen. I still believe it does. But the only way to determine if Obama really is the Progressive he claimed in 2008 to be is to push not just Obama, but the public and the media. I am frustrated every day when I watch the political pundits –and not only those on the Right—claim that the public is opposed to Health Care Reform. Why do they think Obama won? It was the central item of his agenda!

The often quoted example of Franklin Roosevelt is still  good to remember. After his election in 1932, FDR met with Sidney Hillman and other labor leaders, many of them active Socialists with whom he had worked over the past decade or more. Hillman and his allies arrived with plans they wanted the new President to implement. Roosevelt told them: “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

It is reasonable for Progressives to assume that Barack Obama agrees with them on many fundamental issues. He has said as much. It is equally reasonable for Progressives to assume that Barack Obama wants to do the right thing. But it is necessary for Progressives to understand that, as with Roosevelt, they will have to make Obama do it.

I have never worked so hard as a citizen to get what I voted for. That’s fine; this is the new reality. I can’t say how much difference the involvement of Progressive activists has made, because it is impossible to prove a negative. Where would we be if we’d never emailed and called our representatives? I believe HCR would have died last August. I believe there might not be a second stimulus. I think financial reforms would be forgotten–as well as a host of other mopping chores we still need to accomplish. Congress is cowardly and lazy, and if Progressives don’t push, be certain the Right will win. To paraphrase Roy Scheider’s character in the movie Jaws, “We’re gonna need a bigger mop.”

My first goal in this series is to define the Christian Right and provide some of their history.  The Christian Right has been insinuating themselves into public discourse since the late 70’s.  By the end of the 80’s it was generally assumed that the Christian Right consisted entirely of evangelical Protestants, however, many members of the Christian Right were not evangelical Protestants and many evangelical Protestants were not members of the Christian Right. The Christian Right drew support from politically conservative Catholics, Jews, Mormons and sometimes secularists. While some people may generalize that all evangelicals were grouped in with the Christian Right, that is not the case. In fact, there are many evangelical Protestants that have showed little interest in the Christian Right’s political goals. At this point I bet you are becoming a bit confused, but I promise I will clear it all up as I go along.

In my research I ran across a paper written by Harvey Wacker, Professor of the History of Religion in America at the Duke University Divinity School.  I found his detailed description to be fairly hard to follow but I will try to translate. In the simplest way possible think of two circles over lapped.  On one side you have Evangelicals on the other side non-Evangelicals, in the middle that intersects the two circles you have the Christian Right.  For the most part the Evangelicals do share the religious views, but not necessarily the political views of the Christian Right.  On the other side you have the non-Evangelicals who do not share the political or religious views of the Christian Right.  However on both sides you have individuals who are more stringent in their moral views or have decided they no longer share the political views of their group and align themselves with the Christian Right.  Some famous examples of these non-Evangelical members are Joe Lieberman and Bart Stupack.  Their political party, while Independant and Democrat respectively, does not mean they share all the party political views and in some cases they more closely align themselves with the Religious Right/GOP.  In the past 25 years or so Evangelicals have flocked in large numbers to the mega churches of the Christian Right, however I have found no research to imply that Catholics have converted as well.  The Catholic church has a group that label themselves “Charasmatic” and they could conceivably be the people who align themselves with the Christian Right(see link below).  In the 1990’s the Christian Right’s numerical strength leveled off but it’s influence in grass roots, national, state and local elections, or in setting political policies has remained in the forefront.  With the election of Barack Obama, their numbers seem to have increased again, however I found this interesting report in The Telegraph from almost a year ago.  It states that the Christian Right conceded defeat when Obama was elected.  I would be skeptical of such an admission being entirely truthful from the Christian Right but it is worth a read.

Catholic Charismatic Renewal

US Religious Right Concedes Defeat

The Christian Right emerged from both long-range and short-range changes in American life. The long-range lay in the growth of biblical higher criticism in the seminaries, the teaching of human evolution in public schools, and, after World War II, the real or perceived threat of Communism, and when Communisim no longer became a critical issue, the GLBT community. The more immediate beginnings of the Christian Right lay in the enormous cultural changes of the 1960s—civil rights, Vietnam protests, the alternative youth culture, the women’s liberation movement, the sexual revolution, and the rise of ancient religions from obscurity.  On the subject of obscure religions, I like to think an enlightened generation became more open to customs that in the past were foreign to us, we began to question authority and that certainly did not fit in with the Christian Right’s doctrine.  These transformations seemed to play out in the Supreme Court decisions that banned official prayer and Bible readings in the schools, legalized first trimester abortion,  and regulated government involvement in private Christian academies.  The Christian Right responsed quickly to counter these developments led by figures like Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly and Pat Dobson. The intention of these leaders was to defend their traditional Christian values. These values were; authority of the Bible in all areas of life, faith in Jesus Christ and the “born again” experience and biblical values in sexual and marital arrangements.. What differentiated these Christian Right leaders from other Christian leaders was their linking of traditional Christian values with a simpler small-town life, a life they felt was being pushed in to the past. The Christian Right proved so successful in translating its concerns to a wider audience that in 1976 the founder of the Gallup Poll pronounced that year the “year of the evangelical”.  National magazines(Time and Newsweek) ran cover articles on the insurgence of Evangelical Protestant Christianity, and even though many evangelicals did not share the goals of the Christian Right, as is usually the case with the national media they failed to note that distinction.

Then in 1979 Jerry Falwell established this major group of U.S. Christians into a political sledgehammer. As founding pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., Falwell had been meeting with theologians and lawmakers to plan how Christians could fight back. What were they going to base their fight against?  Liberals, Abortionists, the ACLU, Feminists, gay rights activists and the non-believing American population( In recent years what they term as “radical Islam” was added to this list).  In that year, Jerry Fallwell and his allies launched the Moral Majority. Falwell not only drew preachers from behind their pulpits into the world of electoral campaigns, but he also brought conservative politics into the church. He helped persuade thousands of pastors nationwide to conduct voter-registration drives in their congregations, contributing to a flood of new voters on the GOP rolls.  Sermons in his own church included instructions to his flock on how to spend their Sunday afternoons, campaigning against the Liberal Left.  He literally had his members going door to door with an anti-liberal pro-Republican message.  The Moral Majority platform mixed traditional Christian values with a strongly conservative world view:  They advocated for prayer in public school and more money for national defense.

After years of planning and consolidation the Christian Right helped Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential race, Falwell credited the Moral Majority and became the mouthpiece for these newly empowered Americans.  Up to this point they had felt their beliefs were disrespected and Falwell’s moral majority empowered them to rise up as activists.  However, they soon learned the limits of their political might, abortion remained legal and gay couples were continuing to gain greater acceptance, the ACLU was still strong, women continued to make strides in the fight for equality and Liberals did not fade away into that “dark night”.

In the late 1980’s, activists began to question Falwell’s ability to focus on politics and not fundraising for his religious work.  Critics to his right, who advocated old-style isolation from the broader culture, attacked him.  In the late 1980’s Fallwell disbanded the Moral Majority and concentrated his energies on Liberty University which he founded.  He did not completely disappear, and GOP political candidates continued to seek his backing and treated him as an elder statesman in the party.  And he opened the door for the Christian Coalition and others to take up where he had left off, continuing the political activism he started.  Liberty University may be the single most important contribution to the Christian Right movement.  With a reported 7,700 students, his Liberty University curriculum reflects the minister’s classic fundamentalist beliefs in an inerrant Bible and the imminent return of Jesus Christ(The Rapture) following seven years of tribulation to establish a 1,000-year kingdom. The school annually turns out young Christians who go on to become active in politics.

With all of this going on, the mainline Protestant establishment and the secular media were surprised by this conservative Christian insurgence and were asking who were these people and what were their ultimate goals?  To answer these questions, you need to understand the world-view of the Christian Right. As close as I could come, the following are four principles by which they operate, I found this description in the paper referenced above by Harvey Wacker, Professor of the History of Religion in America at the Duke University Divinity School:

The assumption that moral absolutes exist as surely as mathematical or geological absolutes constitutes the first. These moral absolutes include many of the oldest and deepest assumptions of Western culture, including the fixity of sexual identities and gender roles, the preferability of capitalism, the importance of hard work, and the sanctity of unborn life. More importantly, not only do moral absolutes exist, they are clearly discernible to any who wish honestly to see them.

The assumption that metaphysics, morals, politics, and mundane customs stand on a continuum constitutes the second cornerstone of the Christian Right’s world-view. Specifically, ideas about big things like the nature of the universe inevitably affect little things, such as how individuals choose to act in the details of daily life. And the reverse. What one thinks about the nature of God, for example, inevitably influences one’s decision to feed—or not to feed—the parking meter after the cops have gone home. Contrary to the facile assumption of mainline Protestants, influenced by the Enlightenment, it is not possible for the Christian Right to draw easy lines between the public and the private spheres of life. (There is evidence that the Christian Right abandoned Jimmy Carter at precisely this point—when he announced that abortion should be legally protected in the public sphere, although he would not countenance it in the private sphere of his own family.)

The Christian Right further assumes—this is the third cornerstone—that government’s proper role is to cultivate virtue, not to interfere with the natural operations of the marketplace or the workplace. The Christian Right remains baffled by the secular culture’s apparent unwillingness, on one hand, to offer schoolchildren firm moral guidance in matters of sexuality, truthfulness, honesty, and patriotism while, on the other hand, proving ever-so-eager to engineer the smallest details of the economy. Why should conscientious, hardworking law-abiding citizens be penalized by mazes of government regulations? Why should the irresponsible, the lazy, and the unpatriotic be rewarded by those same public institutions?

Finally, the assumption that all successful societies need to operate within a framework of common assumptions constitutes the fourth cornerstone. Since the Western Jewish-Christian tradition has provided an eminently workable premise for the United States for the better part of four centuries, it makes no sense to undermine these premises by legitimating alien ones. The key issue is not so much what would be permitted as what would be legitimated. Many, perhaps most members of the Christian Right feel that it is one thing to permit dissidents to live in peace, quite another to say that any set of values is just as good, or just as functional, as any other set.

With the election of George Bush, the Religious Right surged again.  When you look at their principles and then evaluate the Presidency of  George Bush you can see the hand of the Religious Right guiding his decisions.  They felt that without their support, he would not be in the position he was in, they were ready and waiting for their just reward and reward them he did.  Bush appointed staff throughout his administration that were fresh off the Christian Right farm.  Most notably interns and such from Liberty University.  But he did not stop there, John Ashcroft, AG was a very devout “born again” Christian.  We all know how he covered certain statues at the DOJ.  Donald Rumsfeld, SOD had no problem adding religious cover sheets on his war memos to the President and many Christian Right believers were assigned to the newly instituted Office of Faith Based Iniatives in the government, a result of an executive order by then President Bush.  And they took full advantage giving preference to like-minded believers.  In her book “Kingdom Coming,” Michelle Goldberg devotes a chapter to her research on the Faith-Based program. While she confirms many positive outcomes with clients, she concludes that there were myriad abuses in the program.  The chapter is entitled “The Faith-Based Gravy Train.” Her evaluation concluded that the federal government has become a major funder for the recruitment programs of the Christian Right.

Professor Wacker describes the Christian Right in this way:

The Christian Right has developed this sense that they are constantly under siege and are always defending their civilization from outside attack. Perils posed by the “mainstream media”, public schools, enemies of traditional family values are particularly sinister. They feel they are attacked constantly by the media and they especially object to the “perceived” way their children are treated in our schools. Their children are manipulated with the teachings of evolution, while “creationism” is not a part of the public school ciriculum, they are not allowed to pray in school, unless they do so privately. They claim the old-fashioned academic standards have been watered down and schools do not “clarify values” but rather teach students that their parent’s ideals are replaceable at will. They feel the traditional family is beseiged on all fronts, the media, schools and the government whose policies encourage abortion. They also believe that the ERA encourages divorce and fatherless families as it denies security to woman and corrodes the tether that has kept men bound to responsibilities of home and family.

In Glenn Greenwald’s book, A Tragic Legacy he addresses this mentality in terms of George Bush and his declining popularity:

The same people who had previously been writing books praising his greatness as a leader were denouncing him as a weak and stubborn failure, claiming his was a “closet liberal”.  This so-called conservative movement is also not responsible for the destruction brought on by the Bush White House and republican congress.  They claim the conservative movement is actually a victim because it’s lofty principles were betrayed and repudiated by the President and Congress from 2001 through 2007.  This, from the same Conservatives who were cheerleading the Bush administration and their ideas and policies until the wheels fell off and their ideas were repudiated.  Then they became the victims of their own actions.  They acted as though they stood by helplessly while Congress and Bush destroyed the country while the whole time they were anything but passive.

The Religious Right would have us believe that while they touted their direct access to a president who appointed people from their organizations up and down the White House staff that they had nothing to do with the utter failure of the Bush administration.

I wonder if many of these Christian Right leaders are now lamenting, “if only we had had more time”.  When I think of all the damage done to our country in 8 short years, I shudder to think what could happen if they come in to power again.

If we let our guard down and let these people slip under the radar, they will be back at it again in 2012.  They will use all their influence on the right to establish another candidate like George Bush.  All I can say is I will be waiting, watching and speaking out when that happens.

The second part of this series, The Mindset of the Religious Right will be posted on March 15, 2010.

Suggested Reading:

Glenn Greenwald – A Tragic Legacy – How A Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

Michelle Goldberg – Kingdom Coming

Dr. Robin Meyers – Why The Christian Right is Wrong

Chris Hedges – American Fascists – The Christian Right and the War on America

OK I refuse to watch Beck but from what I heard about Massa’s interview with him it was just strange in some ways. I know very little about Massa and he’s innocent until anything is proven but wow one of his answers sounded just like the excuses men who harass women in the work place make all the time.

Click here to read whole article.

In a one-hour interview with Beck that had much of the journalism world gawking and twittering in amazement, Massa offered a series of bizarre, even inexplicable explanations for his abrupt departure from office. Coming just hours after news broke that the he was under investigation for groping multiple male staffers, Massa insisted that the interactions were playful in nature, though inappropriate in retrospect.

“Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I should have never allowed myself to be as familiar with my staff as I was… I own this misbehavior.”

If that wasn’t enough of a head-scratcher, Massa grew even more cryptic and bizarre when the topic turned to his insistence that Democratic forces had forced him out of office — because they were so worried that he would derail health care reform. He did say that the decision “not to run again” was his and his alone — but he still pegged his immediate resignation to White House brow-beating.

And yet, the only evidence he could summon was basic and formulaic types of political pressure.

“It literally keeps me awake at night,” he said. “Glenn, I have had people come to me, union leaders — and I’m a union guy and I know you’re not — who look at me and said, ‘If you don’t support this health care bill, I will not contribute to your campaign’. Glenn that’s a bribe.”

Even Beck wasn’t buying it, pointing out that what Massa was talking about was, in fact, just lobbying.

His last comment sounds equally as strange. If labour unions can’t lobby to fight corporations than we are surely finished. ChoiceLady may have some insight into lobbying by left leaning and truly non-partisan organizations.

I will never quite understand the emotional reaction toward wolves.

There are people in the West who hate wolves. And I do mean hate. Pathological hate. It simply defies logic and reason.

There are people in the Rockies who believe — with all of their heart and soul — that wolves are quite literally evil.

Wolves are a huge controversy in the Rocky Mountains. Honestly, if you don’t live here, you have no idea how vitriolic it really is. It is something that runs deep in the Mountain Time Zone, psyche, and while I love Montana, this is something about the state I simply don’t understand … and probably never will. The wolf represents something totemic.

It reminds me of when I was a kid, people thought Killer whales were actually evil. They were killers, they ate people. When people learned more about them, they realized they are NOT evil (well, at least not the wild ones), and now killer whales are just about the most beloved animal in the Pacific Northwest. I have literally seen people burst into tears at the site of an orca.

National Geographic did an article this month that touched on the issue relatively well. I hope everyone checks it out. Though I think that article just kind of scraped the tip of the iceberg of the emotionalism (and lack of rationalism sometimes) in the West when it comes to wolves.

Personally, I love wolves. I think they’re cool. I think they’re beautiful. My first experience with wolves was when I was a little kid. We were fishing on Lac La Ronge in northern Saskatchewan and putt-putting past an island late in the evening near dusk. (It never gets completely dark in midsummer in northern Saskatchewan). On an island was a pack of wolves, all howling. To be perfectly honest, it terrified me. I was scared to death of those wolves, staring at us going by with their gleaming yellow eyes. There does seem to be something visceral there. Something buried deep within our DNA. Maybe it’s their yellow eyes. Something not rational. It was just wolves howling, nothing more. Maybe that explains the illogical hate that still goes on.

My second experience with a wolf was about 10 years ago. I was driving through central Oregon on one of the most empty highways on the planet between John Day and Burns, and a wolf ran across the road in front of me. I literally couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought it must have been a big German shepherd, way out in the Strawberry Range in the middle of nowhere, but its legs had been much too long. A German shepherd would not be 30 miles from the nearest town running around on stilts. It was definitely a wolf. There weren’t supposed to be any wolves yet in Oregon, but in the next few months, I started reading about wolf sightings in eastern Oregon, then finally I read about wolf sightings near Burns. I was one of the first people to ever spot a wolf in Oregon!

Wolves were removed from the Endangered Species List last year except in Wyoming — because Wyoming refuses to impose a valid wolf management plan. When wolves were briefly removed from the ESA protected list in Wyoming a year or two ago, Wyoming’s “management plan” turned out to be, “shoot all wolves on sight — NOW.” I am quite literally not exaggerating.

Montana’s system is more sane, though I believe hunters are being allowed to harvest too many wolves.
What isn’t sane is the rhetoric you see in the letters to the editor. Here are a few examples:

I recently received e-mails from friends showing mother cows with their rectums and female organs torn from their bodies by the wolves. These cows were lying down and the blood and raw meat trailed down on their legs. You could tell they were in awful pain. I am sure hundreds of our deer and elk are suffering the same way.
All you wolf lovers should take a good look at these pictures and share them with your families and your children, show them what these savage animals are really all about. Anyone that supports these evil acts are evil themselves. Society would not allow a domestic dog or a human to do these tortuous acts with out punishment.

“The only way is to get rid of them. We’re complaining about a ‘land piranha’ that was dumped on us and kills everything.”

At nights when I let my small dogs and cats out to do their business, I hear the howl of the packs from east and west. It scares the hell out my dogs and cats but generates true fear in me; what have we become, a sacrifice zone?

What about the ranch near Dillon, where last July wolves killed 26 domestic sheep in one night? In August they returned to “surplus kill” another 122 head. Since they didn’t eat them, we must assume they “honed” their instincts pretty well on those two occasions. Because we are now told they don’t kill for fun, must we assume that the wolves didn’t enjoy these killing rampages?
The uninformed may buy some of their poppycock, but the facts are that wolves are intelligent, capable killing machines that seem to enjoy doing what they do best – kill. Sometimes they even eat what they kill!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I actually have some sympathy for the ranchers who lose sheep or calves to wolves. Their losses are legitimate. There are legitimate questions about what is the “right” number of wolves in the Rocky Mountains and how well that coincides with ranching. Remember, some of these people have had their farms and ranches for over 100 years and I’m not looking to drive ranchers out of business. Truth be told, though, ranchers probably still lose more head to mountain lions, coyotes and loose dogs than they do to wolves.

I don’t have as much sympathy for hunters bitching about wolves taking elk. Big deal, when you buy a hunting license, that doesn’t give you a “right” to a kill. It gives you a right to “try.” Most biologists will tell you there are actually too many elk in the Rockies (there are definitely too many deer), but the bitchy hunters just want to make an easy kill while sitting in their backs of their pickups. Geez, they might actually have to hike a mile or two to bag an elk. And they might not bag one at all. Tough. I’m OK with hunting and hunters, but not whiny hunters bitching about wolves that are taking the elk they seem to think they’re entitled to.

But, it’s the rhetoric that wolves are somehow quite literally “evil,” that bugs me. The rhetoric that they’re completely obliterating the elk and deer (Oh, how did the elk and deer ever manage to survive for millennia around those devious wolves?); that wolves kill purely for pleasure; that they gonna start breaking into homes and eating babies next. And I am serious. I have actually heard things like that said.
Wolves are animals. Nothing more. They are predators. They eat meat. They don’t kill for pleasure. Killing is their job; it’s their niche. They’re very good at it. They’ve had about 500,000 years of evolution to learn how to do it.

Wolves are way down the list for most dangerous animals. A dog runnng loose in the neighbourhood represents more danger to you than a wolf. Wolves quite simply don’t kill people. It’s not in their DNA.

One person in recorded history has been killed by wolves (In northern Saskatchewan about 10 years ago, a guy was killed by a pack of wolves.) One. In recorded history. In the past 150 years. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been killed by mountain lions and bears. In that time span, thousands of people have been killed by domestic dogs. Probably hundreds have been killed by horses. The only animals I am afraid of when I go into the backcountry are mountain lions and grizzlies. Black bears are essentially wimps and don’t scare me too much, unless you get a sow and a cub, and wolves, I don’t have the slightest fear of. I really hope I have another experience with a wolf in the backcountry before my time is done.

I was originally going to write this series of articles in tandem with a partner however I have decided to  move ahead on my own.  I hope I am up to the challenge.   What I will attempt to do is provide some history to understand the Religious Rights beliefs and behavior, but will concentrate more on current activities of the people and organizations of the Religious Right so that you will be able to identify them and their players.  I have found this to be extremely beneficial when watching various newscasts.  It is amazing how many people who have a hidden agenda in any given subject are brought in to the discussions as “subject matter experts”.

It is my hope that when I have finished, I will have shown you a comprehensive picture of all the different factions and how they are ultimately connected.  I will give you a bit of history because that is important in understanding their beliefs and practices but will also help to unravel the secretness of their current day plans.

Their plans really started to gel back in the 70’s with the Moral Majority and The Christian Coalition and their push to insinuate themselves seriously into the political arena.  While The Family has worked the political scene for over 60 years, the religious right is fairly new to the scene in comparison.  While they came on to the scene at different times, their beliefs and intentions are one and the same.  At best, there is a very blurry line between them, but make no mistake they are working in conjunction to dominate the world at large.

What I plan to do is to break it down in to several mini articles, and these articles will be:

The History of the Christian Right

The Mindset of Christian Evangelicals

The Players, Their Organizations

How these Organizations Impact America and the International Community

The Consequences of their Influence/Reference Material

Wish me luck as I try to relay to you all I have learned through months of research and clicking on link after link to dig deeper in hopes of uncovering the truth.  And that truth is that these people are insinuated into every facet of our lives with a mindset of Dominionism and forcing their brand of religion on ultimately the Global community at large.  My first article of the series will be out this coming Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

I also want to give a big thanks to Adlib for helping me to name the series.  I am not having problems with content but was stuck on what to name the series.  Anyway, thank you Adlib, I knew your creative mind would come through for me.

Holi (pronounced ho-lee), also known as Phagwa, is marked at the transition from the Hindu months Phalguna to Chaitra. The Hindu calendar being lunisolar, this date changes every year. In 2010 it fell on March 1st. Besides India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, it is observed by the South Asian diaspora in all its regional varieties throughout Europe, America, Canada, Australia, in New Zealand, South Africa, and of course, Suriname, Trinidad, Mauritius and Fiji which are notable countries where South Asians were brought for labor and now constitute a significant proportion of the population.

Background.

Vaishnava

In a timeless past of the Satya Yuga, a ruler from a race of giants, known as Daityas, held power and riches unrivaled, except by his own attire. Thus, he was known as Hiranyakashipu, or, ‘Golden-robed’. After performing austerities (tapas) and being granted a boon by Brahma which had made him nearly invincible, the ‘Demon King’ attacked the Heavens, lorded over earth, demanded people worship him, and squandered his wealth on destruction and his own greatness, even challenging Lord Indra.

This all was at odds with his own son, Prahlada, a pious devotee of Lord Vishnu; a Vaishnava, whom sought to correct his father in the right virtues of a Maharaja and to guide him in Bhakti realization of the Supreme Soul by renouncing avarice and absorbing his thoughts on Him. This only made his father furious,

[T]he daitya ruler daunted upon seeing how the attempts ran futile, devised with determination for a variety of ways to kill him. Crushing him with an elephant, attacking with the king’s poisonous snakes, with spells of doom, throwing him from heights, conjuring tricks, imprisoning him, administering venom and subjecting him to starvation, cold, wind, fire and water and with piling rocks upon him, was the demon unable to put his son, the sinless one, to death… (Srimad Bhagavata Purana, 7.5.42-4)

And yet, the boy through his devotion to the Lord was protected from his father’s persecution time and time again. At long last his father’s wrath brought him before the court, and challenged to see this God who could challenge his own deific powers. He would try to kill his son himself this time, but before the boy’s head could be severed by his father who scoffed that no one could save him, God made his omnipresence known to all assembled from a pillar. The universe cracked open, and a cacophony of sounds and kaleidoscopic dimensions could be seen; the omnipresence of God within everything.  Narasimha, the fourth avatara of Vishnu, a hybrid with man’s torso and lion’s head then appeared from this pillar and mauled the Demon King Hiranyakashipu to shreds. The king had used a boon from Brahma gained by devotion for evil; thus God had to manifest himself in earthly form to correct this terrorizing and subjection of earth and heavens alike.

Among the schemes Hiranyakashipu hatched against his son was when he asked his sister to have Prahlada to sit in her lap in a bonfire. Hiranyakashipu’s sister had received a special boon that gave her immunity to fire. However; she was burned to death and Prahlad saved. There are numerous accounts as to the reason for this, but suffice it to say, the sister of the king died and good triumphed.

Hiranyakashipu’s sister was named Holika, from which Holi is believed to derive. It is this event that Holi celebrates in Holika Dahan (the burning of Holika), in which bonfires are lit, primarily in North India, the day before Holi. Originally these included effigies of Holika, but in most parts this is now replaced by a simple pyre. Comparisons to their fellow Aryans’ (if only common traditional heritage; I have no intent of opening the Aryan Invasion Theory can of worms here) celebration of Cheharshanbe-Souri in Iran and indeed, bonfire spring festivals in Indo-European cultures throughout Europe, are readily seen. The triumph of light over darkness.

Shaivite

The main story as recounted and summarized above, can be considered by some to be a Vaishnava polemic, with Hiranyakashipu representing Lord Shiva. As such, given where you are, an alternate account is of Kama and Shiva.

As recounted in the Saura Purana, there was another daitya called Taraka whom had achieved a boon from Brahma after severe austerities. He asked for the boon of being invincible to the gods; and like Hiranyakashipu, effectively immortal. Of course, Brahma thought this too much so asked for an exception. The wily Taraka made the condition that only the child of Shiva could kill him. Shiva was doing penance and lost in himself after losing his first wife, Dakshayani (which is the subject of another famous myth which is the source of the practice of sati; Sati being another name for Dakshayani), therefore Taraka had reasoned that Shiva would be unable to produce a son.

Of course, Taraka does what demons granted boons of immense power by Brahma do, he terrorizes the universe of gods and men. He battles Vishnu for 30,000 years alone, but Vishnu has to retreat in confusion and hide. Beleaguered, the gods meet with Brahma, who tells them of Taraka’s weakness. They hatch a plan.

Parvati, who had realized she was the reincarnated Dakshayani from a young age, and had performed severe penances for Shiva’s hand in marriage, was put before Shiva. The only problem, is that Shiva was absorbed in yogic asceticism, having renounced the world after the loss of his first wife. So, Kama (yes, as in the Kama Sutra; and, counterpart to Greek Eros; Cupid) is enjoined to put lust into Shiva and wake him from his trance to produce the progeny that will defeat Taraka.

But, when Shiva awakens from his meditation after being immovable by either Parvati or Kama, he sees Parvati there, and then, sees Kama with his five flowered arrow drawn in its bow and aimed at him. Shiva’s third-eye shoots forth a fire accumulated in his tapas and incinerates Kama by its own power independent of Shiva’s will. Parvati is now distressed, and rebukes Shiva. It is now that she asks for her boon from him, having suffered as an example to all yoginis past and present. She asks that Kama be revived. Consenting, Shiva replies, “Let [Kama] be without a body in order to please you, lady with beautiful eyes. In that form he will be able to shake the world.”

Long story short, Shiva and Parvati beget Skanda (the Hindu ‘Ares’), who destroys Taraka. In South India, Holi is thus referred to as Kama Dahanam. But of course, the larger lesson was the victory of love, for now the disembodied Kama, with his wife Rati, could flit from one corner of the earth to another like the wind. In this context, Holi is like an Indian Valentine’s Day.

Radha Krishna

In this spirit, the Ras-Lila is celebrated (literally, ‘Passion Play’ and quite different from the Christian form, of course!); particularly in Mathura and Vrindavan, where Lord Krishna (the eighth avatara of Vishnu) was born and the place of the Ras-Lila, respectively. The Ras-Lila is the all-famous tale of the gopis’ (milk maidens) love and adoration of the perfect youth Krishna, who playfully teased them mercilessly in the 10th Book of the Srimad Bhagavata Purana (not to be confused with the Bhagavad Gita of the Mahabharata), and the tryst between him and Radha, whom is never actually named, in chapter 30, where she is only a mystery woman held in awed jealousy by the pining gopis who follow the couple’s footsteps into the forest. This story with elaborations is a staple of bhajans and Indian poetry, drama, and naturally, today’s transmitter of myth, Bollywood (here’s an example).

A word of warning. To suggest anything unchaste about Radha, or to reduce Krishna to a Casanova, to suggest anything sexual at all beyond romantic metaphor, is extremely offensive to devout Hindus; particularly Vaishnavas. It has an invective history with the Christian missionaries and continues to this day on Christianist supremacist websites. Having said this word of warning though, of Holi, the entry in A Dictionary of Hinduism says,

A spring festival dedicated to Krishna and the gopis. It took the place of an earlier kind of Saturnalia, ‘the survival of a primitive fertility ritual, combining erotic games, “comic operas” and folk dancing’. Some of the earlier elements remain, such as the singing of suggestive songs, the throwing of coloured water, and jumping over bonfires, the ashes of which are believed to possess magical powers.

Indeed, I tend to take this view, and see the other myths as later accretions or adaptations to an earlier Indo-European fertility festival, as do I see the Radha-Krishna relationship a sublimation of an earlier myth. During Holi, caste distinctions are suspended, and the sexes may mix freely; likely customs surviving from the ubiquitous “safety valve” many early cultures observed at least once a year -- just as modern ones do to this day.

Playing

In a 7th century play, Ratnavali, it was said,

Witness the beauty of the great cupid festival which excites curiosity as the townsfolk are dancing at the touch of brownish water thrown from squirt-guns.

They are seized by pretty women while all along the roads the air is filled with singing and drum-beating.

Everything is coloured yellowish red and rendered dusty by the heaps of scented powder blown all over.

This is the first recording of Dhulhendi, the day of Holi most recognizable today. Let me set the scene. You know nothing of Holi, you are a visitor in India. This delightful scenario is played in this scene from the 2006 film, “Outsourced”:

Instruments of Fun:

Abir and Gulal -  colored powders

Originally made from natural dyes, some with Ayurvedic properties, there has been concern over toxic ingredients in recent years, and a move towards organic products. The symbolism with spring, of course, is self-evident.

Pichkari -- soaker type of syringe

While many of these still retain their traditional design, many more kids can be seen with super soakers and custom pichkaris with Bollywood actors and actresses, cartoon characters and other themes, even in shapes like elephants or one designed as a bow and arrow (like the ancient Hindu heroes).

Bhang

Bhang, made from grinding cannabis leaves and flowers into a paste is mixed into chilled drinks and munchie snacks alike. The signature drink of Holi is thandai, a milk based drink flavored with pistachios, almonds, and, of course, marijuana! But, a bhang lassi can also be whipped up, as seen above. Oh, and if you happen upon a sadhu in Varanasi, see if they will pass the chillum. This is one of a few times where social use of marijuana is acceptable, though generally not by women (patriarchal societies’ ‘designated drivers’). Watch this Bollywood song with the information and vocabulary you have just gained!

Hola Mohalla

Although not widely celebrated in Pakistan, in India Holi is now a secular holiday celebrated by all: Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Jew, Parsi, Sikh, atheist, etc. The day after Holi, as well, is the closely related Sikh holiday of Hola Mohalla, most visible in the Sikh homeland of Indian Punjab. In warrior-saint Guru Gobind Singh’s martial tradition, Sikhs will mock fights, sing, play music, recite poetry and kirtans, and eat communally, as is per Sikh practice.

So, alas, to explain my title. It is common to say “Holi hai!” which means “it’s Holi!” as a greeting. Unfortunately, due to timing, I fell off on writing this, and thus added the Hindi ‘was’, tha, to reflect the belated nature of this article.

To end with, I only chose one Bollywood Holi song among a plethora of possibilities, as this one clearly lays out several elements outlined herein and brings it to life! (plus my crush on Rani Mukerji didn’t hurt the selection process)

Holi Mubarak! -- Happy Holi!

So it’s come to this on the eve of a possible passage of healthcare reform, arguably the most important and far-reaching legislation to be passed by Congress since Civil Rights and Medicare came into being in the mid-1960s.

The passage of the Senate Bill in the House hangs by the thread of Denis Kucinich’s vote, whilst celebrity blogger, Jane Hamsher, weighs in with a clarion call for the resignation of Lynne Woolsey, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House and one of the most liberal members in that body.

Kucinich, who voted against the House bill, itself, siding with the Republicans, in early November, is holding out and tilting at windmills for nothing less than a single-payer program to be implemented. Hamsher’s demand for Woolsey’s resignation is a result of Woolsey, another Representative who voted with the Opposition in November, having held her nose and indicated that she would pass the Senate bill on the understanding that a possible public option might be considered on reconciliation.

She compromised, which is what a great deal of our politics – indeed, most politics in the civilised world – is all about: debate, discuss and compromise. She recognised the importance of not wimping out on the one-yard line. She accepted the fact that most pieces of important legislation begin life as a base on which better legislation can be built.

But that’s not enough for Hamsher, who’s not averse to crawling into political bed with the likes of Grover Norquist, spiritual father-confessor of the Teabagging Movement, in an attempt to kill the healthcare bill. In doing this, Hamsher naively thinks that the whole of the Congress, with the President dancing attendance, will sit down again and consider that single-payer is the only route to healthcare the country can afford to take.

Maybe it is. Maybe it’s not. I’ve lived with a single-payer system in the UK  for almost 29 years. I’ve seen it at its best, and I’ve seen it at its worst. Is the quality of care comparable to anything we have in the US? Quite honestly, I have to say no – considering the private health insurance that I carried when I taught school in the States, no. Sometimes, you luck out here and get good nurses, doctors who’ll spend time with you and answer your questions and efficient bureaucracy.  Sometimes shit happens.

At the moment, corporate influence is worming its way into the system in the shape and form of the genial figure of Richard Branson. Gordon Brown has allowed him to buy into however many medical practices that he can afford – and being Richard Branson, that will be a lot – becoming, effectively, a sleeping partner and investing in the running costs and salaries of officials associated with those medical practices. These will be renamed, collectively, Virgin Health (along with Virgin Travel, Virgin Money, Virgin Communications, Virgin Television and Virgin Broadband). I suspect this means that other tycoons will take over other medical practices and before you can sneeze, we’ll be paying handsomely (and privately) to see our GP, to have various and sundry tests run, which - under the old National Health – would have all been free at source.

It’s a sneaky way to cut services offered, whilst increasing the extra tax charged here to fund healthcare, the National Insurance. Everyone pays proportionate to their income. At least, Maggie Thatcher was honest enough to say outright that she was cutting dentistry and optical care out of the package.

I’m also still American enough to know that a single-payer system - indeed, any universal healthcare system – will, inevitably, mean an increase in taxes, overall – something that sticks in the craw of most Americans of any political persuasion.

Suffice it to say that single-payer is a non-starter; but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it won’t happen, for better or for worse.

Hamsher made waves a few months ago, when the Senate was preparing to pass its healthcare bill when she infamously joined forces Norquist in an effort to kill the Healthcare bill. This was grandstanding at its worst and, also, incredibly naive; for Hamsher thought that, almost immediately, this would force Congress to sit down at a table and start again from scratch with healthcare reform, effectively hammering through a single-player plan.

As if.

The last time healthcare got bitch-slapped into submission (and by a Democratic Congress) was when Bill Clinton despatched Hillary to the Hill with a fully formulated healthcare plan to place before their hallowed portals.

She got pretty short shrift, and that was almost 17 years ago.

Within the political system, itself, we now hear that Nancy Pelosi is redoubling all efforts, with the help of the President, in trying to convince a recalcitrant Denis Kucinich to support passage of this bill.

I’m not the biggest fan of Kucinich, but I admire him as a man of principle. He seems to be one of the few serving politicos who’s remained true to his core beliefs. However, this is a seminal moment in United States political history.

We are about to be presented with an actual healthcare program, which would ensure coverage of an additional 30,000,000 people, making this almost universal in concept. Is it a great piece of legislation? No. It’s not perfect, but – as everyone’s said endlessly – neither was Social Security in its original form. But it gives us a platform, a foundation upon which to build – and legislation, in the form of an amendment tacked onto an existing law, is something that only requires 51 Senate votes in order to bring it into being.

That Kucinich has now become the Lieberman of the House, holding out on a hiding to nothing in a quixotic attempt to force single-payer into the equation – single-payer not the ubiquitous public option – ceases to be harmless windmill tilting and becomes, in its stead, the proverbial straw that’s going to break the camel’s back of healthcare reform in the United States.

This begs the question, cynic that I am, of when, exactly, one’s ego overrides one’s principles, at the expense of one’s constituents? Because politicos of all persuasion, to have even arrived at the door of the national legislative body, need an ego of considerable dimensions. A situation like this would put the most milquetoast of men in a position to wield enormous power with equally enormous demands, should he choose. We all remember Joe Lieberman’s and Ben Nelson’s antics.

It’s moments like these when I think that the US Congress – and, in particular, this fractured Democratic Party – would benefit from a stronger ‘whip’ system, which is used in the British House of Commons. The political whips actually do figuratively whip their party members into a situation where they are compelled to vote the party line. To refuse to do so, for whatever principle, results in what is known as a withdrawal of the whip. Put bluntly, the recalcitrant member is unceremoniously kicked out of his respective party. He can still serve as an elected member, but the next time there’s a general election, he has to find a new group of playmates or beg forgiveness of his party leaders. It happened to George Galloway. It happened to Clare Short. No one is too big for the party.

I’ve no doubt that Kucinich is devoted to the principle of seeing single-payer firmly ensconced as a Third Rail in the American healthcare system. Bernie Sanders is also, but Sanders, a real Independent, knows that sometimes it’s mete to swallow hard and be pragmatic – one of the rules of political life you’d think a seasoned campaigner like Kucinich would know. Yet I also can’t help wonder how much this incident is Kucinich’s big moment in the spotlight, his chance to be Napoleon for the day, and which might turn into his jump-the-shark moment.

On a Napoleonic scale, he’d do well to remember that Jim DeMint, NOPer extraordinaire, has sworn to make healthcare reform Obama’s Waterloo. The House bill which passed in November did so on the strength of 5 votes, and one of those didn’t belong to Kucinich. Since that time, the lone Republican who voted for the bill has been bullied into seeing sense by his political ‘betters.’ Jack Murtha has died. Another Congressman switched parties and a fourth resigned. If the one vote that’s the difference between healthcare and health hell is Denis Kucinich, imagine the irony of this Democratic Napoleon effecting his own party’s Waterloo.

From that moment onward, Obama would become a lame duck President, and the Democratic Party would be seen to be shallow, divided and incapable (as well as unworthy) of governing.

Jane Hamsher is a private citizen. As such, she – like any other private citizen – is entitled to call for the resignation of any public official. That’s her right, just as it’s the official’s right to ignore the demand. But the demand got her the attention (and her blogsite, the clicks) she sought. With that in mind, I’d like to call for the resignation of the 5 conservative members of the Supreme Court, who have played god to create corporate personhood, my Congressman, Frank Wolf, for spending most of his spare time on his knees in the C Street cathouse, and Eric Cantor, because I don’t like the smirk on his face, as well as his politics.

But it ain’t gonna happen, is it?

It’s unfortunate that the single-payer option was never in the running to be adopted as the universal healthcare system in the US, but if the entire healthcare reform process is derailed because of the stubborn pride masqueraded and paraded as an unbending principle of a United States Congressman, then that’s more than unfortunate. It’s a totally unmitigated tragedy.

The pride of a high-profiled Leftie like Hamsher and a Democratic Congressman of Kucinich’s ilk goeth mightily before a fall of a political party, which might find itself in the wilderness of opposition for the far and foreseeable future.

At the end of the day, I hope both Kucinich and Hamsher won’t miss the noses they’ve cut off their faces much. At least, they’ll be spared the stench that comes with a Republican administration – or the smell of mooseburgers roasting on the White House barbecue.