Thursday, February 10, 2011

The gang at the chat 'n chew really attacked me.

a little bit of this, and a little bit of that from the gang at the chat 'n chew


A little bit of this and a little bit of that from the gang that gathers at the chat 'n chew this week. This is a bummer Jan. in the NE, but the gang of rightwingers,leftwingers,libertarians and even one or two anarchists gathered to warm their souls over cappuccino frappes and hot discussion.

Nobody in the group really likes Newt Gingrich. He's too much of an intellectual rightwing elitist.
He appeared with George Step. on the Morning Show this Monday. He grinned like a Cheshire Cat when George asked about his POTUS interest. Newt said he will decide by the end of March.
Newt has so many ideas, but with one of 10 worthy of consideration.
He is smart as a whip (as they say), but his personal baggage will not sell to the GOP evangelical base.
The tea partiers at the chat believe he should just twitter away his days,increasing his twitter network, and flooding them with new ideas every 30 minutes.

I brought printouts of two recent articles. One by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi and the other by the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza. Both are linked below.
The rightwingers wanted to throw both into the cafe's fireplace.
The liberals, like myself, argued for the relevance of these articles.
The Rolling Stone's political writer Matt Taibbi has a venomous pen. He writes well and pulls no punches on his opinions..left wing all the way.
His latest article is a vivid description of John Boehner.
I am uncomfortable with his personal attacks on the man, and I would expect Boehner will file libel or defamation charges against Taibbi and the magazine. He is a public figure, and will not succeed in that legal effort.
Taibbi writes that Boehner is :
".. a lazy, double-talking shill for corporate interests. So how's he going to fare with the Tea Party?

John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich.."

It certainly is colorful.
But getting beyond Taibbi's scurrilous personal attacks, the article is informative for political junkies.

The New Yorker article is more cerebral, describing Issa as a recovering crook and arsonist.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/new......

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/...

We also pivoted from politics and talked about Sunday's Golden Globe awards.
I caught some of the Golden Globe awards Sunday nite.
The ladies were dressed to the nines (as they say), and it was good to see some of the Hollywood elite appear.
Michael Douglas got a standup ovation. And kudos to his apparent successful battle with the big C.
Robert DiNero was funny and deserved his award.
Even Jane Fonda went to the podium.
Annette Benning won an award, and her hubby Warren Beatty was by her side. The rumors of their breakup over the alleged movement of their daughter to a transgender status seems to be overblown.
In Hollywood, dressing the opposite sex is considered de rigueur .
The real issue is that all these votes were from a total of 87 foreign correspondents..yes 87.
The Golden Globes are overhyped.
And Ricky Gervais is one sick puppy.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that
Posted 3 days 2 hours ago by gecannonphd

1)The NY Post has a story this am that Hosni Mubarak is likely the richest man in the world...beating Gates and Buffet. It's all stuffed in Swiss secret accounts and real estate. We are talking perhaps $70 billion.
Power , for a short period of time, can provide a high. But hanging on for 30 years smacks of an addiction.
And the reason he has held on is that he is money greedy.
Fortune mag. has long speculated that Fidel Castro is also a billionaire.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/internation...

2) The Super Bowl will always be with us, deep into the 22th century. It so drips with money, it's intoxicating.
I usually ignor pro football, although I watched some of the 3rd quarter.
The ads, at a million for 30 secs., appear to be less than funny.
Missed the half-time show, and the National Anthem, but I see there were some bad vibes.
I may start a blog site, Ending the Super Bowl (there may already be one),
Perhaps one idea to decrease the ferver for the violent game would be to have a half-time show where all the past NFL players who suffered concussions,and later brain damage, are brought out and lined up on the field.

3)I watched Bill O'Reilly's 12 minute interview with Obama. Obama converted mr. bill's bullying persona into a whimpering pool of jello.

4.It was all about Ronald Reagan's 100 birthday celebration. For several days, it was RR's world, and we just were allowed to live in it.
CSPAN had back to back book signings and interviews with Ron and Michael Reagan. Ron's was funny, and entertaining. He remained aloof from deep politics, and concentrated on the his father's light side, his youth, and all those swimmers he saved from drowning at Rock Lake in Ilinois.
.
Re the Alzheimer's controvesary, Ron explained that the early stages of the disease can start in the brain decades before the full-blown evidence is visible.

Michael got into politics, and attempted to make a case that RR"s legacy and conservative revolution still resonates. I don't agree.

Also as part of the RR celebration, Sarah Palin made another speech, for big bucks, in Cal. ,and I caught some of it. Most of the time, I have no idea what she is talking about. And her vocalisms and voice are grating.
To even suggest she could be POTUS, brings back to mind the line (perhaps from Mort Sahl), that we have gone from Tom Jefferson,George Washington,Adams etc. to Palin. Darwin was wrong.

Vermont and single-payer

My neighbor state Vermont, home of Ben and Jerrys and Bernie Sanders, is seriously moving to a single payer health system.
**********

Obamacare is in trouble on many levels.
The legal challenges will reach the Supremes before the 2012 election; and, if the mandate remains in the law, the Court may strike it down.
The House GOP has already repealed the law.
The Senate GOP tried to do the same, but was temporarily defeated. McConnell and his GOP Conference will attack the bill in 100 different ways, mainly through the budget and regulatory process.
Politico also has a story today that some Senate Dem. moderates, up for reelection in 2012, may work with the Senate GOP to repeal, or change, the mandate part of the bill. See first link below.

It's important to keep in mind that a good slice of the public that opposes the bill oppose it because it does not have a public option..in short, the bill gave too much away to the for-profit insurance corporations.

I've long felt that a single-payer system is the only model that will bring universal,affordable, and efficient health care to all Americans. It is the model,with variations, that is working in almost all advanced,post-industrialized nations.

And my neighbor Vermont may be the first state to actually achieve a single-payer model. The Gov. and Legislature had earlier paid for a consultant study on how to get there, and the outline for the plan was given to the Legislature on Monday.

Kudos to my neighbor.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/021...

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/artic...

The red/blue coalition and the Patriot Act

The RB coalition has bridged the gap,temporarily when the House voted down 3 elements of the dangerous Patriot Act.
*****
Tea partiers and Dem. liberal civil-libertarians joined forces yesterday on NOT extending 3 dangerous parts of the Bush Patriot Act:
The 3 provisions that were set to expire were:
"... the "roving" wiretaps, the authority to surveil individuals with no connection to Terrorist groups (the "lone wolf" provision), and the power to obtain "any tangible items" (the "library records" power).."

The red/blue, left/right coalition voted them down because the procedual vote needed 2/3rds approval. So this victory is only temporary.

The library records intrusion had many examples, and the librarians fought back. A basic civil right is to be able to borrow books,and use the public libraries' resources, without fear of retribution from the State.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011...

And our upstate new GOP Congressman Gibson voted with the RB coalition and here is his statement:

“The federal government’s foremost responsibility is the safety of its citizens. I have spent a lifetime defending our cherished way of life, and we must always remain vigilant in our mission to protect our freedoms. Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist networks remain an existential threat to the United States and all freedom-loving nations around the world. From my seat on the Armed Services Committee, I will work tirelessly to better organize to neutralize and defeat that threat.

“I have long been critical of the PATRIOT Act, because I believe that in the process of defending our liberties, we should not step on them. We must stay within the confines of the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights and the 4th Amendment. Going forward, the PATRIOT Act must be revised to ensure US citizens are protected by our constitutional rights. The Executive Branch must be checked, and I believe the provisions of this Act must fall within the jurisdiction of the FISA Court and the process for obtaining warrants should comply with the Constitution.

“I also strongly believe that our intelligence agencies and defense establishment could benefit from a reorganization to consolidate headquarters and streamline procedures to better ensure that information on potential threats is processed quickly, appropriately, and effectively. Doing more with less is a central mission of this Congress, and we are capable of a more effective national security at less cost.”

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The Donald for POTUS

This has to be in one of Nostradamus's verses: The Donald continues to seriously flirt with running for POTUS
**********

Donald Trump has a big ego. Well, we knew that.
Obviously, this type of ego needs constant care and attention; and threatening to run for POTUS is one way to do that.
Appearing on CNN's Piers Morgan yesterday, The Donald proclaims his very serious interest in running. He ruminates that Palin can win some primaries, but not the election. Obama relishes the possibility of Palin as the GOP rival.
The Donald takes Romney more seriously, but doesn't believe he is resonating.
The Donald will appear, and me thinks, speak later today at the annual CPAC in DC. All the potential GOP POTUS wannabees will be seen and heard at this 11,000-strong gathering.
His secret advisor pushing him to run, and to appear at CPAC, is the nefarious consultant Roger Stone. Stone is known to all of us NYers as the advisor to Carl Paladino. Stone also claims to have brought down Eliot Spitzer. He was part of gestapo squad that invaded Miami in 2000, trying to stop the Gore-Bush recount.
For most of the year Stone lives under a rock. Once a year, a crowd gathers near his underground dwelling; he emerges; and if he sees his shadow, our electoral politics can expect at least 6 more months of dirty tricks.

The Donald has long ruminated on living in the White House. There was speculation that he married his second wife, Marla Maples, because she was a Georgia "peach" who could help him win votes in the South.

In his interview with Morgan, The Donald repeated his long held mantra that China is an enemy. As POTUS, he would begin a serious trade and tax war with this country.He could be a very dangerous POTUS.

He has some baggage. Married three times. His wealth is really unknown. He claims to be a multi-billionaire, but he has bankruptcies and lawsuits ongoing up the his strange head of hair.

Then, of course, there would be speculation on what The Donald would do with the White House. Would he convert it into a casino? a country club?
or demolish it, replacing it with a condo,hotel complex?

So many questions, and so few answers.

Trump says we will all know his position by June.
http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/Trump...