Dispatches from the Flying M

Congrats Speaker Pelosi

It wasn't just her, of course.  And there's a long way to go.  But she got to bang the gavel and announce that a national health care reform bill passed the House, for the first time since Republican Teddy Roosevelt started pushing for one a hundred years ago. It's also probably the biggest piece of social legislation the House has passed since Medicare in 1965. It'll go down in the history books as a big night for the Speaker.

We don't know what the bill will look like by the time it gets through the Senate (if it does) and is then reworked by the Dr. Frankensteins on the reconciliation committee.  Hopefully it'll have the House's public option but lose the Stup(id)ak Amendment.

But if it works like it's meant to, it'll ensure the profitability of private insurance companies by requiring millions more people to buy insurance, while preventing them from boosting their profits by denying coverage to the people who need it most. Like many businesses, they may find that they can make money by providing good service at a reasonable price.  It's unfortunate that it took major legislation to make them understand that.  The bill will reduce the deficit while saving lives, and that last part is the most important--if it prevents Americans from dying because they can't get coverage (and prevents them from going bankrupt because of unavoidable health issues) then it's a good thing.

Congrats to the GOP

The Republicans won two governorships last night--in Virginia, which was no major surprise since Bob McDonnell was ahead in the polls all the way through, and in New Jersey.  Incumbent NJ Gov. Jon Corzine was deeply unpopular in that state--so much so that Chris Christie, who is in no way ready for that kind of job, was able to knock him off.  It'll be interesting to see how NJ voters feel about Christie once they've had him in office, or if he's able to grow into the job. Virginia is one of the purplest of states these days, always electing a governor from the party that doesn't control the White House.

Perhaps more importantly, the Republicans lost in the NY-23 special election, which was the race that they had nationalized to a greater extent than either of the governor's races.  Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Dick Armey, Gary Bauer, Rudy Giuliuani, Fred Thompson, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck--the hard right, tea party element of the Republican Party have been pushing hard for the victory of this Conservative Party candidate, even forcing aside the Republican Party's own candidate, Dede Scozzafava, who just wasn't teabagger enough for them.

The fact that Hoffman didn't live in the district, or know anything about issues facing the district, didn't faze them.  They threw the biggest of their guns behind Hoffman, ran roughshod over the candidate from their own party, and they lost, turning the seat over to a Democrat for the first time since the Civil War.

McDonnell in Virginia is a hard-right guy, but he didn't run like a teabagger.  Hoffman ran like a teabagger and lost, despite every advantage.  What's the lesson?  If anything, yesterday proved that Republicans, despite being down to 20% of the voting public, can still win elections if they act like civilized human beings, but not when they act like crazy nutjobs.

Oh, and savor these words from Rush Limbaugh, because after all, he asked us to:

"If Hoffman wins -- and polls suggest that he will -- the race there will be dismissed as an outlier.  Here's how they're going to categorize this -- and I'm talking about the media. I'm predicting the media coverage tonight and tomorrow on New York-23.  

"They'll say that the right wing concentrated all its hate and all its anger and all its resources on a congressional race that is of little national importance or consequence. They will portray this as the Republican Party being fractured and divided with even greater problems down the road.  The state-run media will further tell us that the battle in New York-23 was really just a fight among Republicans, not about Obama or his policies; and that the far right, while successful in this district, will have difficulty extending this victory into other districts and states because they will have driven so many independents and moderates out of the party.... Folks, I want you to print these words out. I want you to get the transcript off my website.  I want you to print these out, I want you to distribute them, I want you to carry them with you, and we'll just see how close I am to being right.' "

Thanks for the incisive insight, Rush.  As always, right on the button.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kelly/dud-baby-dud-the-lesson-o_b_345049.html

Jon Stewart on Net Neutrality and John McCain

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John McCain doesn't even use e-mail...

...or so he says. He has to have his wife's help to use a computer (although he tweets an awful lot).

So should he be the guy deciding how corporations can control the Internets?

He has introduced a bill, misleadingly titled the "Internet Freedom Act of 2009," which is all about restricting the freedom of the Internet.  I guess the word "Anti-" that comes before "Freedom" in his bill title disappeared because of a typo.

The FCC is in favor of rules keeping the Internet open, preventing individual providers, like cable companies or telecoms, from restricting what you can and cannot access online.  They don't feel that a given ISP should be able to speed up your access to certain sites (in which that ISP might happen to have a financial interest) while blocking or slowing down other sites (which might have a point of view opposed to their interests, or a commercial interest in competition with theirs).  So if Gimbel's made a deal with Time Warner Cable, and you got your internet via Roadrunner, they might decide to make the Macy's holiday promotion website hard to access.  But the FCC (and the real Santa Claus) want to prevent commercial interests from making those decisions about an Internet that should rightfully belong to all of us.

To McCain and his ilk, this is "government control of the Internet!"  And it must be stopped!!!

McCain, as pointed out earlier, really doesn't understand what he's talking about.  What he does understand is that he's been bought and paid for by the telecoms. He was the #1 recipient of telecom donations in the January 2007-June 2009 period, receiving $894,379 (the next highest was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with a miserly $341,089, so McCain scored big-time).

And once again, Arizona's senators demonstrate their fealty to the ideal that the interests of big corporations who hand them lots of cash are far more important than the interests of the American people.  And that they should both be thrown out of office as soon as possible.

Another reason Senator Kyl has to go

Jon Kyl just can't not embarrass himself and everyone in this state who voted for him.  He's so lame, he even embarrasses those of us who didn't vote for him, just because he has that R-AZ tag after his name whenever he's in the news.

His latest act of genius occurred this morning on Meet the Press.  Host David Gregory said that while Kyl and other Republicans complain that health care reform will add to the budget deficit (although not if you believe the nonpartisan CBO study), they never make the same argument about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Kyl said: "No country can afford to scrimp and save, or try to win a war on the cheap. The president himself has said the war in Afghanistan, against these terrorists who killed over 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11 2001, is a war of necessity. You have to win it."

And yes, no one denies that the deaths of 3,000 Americans is a very bad thing. Gregory went on to the logical next question: "And is it a necessity to tackle the fact that there are more and more Americans who die because they don't have access to health insurance?"

To which the genius Sen. Kyl said, "I'm not sure that it's a fact that more and more people die because they don't have health insurance. But because they don't have health insurance, the care is not delivered in the best and most efficient way."

He's not sure it's a fact.  He's not sure. 

Shouldn't he find out?  If he was doing what he is paid to do, he might have read the Harvard study on precisely this topic.  Surely he's heard it by now.  Surely, having heard it, he would consider it his duty to follow up, to see what the study really says.  If he hasn't read it, is it because he doesn't care about the 45,000 Americans who die each year because they don't have health insurance?  And why is 3,000 American deaths, tragic though it is, worse than even 4,500 American deaths, much less 45,000?  If these deaths--if even 10% of these deaths--are preventable, isn't it incumbent upon him, as a senior United States senator, to do whatever is necessary to prevent them?

His last word on insurance reform, delivered with a smarmy grin, was this semi-coherent statement: "In my, in my state this Oliver Wyman study, not the one that Chris criticized--or that you criticized earlier, in my state increased premiums for a family under this bill, $7,400.  That's not the kind of reform that Arizona families are looking for."

To which nobody bothered to shake him by the lapels and say, "That's why we need a public option, to create competition for the insurance companies that are already planning to raise their premiums, because only real competition will result in lower prices!"

Had I been the one shaking him by the lapels, I would probably have added "You moron!" after that. Because it seems like a guy who can be elected and reelected to the Senate should be pretty bright, but Kyl certainly gives no public indication that he is.

Congratulations, President Obama

President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize--only the third sitting US president to be so honored.  That's quite an accomplishment.  And as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty says, the "appropriate response is congratulations."

Unfortunately, not all of his Republican brethren and sistren see it that way.  Instead, most of them have joined the Taliban in denouncing the award and its recipient.  Talking Points Memo is keeping up a running list of reactions, so I won't.  But as frequent poster Randy Johnson said recently, if Obama cured cancer, they'd come out in favor of cancer.  It's not surprising that they can't, even for a minute, take the high road and appreciate that the world actually likes our president.  But it is disappointing.  They cheered when we lost the Olympic bid, and they gripe when we win a Nobel Peace Prize.  Nice.

UPDATE: Okay, I have to edit this a bit, because as more reactions come in, more Republicans are being decent and gracious, outweighing some of the early ridiculousness from people like Limbaugh, Michael Steele, and Bill Kristol.  John McCain, who I chastised yesterday, said: "I congratulate President Obama on receiving this prestigious award. I join my fellow Americans in expressing pride in our President on this occasion." And other elected officials are making similar gestures.  I'm pleased to see my low expectations not being fulfilled.

Kyl, McCain refuse to stand against rape

The Senate yesterday passed its first bit of legislation initiated by Senator Al Franken. The Franken amendment would prevent US tax dollars from going to companies with federal contracts that require arbitration to resolve certain types of disputes with employees. 

The background here is that a woman working in Iraq for KBR (a former subsidiary of Halliburton) was raped by fellow employees, then locked in a shipping container when she tried to report the rape. A congressman, Ted Poe (R-TX), did the right thing and helped her get home.  But when she did, she discovered that she couldn't sue the company in open court, but had to address her grievance through arbitration--which means they could pay her off quietly instead of dealing with the publicity of a court case.  To add insult to our entire nation to the poor woman's injury, the whole time this was going on, our tax dollars were supporting the company (and, no doubt, providing whatever settlement money she received).

The amendment passed with broad bipartisan support--as any reasonable person would hope--by a margin of 68-30.

Sadly, the two "gentlemen" who represent Arizona in the Senate voted against it.  Sens Kyl and McCain believe, apparently, that it's vitally important that companies continue to receive our tax dollars no matter what those companies or their employees do.  The rape of a woman is just a mere inconvenience to these people, to be dealt with as quietly and painlessly as possible. And by "these people" I mean KBR management as well as Kyl and McCain. Absolutely shameful.

Neither man should ever be returned to elected office.  I just hope that when they are forcibly retired, they both leave Arizona, because frankly, the air's a little noxious when they're around.

The private fiefdom of Phoenix

I don't live in Maricopa County (and as a side note, every time I step outside my door--or stay inside it--I am thankful that I don't live in Maricopa County, but in considerably cooler, saner and lovelier Cochise County).  But the antics of Maricopa's Sheriff Joe Arpaio continue to bring humiliation down on this great state.  Here's the latest--bringing in high-priced ultraconservative Washington DC lawyers to prosecute a nonsense case that Maricopa County's own prosecutors don't want to touch.

It's high time Maricopa voters gave this idiot the boot.

Rio, not Chi-town

Rio de Janeiro, not my original hometown of Chicago, has won the 2016 summer Olympics bid.  It'll the first time the Olympics have ever been held in South America, which is no doubt part of the reasoning.  The heads of state of the U.S., Brazil, Spain and Japan all made their pitches in person.

But because the head of state of the U.S. is Barack Obama, conservative pundits decried his trip to Copenhagen to make our case.  And now that Rio has been picked, they're beside themselves with glee--glee--that the U.S. is out billions of dollars of revenue, thousands of jobs, and a chance to reclaim some of the international prestige lost during the eight years of the Bush administration.

Glenn Beck, who earlier "reported" that Vancouver lost a billion dollars when they had the Olympics (which, in fact, hasn't happened yet--they have the 2010 winter Olympics, and therefore have lost nothing yet) chuckled evilly on his radio show as he said "Please, please let me break this news to you. It's so sweet."

Really, honestly, this is a serious question: why do they hate America?  I mean, really.  What the hell?

Friedman asks what happened to America

A good column by Thomas Friedman--worth a read.  Since it was published a couple of days ago, the Secret Service has revealed that the Obama assassination poll was created by a "child," that his parents have been notified but he won't be charged.

Still, a national environment that would spur a child to create such a poll is a poisoned one, indeed.

How do we move beyond it, back into the realm of sanity and decency?