Views on Affordable Care Act

I try to never, ever link to Donald here. And starting the year by doing so doesn't augur well for a shiny new turn of the calendar. But, here's DD linking to fellow right-wing rage demon Michelle Malkin. Anyone going to either site should wear protective gear and bring lots of hand sanitizer. So, to MM, "Obamacare" had a Annus Horribilis. Not surprsingly.

I did want to put up a post linking to someone of rational mind who doesn't spew bile at the mention of Barack Obama. With that in mind, here's a New Republic piece that provides a more balanced and sane view.

Let's see, more people have health insurance and it is improving their physical and mental health. No wonder MM and DD are pissed. The rise of health care costs is lower than it has been historically and the federal budget is being reduced.

I'm paying $129 a month for insurance that retails for $400. Without the ACA, I'd be paying $330 for lower quality insurance. Rage on, Clowns!

The Mass Transit Diet

In what comes as little surprise to me, since I’ve dropped 20 plus pounds after going car-free:

When cities create or improve light rail public transit systems, citizens' waistlines may benefit, a new study shows. By getting people out of their cars and having them walk to and from transit stations, calories get burned, the researchers noted.

Help the environment, save money and lose weight. What more do you want?

The researchers found that, on average, a typical 5-foot-5 commuter who used the system to get to and from work lost an average of 6.45 pounds over 12 to 18 months. Moreover, people who used the LRT had an 81 percent lower risk of becoming obese than people who did not use the system.

I doubt that my favorite pseudo professor from Long Beach spends much time perusing my little waste of time here. But, in case he does I’ve gone to the great trouble of a several seconds web search to find that the city of Long Beach does have a mass transit system.

Who knows, Don, you might lose some weight along with that hobo look?

Congratulations CNN

I’d like to post this little clip in order to honor CNN for their heroic decision to hire Erick Erickson. May his star burn as brightly and as long as Savage’s did at MSNBC:

Looking at and listening to the Weiner, I can’t help but think he might be Erickson’s dad.

For a more thoughtful take than my BS please see Steve Benen:

This is the same Erickson who recently called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a "goat f--king child molester," referred to two sitting U.S. senators as "healthcare suicide bombers," praised protesters for "tell[ing] Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to send Obama to a death panel" (he later backpedaled on that one), and described President Obama's Nobel Prize as "an affirmative action quota."

Another quote from Erickson:

"At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?”

And here we have the village idiot neocon from Long Beach weighing in:

Check Benen's post for a long hissy fit on how awful is Erick Erickson. Gee, he said bad things. Can you say extremist? Wake up, Steve Dunderhead.

He abhors irrationalism in debate. Can you tell? He and Erickson both seem to be cut from the Savage cloth.

Over at American Hooked on Phonics

DD manages to spell the name of the National Enquirer wrong despite a screen capture of the front page of the paper directly below:

At National Inquirer, "GRAND JURY TO INDICT EDWARDS."

On the positive side, “inquirer” is actually a word and he has learned about the use of adjectives, or else that whole “Democrat” without the “ic” thing has finally run its course.

Typical Democratic sleazebag.

Now that Donald’s use of the English language is showing improvement maybe we can work his logic. As a smear piece this posting was really some weak tea. Maybe he’s finally getting that therapy he has needed for so long.

UPDATE: Oops, I guess it’s not just Dems who are sleazebags. That didn’t take long. And Don, he’s only 136 miles away. Maybe you guys could hook up and be “friends.”

Oh, Professor…

Is there any word you can’t put neo in front of?

As long-time readers know, I'm highly critical of the neo-declinist school in international political economy.

BTW, according to my spell check and my American Heritage, declinist is not a word with or without the neo. But, you can take that up with them. The only question is whether William Safire would kick your ass harder for the disrespect toward Conservatism or the English language.

Anyway, the rest of his post is just some blah blah about how America is not declining because we are not exactly the same as Imperial Rome. I believe it may be because we don’t wear togas.

There is a link to some twaddle by Niall Ferguson because neo-conservatism with a British accent makes it so much more palatable. 

There is also a link to a series of paintings by Thomas Cole who apparently had a series of 5 paintings depicting the life cycle of a city. His theory seems to be that cities go from pastoral to desolation. It doesn’t make much more sense than anything DD says. But, his paintings aren’t bad. Cole’s, that is. I doubt Douglas has any talent.

PS: Don’t be afraid to click on the twaddle link. I love the synonyms for it.

Dumped (with a capital D) from Richard’s Friend List

That’s gotta hurt!

 

Have you no shame Senator Brown. What good is it going to do to retake the Congress if you just fill it with RINOs?

Hat tip to AmPow. Thanks for the blogenfreude, “professor.”

Rightwingers are Liars, and I’ll Show You…

A Lazy Sunday Morning

And I feel like wallowing in the mud a bit. So, at American Sore Loser, we have Don Doug firing the opening salvos in what he hopes will be a blog war with Meghan McCain: 

I didn't know Meghan McCain was a genuine skank. 

And then he posts an image of her saying motherfucker because only a skank would say that. But, what really sticks in Dr. Don’s craw is that:

Yeah, I'm up on Ms. McCain's wars with everybody who's somebody on the conservative right today

And she’s not at war with him, or at least it’s a cold war. And just to establish that he truly is second-rate, even beneath Robert Stacy McCain (a butt boy to, some might say):

I'm sending this post to Robert Stacy McCain (The Other McCain) to see what kind of fisking he'll work up (if any) on Meghan's lastest splash in the news.

And with luck he’ll link to American Power.

An aside, it’s too bad computers don’t have some sort of spell check thingy that could tell Herr Professor that lastest is not an actual word. But, word meanings and spelling don’t matter to him because: 

P.S. Folks know I have something of a bad-boy rep on the right, but boasting my mofo creds on Twitter isn't part of my repertoire! 

That’s right! He bad! This is a link to the post, but please don’t go there because he hates getting a lot of web hits. I try to minimize my own visits. Besides, I’ve cut and pasted every word of his, the rest was just his own cut and paste.

Lucky We Don’t Live There

McClatchy

Laughs at American SoreLoser

Sorry, I guess that’s actually American Power. I won’t bother linking because he hates to have a lot of traffic there. Anyway, this is the type of hilarious graphic I go there for.  He drew me in with the “Tbogg is a racist post,” but I stayed for the people’s cube idiocy. Beyond the ludicrous idea that the White House wants to stop capitalism there is the image presented. Doesn’t the strong, virile protagonist in the poster represent the forces of anti-capitalism? And the sickly capitalist is the character who is only represented by a hand with a dollar sign? He also seems to have a sallow color. I suppose they are saying this is what the WH would put out. In that case, why help them?

Maybe Professor Clownshoes hasn’t looked at the market lately. My portfolio is certainly perking up. Hope his is.  

The Saddest Propaganda Ever

From “Dr.” Long Beach City College. Is this just the saddest piece of propaganda you’ve ever seen? Good Christ, are you people even trying anymore? Do you think all you have to do is throw out the names Kevorkian and Mengele? Where have all the smear merchants gone, long time passing?

I’m not even going to bother with a link to the post, “Obama to Ration Health Care” which could have at least tried tried to tie it to euthanasia for the Kevorkian link.

And Mengele, who the Hell knows how he fits in?

I expect more from a pro-victory professor.

 

Oops, here’s an American Power post that got by me that deserves some attention. It concerns Hilzoy’s retirement from blogging. It’s got a variety of wingnuttiness. There’s the misogyny of Douglas’ commenters who likely haven’t taken a hard look in a mirror lately. Douglas himself is certainly no candidate for any  female blogger’s rule 5 blogging, if you know what I mean.

Then there’s:

Perhaps Professor Bok needs to spend some time with her colleagues in the Department of Psychology!

You can cut that irony with a knife. But, perhaps Long Beach has no department of psychology.

Then there’s the out of left field attacks:

And here's an interesting piece of related trivia: Conor Friedersdorf, the eminent "conservative" and now Atlantic blogger/Andrew Sullivan colleague, was a student of Professor Bok's at Pomona College in the 1990s. And being the idiot that Friedersdorf is, he refuses to address her by her real name after he found it published at Wikipedia.

The only idiotic thing Friedersdorf has done is go over to Don’s place and play on his field. It’s likely that Don’s trying to bait him into doing so again, as he does with Sullivan, Greenwald and others.

And here’s the wingnut as victim:

UPDATE: I love it! Personal attacks in place of argumentation or refutation! From the very first comment:

Your jealousy is showing, Mr. Long Beach City College. 

 

He doesn’t mention the personal attacks on Hilzoy in his comments section. But, I can see why there aren’t many female commenters at AmPow. And once again pointing out that, “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor”:

Actually, that would be "Dr. Long Beach City College."

Going Nut Picking

Perusing the offerings at American Power, it’s so hard to make a choice. Think I’ll go with “Obama Gets Thrill With Gaddafi Handshake!” with obligatory exclamation point. Yes Libya, under Gaddafi, has funded terrorists. But then, technically so has the United States under a variety of presidents from both parties. This includes anyone called a freedom fighter and a number of state terrorists. Yes Gaddafi is probably insane. But, if he is no longer funding terrorism and a handshake will help insure that he continues in that manner, what’s the harm?

Then there’s the fact that under George the Lion-Hearted, we made nice with Libyans.

Gaddafi and Bush do apparently see eye to eye. On Monday, Gaddafi accomplished one of history's great diplomatic turnarounds when Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice announced that the U.S. was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya and held up the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as "a model" for others to follow. Rice attributed the ending of the U.S.'s long break in diplomatic relations to Gaddafi's historic decision in 2003 to dismantle weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism as well as Libya's "excellent cooperation in response to common global threats faced by the civilized world since September 11, 2001." 

It’s convenient for the “professor” to climb into the time machine and go back to the 80’s and resurrect Gaddafi as public enemy number one in order to hit Obama over the head with him. Of course, the 80’s was when Saint Ronald was not only shaking hands with terrorists, he was selling military spares to the same Iranians that held Americans hostage for 444 days. And then, he took the profits to arm the terrorist Contras in Nicaragua. But, at least he didn’t shake hands with terrorists. He sent Rumsfeld to do that. 

From Herr “Professor”: By now there's no doubt that President Obama gets a thrill up his leg when he's pressing the flesh of the world's most brutal dictators.

I suspect, though, that it doesn’t compare to the thrill that Douglas gets when Obama shakes the hand of Gaddafi or Chavez. If it was Castro there’d be something running down his leg. 

And this from an AmPow commenter:

We, as Americans, Lefties included, need to examine our complaisant (sic) fantasies and realities in this country. We have enemies. Obama is dragging his entourage of adoring press, that influences the public zeitgeist, with him in confusing surface friendships with opportunists -deeply soulless dictators. They will take all of your American comforts, and turn them into ashes. And they will not care if you are sympathetic to their causes. You, my leftist friends, are their enemy, too. 

See, the problem is that we just don’t have enough enemies. Despite the fact that we (during the Bush II administration) re-established diplomatic relations with Libya that is no reason to act diplomatically toward them.

The Latest GOP Candidate for Ex-Communication

Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin:

In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.

In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.   

And after eviscerating the myths of Palin: 

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.   

We are going to need the best.

Burn the witch RINO!

UPDATE: They are now gathering the kindling* at right wing sites.

*Truth warning-do not click this link.