The BeaBea Blog

The Moon, and 9/11 trial Outrage®

2009-11-13T14:52:00.002-06:00

Reflecting on the lunar discovery announced today, in light of the concurrent histrionics from the right about the 9/11 plotters going on trial in NYC—

Just over 40 years ago, we put human beings on the moon—a dozen altogether; 27 if you also include those who orbited the moon without landing on it. When we started that program, we didn’t even know if human beings could actually survive in zero g for any length of time; we didn’t know if it was possible to dock vehicles travelling at orbital speed, and on and on—and we had to figure it all out with technology that appears stone age by today’s standards (e.g. slide rules!)

When I think of the astronauts and engineers who pulled all this off, I think of them as a pretty conservative bunch—notwithstanding that the two NASA centers most closely associated with manned spaceflight are named after Democratic presidents. But the people who actually made the program go—the military guys in the astronaut corps and the buttoned-down engineers in mission control—lefty professor types don’t exactly come to mind.

Listening to the cowardice and abject stupidity contained in the hysteria coming from today’s conservatives about AG Holder’s decision to try the 9/11 plotters in NYC, I have to wonder what happened to that “Right Stuff” conservatism.

Final Presidential Debate

2008-10-16T00:17:00.000-05:00

in easy-to-digest picture format:

Town Hall Debate

2008-10-08T01:16:00.001-05:00

Re-enacted by the penguins:

Awesome.

2008-10-07T22:19:00.003-05:00

Pathetic, asshole-ish, and said in McCain's best "scary voice":

That's right, Senator McCain--that one:

Shady people in your past

2008-10-06T16:37:00.001-05:00

Yes, let's go there.

We've seen this movie before.

2008-10-06T10:36:00.002-05:00

The idiot who led us into our current disaster, believed he was somehow anointed by God to be President. And now there's Gov. Palin, who also seems to think her political ambitions are a matter of Divine Providence.

The woman who wants to be a 72-year-old four-time-cancer-patient's heartbeat away from the presidency, has a messiah complex just like Dubya. If that's not enough to scare the crap out of you, perhaps this video will help:

Oh, and...should the IRS be looking at the Wasilla Assembly of God's tax exempt status?

No wonder they want to 'turn the page'.

2008-10-05T17:18:00.005-05:00

Sorry, Unstable and Unable...not so fast.

And the area of health care is yet another example of why they’d rather not have people focusing on the issues. Take a look at this side-by-side analysis of the two candidates’ health care proposals, posted today by the non-partisan Urban Institute.

Here are the conclusions of each analysis:

Overall Assessment of the McCain Health Care Proposal

The McCain health care plan represents a philosophical advance over many other health care proposals, principally in its commitment to redistributing the current tax exemption for employer-based health insurance. However, the plan raises more concerns than it addresses.

The plan would provide
a refundable tax credit that is more valuable to low-income workers than the current tax exemption for employer-based insurance, though the credit is not adequate to make coverage affordable for many;
make insurance coverage less accessible and affordable for those with high health care needs;
increase coverage among the currently uninsured through the nongroup market but reduce the number already covered by employers, leaving about the same number of people uninsured;
have a high budget cost, at least in its early years.

In brief, McCain’s proposal would dramatically change how many Americans obtain health insurance coverage, make coverage less accessible for those with health problems, have a high budget cost, but have little effect on the number uninsured.

Overall Assessment of the Obama Health Care Proposal

Our general assessment of the Obama plan is that it would
greatly increase health insurance coverage but would still leave about 6 percent of the non-elderly population uninsured, compared to 17 percent today.
substantially increase access to affordable and adequate coverage for those with the highest health care needs, including those with chronic illnesses, by spreading health care risk broadly;
significantly increase the affordability of care for low-income individuals;
reduce the growth in health spending through a broad array of strategies.
In short, Obama’s proposal contains the basic components necessary for effectively addressing the most important shortcomings of the current health care system, that is, limited coverage, inadequate risk pooling, and high-cost growth.

The Urban Institute collaborates with the Brookings Institution on the Tax Policy Center, which has a similar side-by-side comparison of the candidates' tax proposals. And since Gov. Palin was just today again flogging the "Obama voted to raise taxes on people earning as little as $42,000 a year" lie, it's worth a look.

Should This Man Have the Nuclear Launch Codes?

2008-10-01T21:56:00.003-05:00

Yes or No?

He always aspired to be a dictator:

He admits he's an underdog, which is true. He's definitely an underdog in Iowa, which at this point looks pretty much unwinnable for him. So I've got to ask, which genius in the McCain campaign decided that sending the candidate to Des Moines this close to the election, was a good idea? Whoever it was, I hope they schedule him for more of these kinds of time-wasters. But the real take home from this clip, is the coldness and what seems like anger he can barely contain. Watch this and tell me if you really think he's "proud of his running mate"?

If you want the complete context and can bear sitting through nearly one full hour of McAngry, here is the September 30 interview with the Des Moines Register, in its entirety:

If that's too much to sit through, how about a 17-second mashup of McCain and his BFF, both making dictator comments:

Is Hillary Scraping the Bottom of the Small-Donor Barrel?

2008-05-22T00:27:00.008-05:00

I should know better by now than to think I have seen every outrage of which Hillary is capable. In her continuing effort to try to delegitimize the nomination of Sen. Obama, Hillary today compared the unsanctioned Florida primary to the recent election in Zimbabwe, perhaps because her recent attempts to compare it to the 2000 recount debacle, failed to get enough traction with the superdelegates. But I'm sure comparing the DNC with the Mugabe regime will make them come around!!

That's it...this time I've really had it. Really. More than I had it yesterday, and the day before.

When the fundraising letter from the Hillary campaign arrived in my mail the other week (the day after Indiana/North Carolina, which is interesting given the text of the letter. But when your incompetently-run campaign is swimming in red ink, getting mailings out on time is going to be tough...), I had planned to just throw it away. It's the first time I had been contacted by the Hillary campaign during this entire primary season, which made me wonder if they were now resorting to the "low-probability" donor lists in hopes of scraping whatever cash they can out of the bottom of the small-donor barrel.

But going through my mail pile today, there was that fundraising letter...

After insulting me with her gas tax pander, making me cringe with her bellicose comments about Iran, making me want to scream by her Rovian conduct, giving me nightmares with her zombie campaign that won't end...Hillary, who can write a seven-figure check to her campaign, was asking me to send her "$50, $75, $100, $250, or whatever you can afford".

So in a fit of frustration and anger, I decided to mail this contribution to the Hillary campaign, in the postage-paid envelope she kindly provided. After all, when your campaign is $20.88 million in debt, what's a few more cents?

Will this change anything? Of course not. Hillary does not care what I think, or what anyone who doesn't support her, thinks. Her campaign is certainly not going to pay attention to my reply form once they realize there's no donation, only angry comments scrawled in red pencil. Not to mention that it's from someone in an Insignificant State.

But after the umpteenth day of listening to Hillary and her surrogates trumpet their dishonest "I've gotten more votes than anyone who has ever run for the Democratic nomination" talking point, where they don't count four caucus states on the one hand while holding "Count Our Votes" rallies in Florida...this at least helped me get some frustrations out, at least for today. Given her track record though, Hillary is likely to come up with an entirely new outrage tomorrow.

Vitter to "stay hard at work".

2008-04-07T22:01:00.003-05:00

The ongoing embarrassment that is Louisiana's junior senator, had a little Q&A with reporters today after a town hall meeting in Gonzales, Louisiana.

Vitter's constituents received a card last week announcing the town hall, inviting us to come hear the senator talk about jobs, health care, education, and all those other things we need attention to down here. But for the hapless Vitter, the day of the town hall also brought news that he may be called to testify on behalf of Deborah Palfrey, the "DC Madam".

When asked by the reporters about the Palfrey case, Vitter made his usual smarmy show of faux contrition, followed by an assurance that he intended to "stay hard at work". At that point, he must have realized that his day was rapidly going from bad to worse, and that it was high time to get the f#$% out of Dodge (actually, Honda in this case):

Somebody remind me again, Vitter is still in the Senate because why?

Saint Bomb McSame of Straight Talk, the Third

2008-04-06T14:39:00.003-05:00

and his BFF:

LA-Senate: Doh! Repub candidate sends supporters to Dem opponent

2008-02-02T13:09:00.000-06:00

Well, this will certainly help convince Louisiana voters to support lifetime-Democrat-recently-turned-Republican John Kennedy in his campaign to unseat our state’s senior Senator, Mary Landrieu – NOT!

The Kennedy campaign sent an email to supporters on Thursday, which included a link for online contributions to his 2008 senatorial campaign. But when the recipients clicked on the link to donate, they apparently saw his opponent Senator Landrieu’s campaign website on their screen instead:

Kennedy supporters steered to the Landrieu site were treated to a picture of Landrieu and a call to "Endorse Mary’s Campaign." Pictures also scrolled on the Web site touting her for "Fighting for Louisiana Issues."

But don't worry; the Kennedy campaign is on it:

...campaign spokesman Jason Hebert said members of Kennedy’s staff were as perplexed as anyone about how the mistake happened.

"This was a technical issue on our end," Hebert said. "We are aware of it, and it has been corrected."

Perplexed??? Jeepers...I am no computer expert, so can someone out there who is, please explain to me, how the hell do you f#$% up something like this??

But the Kennedy campaign is correct in this case; the "technical issue" has been corrected. If you go to the emailed link now, you will in fact be directed to Kennedy’s extremely lame-ass website.

So yes, another indication of the quality candidate the Repubs are running against the most (and arguably, only) endangered Democratic seat in the U.S. Senate this fall.

At this rate, our unjustly maligned Democratic former Governor Kathleen Blanco may just have a shot at sending David Vitter back to the brothels full-time, in 2010.

Update: h/t to Ryan at The Daily Kingfish --
Seems we have an explanation for Kennedy's email fundraising snafu. Looks like somebody (perhaps the same person who designed Kennedy's stone-age website?) ripped off Senator Landrieu's mass email template and forgot to change the link! Thanks to Dailykingfish and The Guru for helping publicize this; Louisiana voters need to know about this kind of incompetence. Or maybe they already do, given Kennedy's rather anemic fundraising numbers. Won't be paying a real IT person anytime soon, I guess.

Bu$hCo DHHS: Politicizing kids’ health

2008-01-26T15:13:00.000-06:00

Unbelievable.

On January 14, less than two weeks ago, Louisiana’s Democratic governor Kathleen Blanco left office as Republican Bobby Jindal was sworn in.

And guess what! An expansion of Louisiana’s children’s health insurance program the Feds resisted when Governor Blanco proposed it, is now suddenly A-OK!

State health Secretary Alan Levine said he’s optimistic that the state will win federal approval to expand its health insurance program for children after a Friday meeting in Washington, D.C.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials had balked at a similar proposal by former Gov. Kathleen Blanco.

Now those same officials appear receptive and gave the state some constructive ideas for making the plan approvable, Levine said in a telephone interview Friday.

Under the proposed expansion, children who live in homes with a family income of up to two-and-a-half times the federal poverty level (about $50,000 for a family of four) would receive coverage. The present state program covers children in homes with incomes up to twice the federal poverty level (about $40,000 for a family of four).

Apparently, when it comes to the health of children in a state with a Democratic governor,

Federal officials have been concerned about the impact an expansion would have on the federal budget shortfall as well as the potential of the program moving children from private to government insurance.

But it seems now, budget shortfalls and the scary, scary threat of Socialized Medicine are IOKIYAR (or more precisely, It's Okay If Your State Has A Republican Governor, or IOIYSHRG. Maybe that’s because Republicans are more in tune with the notion that government programs shouldn’t help people unless the corporatocracy has a chance to cash in:

Levine said federal officials seemed to want the state to use some health care dollars to purchase private insurance.

Oh, and this is scary. Be very, very afraid when a Bu$hCo hack wants to help you "re-tool" something:

Levine said Leavitt also offered to help the state in the "retooling, remodeling of our health care system."

Governor Blanco apparently got the same offer from Leavitt, but

Blanco rejected the plan Leavitt promoted as one that would leave too many uninsured Louisianans without health care coverage.

Leavitt wants more private sector involvement in the delivery of health care to the poor and uninsured. He advocates a move away from the charity-hospital based system.

And, no doubt, a move toward funneling more federal taxpayer money to the Bu$hCo corporate cronies in the health "care" biz.

It would take a whole new diary to adequately catalog the extent to which greedy partisan hacks have come to infect every corner of our Federal government under the Bush Administration, so why would you really expect the Department of Health and Human Services to be immune? Because the words "health" and "human" are in the name??

"...it is where we begin."

2008-01-21T12:46:00.000-06:00

Sen. Barack Obama's speech Sunday, January 20 at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church; 33 minutes and well worth watching. I invite you to reflect on his theme of unity as "the great need of the hour", and how this relates to the many problems and challenges that face our country and our world.

Meanwhile, closer to home: a small Louisiana town prays for peace as a white supremacist group prepares to rally "against" Dr. King and the teenagers known as the Jena 6.

Conservative Clone Factory

2008-01-10T21:20:00.000-06:00

Weird. Is there some kind of conservative borg-hive where they just stamp these guys out on an assembly line? But note that the HomoPhobot XL comes with a solid tie and flag lapel pin, while the Econotron 9000 has a striped tie (lapel pin sold separately, to increase profit margin).

Well, no matter how you slice 'n' dice the parade of stars that is the Republican presidential candidate lineup, Richard Viguerie's "three-legged stool" model for conservative electoral viability is looking very rickety these days. No matter how hard you try, one or two of the legs keeps falling out and it just doesn't seem safe to sit on anymore. Might be time to haul it out to the curb.

That's on full display here, where you see Club For Growth's Pat Toomey (representing the economic/greedy corporatist wing) duking it out with Family Research Council's Tony Perkins (of the social issues/wingnut wing). Toomey can barely spit out the name Huckabee, while Perkins seems to think that even mentioning Rudy! in the same sentence as the words "Republican nominee" could doom the country to the dreaded takeover by the Militant Gays. (Bonus! If you pull the string on the back of the HomoPhobot XL, it will say "The social conservatives took a hike and they came back with a Huck". Look for earlier HomoPhobot versions to be upgraded with this clever bit of programming).

After a few minutes of adolescent "neener-neener" squabbling over whose candidate is the real conservative, Tweety steps in and informs his interview subjects that the consensus candidate will be The Mitten, if not for president than for McCain's VP. Toomey is having none of it, and flashes Tweety the kind of look you give the guy who hogs all the food at your party, barfs on your rug, and then asks you for a ride home. Tony seems okay with a Mitten candidacy though...probably because Tony knows Mitt is really just an older model Econotron recently upgraded with the new HomoPhobot chipset.

Oh, and congratulations Mitt on your key endorsement Thursday from "The" Daily Kos!! So let's see, that makes two silvers, one gold, and one Orange!

Bill O'Reilly: Defender of the Constitution

2008-01-08T11:51:00.000-06:00

Who knew?

First, how about a quick retrospective of some of BillO's finest moments in First Amendment advocacy:

Now, Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films have a new clip showing the now infamous (having been immortalized on Countdown Puppet Theatre) O'Reilly shoving incident. Nothing like watching a boor like O'Reilly accusing someone else of being "low class". The Greenwald clip then segues into a troubling reminder of what Fox is likely to have in store should Obama become the Democratic nominee: the madrassa smear, the bogus flag lapel pin hysteria, even accusations of being a Communist.

It's amazing that anybody actually watches Fox News (except out of morbid fascination, like the same reason people stop to look at car wrecks), but too many of our fellow citizens still buy the crap the Murdoch machine is selling. Hopefully the Ron Paul supporters can wake up a few more people to the journalistic travesty that is Fox News.

Don't forget to sign the petition expressing your support for Obama's continued refusal to appear on Fox. He's done pretty well for himself without them so far.

Chickens come home to roost at Faux Noize

2008-01-07T21:18:00.000-06:00

After years of peddling their propaganda, Fox News reaps what they have sown. When you're pushing a blatantly political agenda, you can call it "news" all you want, but eventually you're gonna wind up pissing off the viewers who don't support your candidate of choice (Rudy!) and/or make those who support the candidate you're trying to bury (Ron Paul) really mad, as in near-riot mad. As in stalking Sean Hannity mad.

Is this more evidence of the widening rifts within the Republican Party? If Fox News provided a sort of "groupthink glue" that helped the thing hold together, then what does this portend?

Tell Cafferty what you think about Congress' fear of impeachment

2008-01-07T20:05:00.000-06:00

Cross-posted at Daily Kos:

This hour's viewer question for the Cafferty File is:

6 p.m.: Why won't Congress impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney?

Write in and tell him what you think!

Late update: Jack's gone home for the day, but you can still read the article and post a comment about this subject on his blog. Add your voice to the flood of comments already there, to let Jack know this is a story that matters to people. Who knows, maybe he will even convince The Beard to talk more about it.

The question was prompted by this weekend's editorial in the Washington Post, in which George McGovern calls for the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.

Is it possible that the impeachment movement is finally gaining the notice of the corporate-owned media? Recall that Congressman Robert Wexler had a heck of a time getting anyone to publish his editorial on impeachment, just a few short weeks ago. Is it possible that 182,687 (as of right now--sign if you haven't done so already; he is trying for a quarter-million signatures before Congress reconvenes) people signing Wexler's petition calling for impeachment hearings, made the COM sit up and take notice?

Ouch. Cafferty on right now, reading some of the scathing responses. Keep it up everybody! Impeachment has to be a people-powered movement, since the beltway establishment obviously doesn't want to touch it. The Clinton impeachment had most of its support inside the beltway, that's a big part of why it failed. The Nixon impeachment proceedings drove him from power because the people got behind it. Now if only our Democratic leadership in Congress could be made to comprehend that simple but important distinction.

Update 2: Still one of the best arguments in favor of impeachment that I have personally seen, with the most compelling case being made by conservative legal scholar Bruce Fein. He appeared along with The Nation's John Nichols on Bill Moyers Journal last summer.