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POPS Cash for Cloture: Demcare Bribe List, Pt. II
1. The Hill reports that while Nelson credited Nebraska’s governor for giving him the idea to lobby for the government preference, Nebraska’s governor assailed the payoff: “Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal,” Heineman said in a statement Sunday. In response, Nelson fired off a letter Sunday to Heineman saying he’s prepared to ask that the provision covering Nebraska’s Medicaid share “be removed from the amendment in conference, if it is your desire.” 2, Vermont and Massachusetts will get similar (though less generous) special treatment by the feds in covering Medicaid expansion costs. Combined with Nebraska’s tab, the exclusive clique’s payoffs will cost taxpayers $1.2 billion over 10 years. At least. 3, He’s plunging in the polls and in need of a little bacon to bring home. A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn ......
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POPS What Would Stuart Smalley Do? Sounds noble, yet tragic. But “pragmatist” just doesn’t seem to describe what we’ve witnessed in any of his endeavors over the past 11 months. How about, an incompetent neophyte taking bad advice who tried to please everyone and failed, not least because he didn’t actually have a plan or a process for developing one in the first place, nor did he waste much energy trying to sell what he didn’t have, though he did signal from the start that, lacking actual principles, he was willing to jettison whatever might resemble one as needed.
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POPS 30,000 The president seemed in sticker shock, watching his domestic agenda vanishing in front of him. “This is a 10-year, trillion-dollar effort and does not match up with our interests,” he said . Looking around, I haven’t found any reports that say McChrystal was looking for a 10-year, 100,000-plus total troop commitment. I recall he said he needed two years to make a decisive impact, in the counterinsurgency campaign and building up the Afghan military, and that the war could be won or lost in that time. So where’s the explanation of how we get from a 40,000-troop escalation to a 30,000-troop surge, from “10 years” to 18 months? (If the OMB meant that just 2 years at 40,000 on top of the rest of the effort drives the overall cost to $1 trillion, then cutting out six months and 10,000 doesn’t change that substantially.) “If people are having trouble swallowing 40, let’s see if we can make this smaller and easier to swallow and still give the commander what he needs, "
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POPS Can't Make Everyone Happy Barack Obama has to show his heart is in the fight. Tonight’s Afghan address must explain but also inspire. The professor-in-chief must now preach to the public about why Afghanistan is still the “good war.” Why it is still worth the cost. Why the long war must be longer. Why we can win - and what exactly is to be won. The public will be listening to Obama’s explanations but, perhaps more importantly, it will also be searching for the passion beneath his prose. Spock must find his inner Kirk. Jules Crittenden forward movement http://bit.ly/4rQOhf
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POPSBecause Every Circus Needs A Ringmaster Well, if that’s the case, then I exactingly demand a drumhead trial followed swiftly by firing squad. However morbidly entertaining the spectacle of Obama’s hearkening to his inner Kumbayah chorus with the most ridiculous of civil liberty sops may prove to be. While attacking Islamic terror support bases has been a great recruiting tool for jihad, trying terrorist war criminals under American criminal law in open court with full American constitutional will make them like us better. True or false. Like this isn’t a three-ring circus in the making at all, but some relatively normal, if high-profile, criminal prosecution. And, incidentally, no mention of the fact that some portion of the American public might consider this prospect to be a legal abomination and a travesty of justice. Never mind that. What KSM’s entertainment value? Well, he’s got undeniable star power and a certain terrorvoire faire:
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POPSThe sleazy advocacy of a leading "liberal hawk" What Galbraith kept completely concealed all these years was that a company he formed in 2004 came to acquire a large stake in a Kurdish oil field whereby, as the NYT put it, he "stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars." In other words, he had a direct -- and vast -- financial stake in the very policies which he was publicly advocating in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and countless other American media outlets, where he was presented as an independent expert on the region. As Cobban wrote: Galbraith has never expressed any such regrets, and last November, he was openly scornful of Bush's late-term agreement to withdraw from Iraq completely. The revelation that for many years Galbraith had a quite undisclosed financial interest in the political breakup of Iraq may now further reduce the clout, and the ranks, of the remaining liberal hawks.
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POPSFirst, Do No Harm BU Med student accused of Craigslist killing and robberies. Gender-bending Harvard-educated rifle-wielding wife-murdering dermatologist Richard Sharpe ends it all in prison. Hooker-frequenting hammer-and-slash wife-murdering prominent allergist Dirk Greineder seeks a new trial. Harvard-trained doc who walked away from surgery does time on drug charges but skates on child rape charges when witness refuses to testify. You’ve got your nursing Angel of Death du jour. Nursing assistant accused of terrorizing elderly. Drug docs to the stars! A rash of them are staring at charges related to buried mistakes Jacko and Anna Nicole. All that’s before you get to the little remarked-upon regular run of docs who believe in hands-on examinations … whether their patients need it or not. In a lot of those cases, the oath should have been “First, Do No Pharm.” But howbout, “First, Weed Out Barmy.” I know, I know, for every murderous, abusive wackjob there are thousands of caring,
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POPSPETA: Vegetarianism for Sexist Assholes More: You will undoubtedly be 100% unsurprised to learn that there are no videos or national tour featuring Rav, Paul and Ricardo making out with each other in their underwear to promote a healthier, planet-friendly lifestyle. That would be gay, and in its desperation to connect vegetarianism with priapistic heterosexuality, this site makes it very clear that vegetarianism is not for fags. In fact, there aren’t any other pictures of the Broccoli Boys…just their little bio sketches so we don’t miss the important point that they, unlike the Lettuce Ladies, are people. Any other treatment would, of course, violate Patriarchy’s First Law – you don’t treat guys like mindless dick-receptacles, because that’s what the ladies are for!
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POPS Afghanistan Syndrome Asad and Tahir would be the first ones to die. As the months dragged on, I grew to detest our captors. I saw the Haqqanis as a criminal gang masquerading as a pious religious movement. They described themselves as the true followers of Islam but displayed an astounding capacity for dishonesty and greed. Whole thing. I hope Obama, Emanuel, Axelrod, Biden, Reid, Levin, Pelosi, etal, are paying attention. You know, between Filkins and Rohde, I’m starting to warm up to the Times a little. At least until the next al-Qaeda early warning system alert goes up. What’s going on … when even the AP’s Kabul bureau seems to be starting to get it? * Though maybe not as far from Stockholm, New York, your town as some people would like to think. Yes, we’re still having this conversation in 2009.
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POPSLast-Man-Mistake-Death Opportunity Knocks who said in a separate interview from Kabul, “I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces, or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today, without an adequate government in place.” His interview was broadcast on “Face the Nation.” The signals come as Republican critics already are complaining that the president is taking too long to decide They argue that Mr. Obama has left the impression of indecisiveness that has only emboldened the Taliban, making the task of the 68,000 American troops already there that much harder. Well, sometimes not making a decision is a decision. Not making a choice when you really have no choice is pretty much a forfeit, though. With every last one of our allies looking on, doing the mental calculus on which way to go now that the United States has shown itself to be utterly gutless and unreliable. With no vote of US confidence in any elected outcome whatsoever,
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POPS The Truth May Be … Out There Anyway, I don’t know if there was a publicity-grabbing hoax plotted, or if an opportunity was seized on the fly, or if it all innocently happened the way Balloon Dad says it did. But whatever happened yesterday, I have a sneaking suspicion the flying Jiffy Pop balloon was not originally conceived, built and being tested as an innovative commuting vehicle. It’s not for nothing Shepard Smith and everyone else was comparing that thing to a UFO yesterday. Maybe, like the Richard Dreyfuss character in ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Richard Heene was just strangely compelled to make his experimental 3DLAV commuting device look like a traditional Roswell-inspired flying saucer hoax.
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POPS Hammer Wants An Anvil Fawning “Inconvenient Truth Teller” article inside paints him as a sort of goof savant … a bit like Chauncey Gardiner of “Being There,” he’s been in Washington DC his entire life, everyone likes him, and suddenly they think he’s a genius. The three-decade gaffe-and-reverse record requires some acrobatics, though. The Newsweek scribblers clearly like his go-lite, wack-a-mole strategy though they are big enough to admit at the end that people who actually know what they are talking about say it won’t work. It’s not exactly the Joe Biden embed that I wished out loud NYT’s Dexter Filkins would do as a counterbalance to his McChyrstal piece earlier this week,* but close. Some administration officials, led by Biden, appear to hope that American forces can rely more on counterterrorism operations"attacks by Predator drones and small elite units on terrorist hiding places"to hold Afghanistan together and defeat Al Qaeda. But critics call this “splitting the baby" and say . . .
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POPS Chaos-istan The big question now is whether this is going to be about Obama’s ego, or about winning in Afghanistan. If any general is ill-advised to shoot his mouth off, this business may also teach the administration something about blowing off generals at (unnecessarily extended) criticial moments and insisting that political parameters trump military ones in wartime. Maybe if he wasn’t so distracted with trying to have Democratic Christmas in October … an expensive tax-and-fee-subsidized health care giveaway in the middle of economic crisis and war. To be followed on by cap-and-trade’s assault on business, industry, utilities and consumers. And then you’ve got Iran, unresponsive to the extended hand of friendship. AFP, “On Afghanistan, US military puts Obama on the spot,” NYT with a look at Petraeus includes the unfortunate news that this president is less interested in listening to his generals than his predecessor was.... LA Times: “Afghanistan assault points out .....
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POPSThe Russians Are Coming! Casino Royale demonstrates that anyone vaguely Slavic makes the best bad guy. But for a true tribute to the Cold War genre, nothing tops Mike Myers towering body of work: Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me, and Goldmember. All of it of course stands in the shadow of the greatest Cold War flick of all time … Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sorry, got sidetracked. It was another time. This is supposed to be about those damned Russian subs, popping up again like a crazy stalker girlfriend from the past. According to Defense Department officials, one of the Russian submarines remained in international waters on Tuesday about 200 miles off the coast of the United States. The location of the second remained unclear. I hope no Gloucester draggermen snag ‘em. Could be awkward. The submarine patrols come as Moscow tries to shake off the embarrassment of the . . .
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POPSPolanski, rape, and the myth of "Not Like Us" More: Rapists don’t tip the homeless guy, because they have some spare change from Starbucks. Rapists don’t survive the Holocaust. Rapists don’t sit in the cubicle across from us at work, and send us funny xkcd cartoons. Rapists don’t have uneventful, long-term relationships with their college girlfriends. Rapists don’t show up on set every day, directing a critically-acclaimed movie. Rapists don’t get married, nervous in a tux at the end of the aisle. Rapists don’t spend their weekends browsing at the farmer’s market, and then stop for brunch and do the NYT crossword. Rapists don’t co-write this screenplay with us. Rapists don’t hang out at the pub with their friends, watching football and drinking just half a pint of beer, because they’re driving.… We tell these myths to ourselves and each other often, but of course, they are lies. A rapist is nothing but a man who doesn’t listen when you say stop.
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POPSWho Are The Real Pirates In Africa's Waters? Like the pirates of the ``golden age’’, today's Somali pirates see themselves as fighting for justice. As Sugale Ali told the October 1, 2008, NYT: ``We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard.’’ ``The truth is, if you ask any Somali, if getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western vessels, and the production of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high. It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums.’’
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POPSA glossary of terms in foreign affairs The Jericho 1 missile, which can carry nuclear warheads or about 1,000 pounds of chemicals or high explosives, was launched from a missile-testing facility at Yavne, Israel, on April 6 and landed about 40 miles from the USS Anzio, they said. . . . ne of the Defense Department officials ... said the repeated "no-notice" launches have made the Pentagon think that the Israelis are trying to prevent the United States from monitoring the tests and acquiring technical data about the operation of the Jericho.
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POPSThe United States’ Place in The World … and he needs to grow a set via Weekly Standard, Lieberman, Kyl and Bayh, “Whatever it takes … crippling sanctions.” I dunno, I can think of other measures that might be more effectively crippling. Whatever … Also at WS, Steven Hayes, hurtfully, “Speak timidly and don’t carry a stick.” Ralph Peters, NYPost, cruelly: “Appease-y does it for weak Prez on the road to a Mideast apocalypse.” Greenwald, Should any Iraq lessons be applied to Iran? I can think of a few quick applicable Iraq lessons off the top of my head. Whack one tyrant, the rest notice. Also, whacking tyrants effectively neutralizes their ability to cause trouble. Also, follow-on is important, don’t let the Euros weasel out of it, and ignore the Dems and the anti-war American left. They are loud, but harmless.
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POPS The Biden Plan Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics. The Americans would accelerate training of Afghan forces and provide support as they took the lead against the Taliban. But the emphasis would shift to Pakistan. Mr. Biden has often said that the United States spends something like $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 in Pakistan, even though in his view the main threat to American national security interests is in Pakistan. Mr. Obama rejected Mr. Biden’s approach in March, and it is not clear that it has more traction this time. But the fact that it is on the table again . . .
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POPSHey Obama ~ Don’t Forget Deval Patrick! a state political race by the president, and is a delicate one, given that Mr. Paterson is one of only two African-American governors in the nation. Hey Obama, as long as you’re meddling in state politics to undermine black governors, you might want to consider throwing Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick under the same bus. He’s way down in the polls, too! By the way, Mr. President, congratulations on the state politics-meddling re Ted Kennedy’s deathbed wish to reverse his 2004 request for a Massachusetts law that would have barred then-Gov. Mitt Romney from appointing a replacement to John Kerry in the event he … snort … excuse me … got elected president. With last week’s 95-58 vote in the Massachusetts House, it’s looking good. The President of the United States and others who do not reside in Massachusetts, such Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have been meddling in local politics because they are worried that despite dominating House, Senate and White House . . .
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POPSIs Obama’s “Czar System” Grounds For Impeachment? Was this what the Framers intended when they created the three branches of our government with all the checks and balances? I am no lawyer, and obviously not a Constitutional one, but it strikes me there is a problem here. And it could be very embarrassing to Mr. Obama. No doubt this is why, as Byron York points out, the mainstream media has been so reluctant to cover this story, only the WaPo and CBS chiming in at this point, although they were late to the party and relatively perfunctory. Had Bush appointed thirty-one czars outside the normal Congressional approval system the MSM would have been all over it like the proverbial wet suit, declaring a coup d’etat in the making. But, as of now, the MSM has imposed omerta. It is Labor Day weekend. We shall see what happens next week. UPDATE: Now that Van Jones has stepped, not surprisingly the NYT has commented " but without any acknowledgment that they had ignored the story. But what is interesting is that . . . .
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POPSEthics, language and health-care reform: rationing and rights
GetReligion's MZ Hemingway on a recent NYT editorial in the Times by Peter Singer. In the op-ed, Singer discusses the idea of "rationing" health care, saying that it is basically inevitable, whether the rationing is done by the government or by insurance companies. Hemingway identifies this, somewhat bizarrely in my view, with a new vogue for "eugenics." I find the post (like all Hemingway's posts) to be little more than a conservative opinion piece, and I don't get how it jibes with GetReligion's mission. But it's worth thinking about. I think that what Hemingway (and many other critics of the current health-care reform discussions) finds objectionable is the idea that the rationing process will be made visible and intentional, instead of being left to impersonal (and basically invisible) market forces -- or, more to the point, instead of being left to the fictional "individual" who supposedly is now in charge of his or her own care....
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POPS We Are The Change ~ We Are The Party of HELL NO!!! But the movement has given birth to a new generation of movers and shakers who have rejected establishment partisan politics for nimble, Internet-facilitated, issues-based advocacy. The success of the Tea Party movement and its allies/successors shows that there’s no monopoly on “community organizing.” You are the change we’ve been praying for. March on! *** Livecam of the D.C. rally here. Wow! The Tea Party Express blog is here. 12:34pm Eastern: Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million, tweets Tabitha Hale from D.C. Teeny, tiny fringe, huh? Video highlights via Ed Frank: 9/12 Taxpayer Tea Party March on Washington, DC However big it was, it was bigger than expected. From the NYT: “Many came on their own and were not part of an organization or group. But the magnitude of the rally took the authorities by surprise, with throngs of people streaming from the White House to Capitol Hill for more than three hours.
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POPSOMG! Who's Going To Save Us From Global Warming Now? . . . . . really owes the White House an apology. This airbrushing was worthy of Stalin. Other NRO commenters at the link admire the assist the Politburo has gotten from the state-controlled media. The Moderate Voice : A case of poor vetting … Funny, that’s how I feel about the Obama administration, too. Aww, this is cute. Fellow-traveling Think Progress , wielding an airbrushlet: Racist right-wing conspiracy/hate campaign drives out smiling, well-intentioned, plucky environmental advocate. It’s an interesting presentation that makes no mention of you know what. Andrew Sullivan, to his credit, notices why Van was hounded out, but finds the gleefulness unseemly. Gutless wonder of a conspiracy theorist quits gutless wonder of a White House in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Labor Day weekend. Good work, Rahm. It’ll be out of the papers by Tuesday. Given that the Van Jones Truther scandal was barely covered in the first place, it’s like it never happened
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POPSSo Botox Isn’t Just Skin Deep Is this health issue? No coincidence this article appears in business section of NYT. Can we accept this practice as medicine? Main commandment of Hyppocratic oath: Do not inflict harm! Big deal if somebody die during or after this "treatment". He wasn't lucky, or jumped in wrong bandwagon, or wasn't quick enough to pull... gun..., cloth on the table..., his ticket to paradise..., or simply wallet... :cool:
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POPSFailure Accompli loyal Democrats a distant third. And it will prove that the Democratic Party is institutionally incapable of delivering on its most significant promises. You have to assume that on some level Congress understands this " which is why you also have to assume that some kind of legislation will eventually pass. If it doesn’t, President Obama will have been defeated. But it’s the party, not the president, that will have failed. OK, I get the point. He’s damning Obama with the faint praise due a cipher while mocking the Dems’ inability to govern. As he says, health care is their signature issue. And as we’ve observed previously, they have trouble advancing anything they feel deeply about that doesn’t involve a lot of pork. But cipher or not, Obama is also the president of a one-party government, and if his party can’t govern, he doesn’t get off that easy. He still gets to be a failure and is the one who will ultimately wear it.
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POPSConservative Books On Top, But NYT Concludes Marx is “back in vogue” Always count on the Fishwrap of Record to have its finger on the pulse of America! *** Via Christian Toto at Human Events: Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, isn’t surprised by the newspaper’s stance against these like-minded books. “Very rarely do they review conservative books,” Ross says. “What they sometimes do is mention a book that is conservative on their “Inside the List” feature. It’s a way to defend themselves against the accusation they ignore these books.” The New York Times did see fit to print reviews of major liberal books from Michael Moore (Dude, Where’s My Country?), Eric Alterman (What Liberal Media?) and Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) but has yet to examine the aforementioned right-leaning bestsellers. Having one’s book reviewed in The New York Times meant something up until recently. “Traditionally, most publishers and authors are very eager to get in the New York Times to review their books," Ross say
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