The New York Crank

Who’s the new Republican presidential candidate waiting in the wings?

2012-01-30T12:06:00.000-05:00

The see-saw is doing its thing. Newt is up. Newt is down. Newt is down and Romney is up. Romney is up and Newt is down. Is the see-saw making you sea-sick yet?

The odds are good that it’s nauseating some Republicans, too. My condolences to them. Or maybe not, since what they seem to want to do most is dismantle the economy and the safety net that keeps most older Americans (and many of the younger ones) from freezing to death on the streets. And to lower taxes on the rich even if the rest of us have to pay for it with smaller soup rations on the bread line.

Still, one senses that the Republicans finally sense that they’re not going to beat Obama. Not with Gingrich. Not with Romney. And not with the passel of other candidates who either threw themselves in front of the bus, got thrown there by Republican primary voters, or who simply got sucked under the bus by the vacuum in rational thinking that surrounded them. (Think Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann, for example.)

This morning the New York Times ran an article saying that former Florida governor Jeb Bush is withholding his endorsement from Romney. Cranky old cynics like me immediately start wondering if Jeb is planning for a draft Jeb rally after Newt and Willard (aka Mitt) badmouth each other into a stall at the Republican convention.

Chris Christie, who also says he’s not a candidate, is also possibly a candidate.

Mitch Daniels, the Indiana senator who gave the world’s most boring speech to “rebut” President Obama? Possible candidate.

But I’m going to go with a long shot bet here, and nominate New York’s impresario of self-dealing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Never mind that the billionaire “Mayor Mike” who can spend triple digit millions on a local political campaign the way you and I might drop $3.50 for a latte at Starbucks sabotaged the two-term mayoral limit and is now serving his third term.

Never mind that he keeps standing by his police commissioner, Michael Kelly, a character who looks like Popeye in a business suit. There have been outrageous excuses to shoo away Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zucotti Park. There’s the commissioner’s son, who now stands accused of rape and whose case has to be investigated by people outside the NYPD. There have been numerous instances police misbehavior such as this one, which resulted in … err, ah, umm … an “investigation” which has been creeping along at what some might consider a snail’s pace, despite the fact that police miscreants were caught on video pepper spraying their victims. What's to investigate for three months?

Never mind the outrageous Kathy Black scandal, in which the mayor appointed a crony with zero – that’s zero – educational experience to run one of the world’s largest public school systems. Fortunately, she self-destructed by mocking angry parents at a public meeting.

None of this matters. The mayor can only be mayor so long – even if he had to pay what most of us would consider a fortune to blow up the law that limited his term. What Bloomberg wants, Bloomberg buys. And I wouldn’t be amazed to see him try to buy the Republican presidential nomination.

Laundry, serendipity, New York – and two very talented musicians

2012-01-24T15:38:00.003-05:00

Every so often I bulldoze this blog out of the political diatribe and social injustice business to discuss something more agreeable. Today I’d like to discuss laundry and magnificent music.

I live in a Manhattan apartment building. Once a week, grumbling about what a tedious pain in the neck it is, I drag my laundry down to the laundromat in my basement to wash, dry, fold … I’m sure you know the drill. But a couple of weeks ago, through a serendipitous accident, something wonderful happened in the laundry room.

On a bulletin board usually reserved for offers of baby sitting, house cleaning, and dog walking, somebody had posted a few concert tickets with an invitation to take them. They were to a Friday night performance by something called the Duo Sitkovetsky. Since I wasn’t doing anything that Friday night, I helped myself to a ticket.

I showed up t the appropriate auditorium in Carnegie Hall (there are several of them) and waited to see what would happen.

What happened was magical.

Alexander Sitkovestsky, a violinist, and Wu Qian, a pianist, performed works by Schumann, Prokoviev, Desyatnikov, and Grieg, worthy of the main concert hall – except that the main concert hall is too big for the intimate music of a two people.

I should warn you before I go any further that I am not a music critic, nor am I musically educated. When I read some music reviews, my brain hurts. Classical music criticism, in particular, has its own language, with which I am even less conversant than wiring diagrams for superhetrodyne radios.

Some phrases (used in reviews of other artists) leave me scratching my head or gnashing my teeth: “deeply eloquent virtuosity,” “…the lines are sleek and urgent…” and “…balances unflinching control, fluid bowing and sure-fire intonation with extraordinary depth of vision.”

So what can I tell you about the Duo Sitkovestsky? I can say that there was something unique and beautiful about the way Wu Qian’s piano and Alexander Sitkovstsky’s violin harmonized with such chocolatey perfection, at least to my ear, that the music seemed to come from a single instrument.

I can tell you that (with one exception, which I’ll come to) the music was so delicious I almost felt that I could eat it. To have done so, were it possible, would have been like slowly munching a filet mignon, or a perfect piece of ... well, I've already mentioned chocolate. Cheese cake also comes to mind.

The advantage of attending a concert rather than simply listening to a recording of one is that the audience sometimes gets a visual treat, too. Sitkovestsky didn’t merely play his violin. He sometimes leaned into it, eyeing its bridge like a cat stalking a mouse. To continue the metaphor, sometimes, he seemed to be pouncing on the mouse. At other times, playing with it, letting it run for a few inches, then catching it and pulling it back to him.

By contrast, at least from where I sat, Qian’s performance seemed to emanate a kind of cool sense of control and timing. If Alexander was the cat, Qian was the cat’s human, calmly enjoying and putting out musical playthings for the pet to pounce on ande conquor.

If I have one cavil, it was the choice of one piece, called Wie der Alt Leiermann for Violin and Piano, written by a contemporary Russian composer, Leonid Desyatnikov. The fact that my musical taste never progressed much beyond the first half of the 20^th Century may have something to do with this, but the piece brought to mind a story about Lenin attending a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

At the end of the concert, Lenin was brought backstage and introduced to Stravinsky. “Very nice, Comrade Igor,” said Lenin, glaring with a hint of annoyance at the composer and giving him a fishy handshake. “Next time, give me some music the workers can whistle to.”

Sorry, gang, although I never liked Lenin, I’m with him on this one.

All the same, everything else I heard was so magnificent that I wanted to feast on more. I wrote to Diane Saldick, Duo Sitkovestsky’s representative in North America, in part to ask her where in the United States they would be performing next.

“They will not be appearing in the USA in the coming months,” she replied.

Too bad. They deserve to be heard more by American audiences.

Diane Saldick also let me know that Qian and Alexander met at the Yehudi Menuhin School in London “when they were very young” – which couldn’t have been too long ago, since they’re both still in their twenties. They recently married.

And that’s my New York story for the day, except to say, “What a city!” Where else in the world can you go to a cellar to put your underwear in a washing machine, and end up listening, live for the first time, to a chamber music concert in Carnegie Hall, by two brilliant young musicians?

Newt Gingrich's press bashing only highlights his hypocrisy

2012-01-20T11:07:00.004-05:00

"Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."

That was Newt the other night, responding to one of his two ex-wives' just-announced allegations that he wanted an open marriage so he could carry on his affair with the woman who is his present wife.

I'd give more credence to his tantrum if he hadn't pursued Bill Clinton's impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Yes, I agree there's a technical difference. Clinton lied under oath, in a trumped-up hearing engineered to bring maximum attention to his dalliance with Lewinsky. Newt, on the other hand, is only lying to the American public. But what does that tell us about how he'll perform as president?

Gingrich also claims that the networks turned down offers for some of Newt's friends to go before the cameras and testify that he didn't ask for an open marriage.

How could they possibly know? Were they in the Gingrich bedroom when the conversation took place? And if so, does that mean that Newt was also having threesomes?

Yeah, I just got snarky. But Gingrich is a a serial philanderer and, I suspect, a serial liar who wants to be the next President of the United States.

That's why inquiring minds want to know.

Note: Cartoon by Baldinger under a creative commons license. No endorsement of my cranky views by Baldinger is intended or implied.

Outraged by the Washington corruptocracy? You'd better read this.

2012-01-17T21:01:00.003-05:00

At the time of the Anthony Weiner scandal, business magazine columnist, blogger and direct marketing guru Denny Hatch got fed up more than most of us with the way things work in Washington. He wrote the piece that follows, which I suspect he fleetingly intended for his blog, Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense. (He didn't say that. I infer that.)

Once he got it out of his system, he decided his justifiable fury wasn't right for what he calls his marketing crowd. But he has kindly permitted me to print it here. And that is something I do with cranky pleasure. I do not agree with absolutely everything Denny has to say. Nevertheless, his gist is horrifyingly on target. Read it and see for yourself. (Fair warning: you may retch at what goes on in Washington.)

The Great Congressional Payola

Anthony Weiner: Casualty of a Crazed, Schizoid Lifestyle

By Denny Hatch

IN THE NEWS

Anthony Weiner’s Judgment

The scandal raises issues that transcend one man's personal indulgence.

In one of the most unbearable news conferences ever seen, Congressman Weiner admitted his week of lies about his lewd online relationships, apologized to all and sundry, but said he will not resign. We'll leave the last point to his constituents, but Mr. Weiner's ambitions to be mayor of New York City are finished and his credibility in national politics after this is next to nothing. . .

Anthony Weiner now joins a disturbing list of elected officials in our time who've lost any sense of self-discipline. If there are others out there wandering in the confused ethers that trapped Anthony Weiner, we have a request: Get out now. Spare the rest of us.

—Editorial

The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2011

Anthony Weiner was best congressional catnip of 2011.

The problem starts with all members of Congress having one single, overarching personal agenda: Get re-elected.

No matter what members of the House and Senate believe in their deep heart’s core, all speeches, votes, interviews, town meetings, confirmation hearings and individual encounters with the media, industry leaders, lobbyists, foreign envoys, voters and members of the executive branch—all must be seen through this prism of desperation for re-election.

Why is nothing is getting done in terms of the deficit, national debt, health care, Middle East wars, Pentagon spending, global warming/environment, and jobs creation?

All 435 house members and 100 senators are terrified of double-crossing the 140 top benefactors—from ActBLue ($52,443,515) and AFSCE ($45,237,515) to Bear Stearns ($3,374,125) and Club for Growth ($1,535,979)—who spread a total of $1.97 billion throughout Congress from 1989-2010.

Follow the Money

“The ideal employee,” said children’s book publisher Franklin Watts, “is one who feels overworked and underpaid.”

Underpaid? Congresspersons are far richer than the electorate.

A few in congress are very, very, very rich. Among them:

Member Avg. Net Worth

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) $303,575,011

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) $293,454,761

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) $238,812,296

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) $174,385,102

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CA) $160,909,068

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) $160,302,011

Rep. Vernan Buchanan (R-FL) $148,373,160

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) $137,611,043

Sen. James E. Risch (R-ID) $109,034,052

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) $ 98,832,010

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) $ 58,436,537

However, many members of Congress are woefully underpaid and living in financial hell. Base salary is $174,000 per year plus health care, up to 64 round trips home, retirement benefits and a $3000 tax credit on D.C. living quarters.

To Jane and Joe Lunchbucket, this is a lot of money. But for the majority of members—those beyond Virginia and Maryland—it means maintaining a second residence in Washington—the eighth most expensive city in the America. A decent wardrobe is essential. Those members with alimony and a kid in college at $20,000 per semester are gasping for air. Hence the parade of members caught in such no-nos as bribes, money laundering, illegal financial gifts, free plane rides and junkets, and funneling campaign money into personal accounts. Among the recent perpetrators (in alphabetical order):

Barbara-Rose Collins – Randy (Duke) Cunningham – Tom DeLay – Walter Fauntroy - Newt Gingrich – Carroll Hubbard - William J. Jefferson – Buzz Lukens - Nicholas Marvroules - Bob Ney – Carl C. Perkins - Charlie Rangel – Dan Rostenkowski - Rick Renzi - Ted Stevens – Robert Torricelli – Jim Trafficant – William R. Tucker

Last January, CBS News reported that to save money while in Washington, D.C., one-fifth of the House freshmen planned to sleep in their offices. Others that are living away from home share the squalor of dorm-like facilities. From The New York Times, May 30, 1994:

For Representatives Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, George Miller of California and Charles E. Schumer of Brooklyn, Washington life is not all beer and roses. It's more like beer and frozen soy burgers, stale tortilla chips, lost laundry, monthly trips to Price Club and weekly commutes to their districts and families back home.

Sam cooks, Dick cleans, George collects the rent and Chuck raids the refrigerator. Weeknights, they shoot the breeze in their underwear in the Capitol Hill town house where two of them sleep in unkempt beds in the living room like so many superannuated frat boys, and check to see if anyone they know turns up on "Nightline."

In order to economize on food and drink, many in Congress likely mooch at every public and private buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner to which they can wangle an invitation. At Washington events—with spouses hundreds of miles away and where loneliness and hormones kick in—it’s easy to go from focusing on laws to focusing on attractive singles on the prowl. Hence the plethora of serial infidelities and sex scandals by members that have included (in alphabetical order):

Bob Barr – Larry Craig – John Ensign - Mark Foley – Newt Gingrich – Gary Hart - Henry Hyde – Chris Lee - Bob Livingston – Eric Massa – Jack Ryan – David Vitter – Anthony Weiner

When members of Congress do return to their districts—where spouses likely must have a job to help meet expenses—they are vilified at town meetings, besieged by jobless constituents whose homes are being foreclosed and are scared to death of having to pay for Obamacare or losing Medicare. This hostile environment is hardly conducive to savoring the comforts of home and conjugal bliss.

Forced to Buy Their Jobs

Imagine not only working for a living, but also having to repurchase your job for millions of dollars every two or six years.

The current average cost of a congressional campaign is $1.3 million. This means the average member of the House must raise $9,000 a week every week during the two-year election cycle in order to stay in office. Once re-elected, the manic scramble for campaign cash starts all over again. This is made complicated by the House Ethics Manual that states:

House rooms and offices are not to be used for events that are campaign or political in nature, such as a meeting on campaign strategy, or a reception for campaign contributors.

With the average senate race costing $7.5 million, each senator must raise $24,000 a week during the six-year cycle. A filthy rich opponent can up the ante exponentially. For example, in the 2010 California senatorial race, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina spent $21.5 million, forcing her opponent (and winner) Barbara Boxer to raise and spend $29.5 million.

A senator that needs $29.5 million for a campaign must raise $94,550 a week, every week during the six-year election cycle.

In other words that crucial part of a legislator’s career—campaign strategy, fundraising or talking to contributors—can only be conducted away from the office and out of the building. This means if an urgent call comes in from a top benefactor, the legislator must scurry outside and call back on a cell phone.

The Great Congressional Payola

 Payola: The paying of cash or gifts for radio play, and is a combination of the words “pay” and “victrola”, which stands for LP record player.

—Erika Cox

“Rewind the Fifties”

Payola was a huge scandal that broke in the late 1950s. Record companies bribed radio disc jockeys to play their latest releases over the airwaves causing them to move up the Billboard charts and generate sales. In 1975, United States Attorneys in New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Los Angeles issued 19 indictments—six of them against record company presidents—alleging income tax evasion, fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property.

Now illegal in the entertainment industry, Payola is a way of life in Congress.

Congressional Payola: How It Works

One of the many 800-pound gorillas breaking the financial back of the country is Medicare Part D—prescriptions drugs for seniors. According to Reason’s Nick Gillespie, Medicare Part D will cost taxpayers $62 billion this year.

Unlike the Veterans Administration, which saves an average of 40% on drugs by negotiating for lower costs with the pharmaceutical companies, the Medicare program is forced to pay the full retail rack rate.

If Medicare obtained the same drug prices as the VA, it would save a total of $24.8 billion per year.

This is not a Democratic or Republican or Independent issue. It’s the right thing to do for America—save $billions a year and help trim the deficit.

Since Part D was passed, a small group of senators and representatives routinely introduce a bill enabling Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies. On January 25, 2011 S. 44: The Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2011 was introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and co-sponsored by Mark Begich (D-AK), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

According to OpenSecrets.org, not one of these folks received significant—if any—campaign contributions from the Pharmaceutical Industry.

If passed by the senate and the house, the bill would represent a loss to pharmaceutical companies of billions of dollars a year. After being logged in, it was sent to the Senate Finance Committee for action.

The members of that committee received campaign and private PAC contributions of $5,822,782 from the Health Professionals Industry and $3,656,494 from Big Pharma for a grand boondoggle of $9,473,276.

What are the chances of a bill reaching the floor of the Senate that would allow Medicare to negotiate prices with the Pharmaceutical Industry?

Zero. Zip. Nada.

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em,” said Tammany Hall politician George Washington Plunkitt ((1842–1924).

“An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought,” said Lincoln’s Secretary of War Simon Cameron (1799-1889).

Anthony Weiner—just the latest of a long line of congressional miscreants

Suddenly, in this bizarre and surreal existence that members of Congress endure, Rep. Anthony Weiner went off the rails. The media played his siren song on its 24/7 Mobius loop. The friends, colleagues and punditorcacy wrung their hands, shook their heads in disbelief and called for his ouster. Only his constituents wanted him to stay; according to a Politico.com poll, Weiner garnered a 56% approval rating.

The congressman initiated an aggressive cover up by lying to the media, lying to the public and lying to his colleagues in Congress. Caught in the lies, he tried a “mea culpa” press conference and stonewalling, but the pressure from all sides was too great. He held another press conference and resigned.

“And of course I want to express my gratitude to my family,” he said in closing. “To my mother and father who instilled in me the values that have carried me thus far. . .”

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt shared Weiner’s values and promptly offered him a job at $209,000 plus medical benefits and moving expenses to Los Angeles.

Welcome to Congress, the most do-nothing, duplicitous, dyspeptic and dishonest political culture in the free world.

Takeaways to Consider

*The ideal employee is one that feels overworked and underpaid.”

—Franklin Watts

* Who are the real constituents of Congress? Are they the voters and taxpayers? Or are they the 140 top “heavy hitters”—from ActBLue ($52,443,515) and AFSCE ($45,237,515) to Bear Stearns ($3,374,125) and Club for Growth ($1,535,979)—who spent a total of $1.97 billion buying off Congress from 1989-2010?

* Should not members of Congress be paid a decent wage—say $1 million a year—so they can afford to move their families to D.C? They could also have a life after politics were they to vote for what’s right (rather than what’s profitable) and lose their seats in the process.

* Should not members of Congress be given a free place to live in D.C. just like the president and vice-president?

* “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”

—George Washington Plunkitt ((1842–1924)

New York Tammany Hall politician

* “An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.”

—Simon Cameron (1799-1889)

Secretary of War, 1861-1862

* Every time the media cover a member of Congress speaking out or voting on an issue, the related cash gifts to his or her campaign committee should be included in the story as a balance.

* "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."

— Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Related Websites

Denny Hatch is founder and creator of the monthly blog www.businesscommonsense.com, launched in 2005. A writer, designer and consultant in the field of direct marketing, he is the author of six books on marketing and three novels. Living and working in Philadelphia, Denny can be reached at www.dennyhatch.com or dennyhatch@yahoo.com.

How to tell if Chief Justice Roberts (and Mitt Romney) are correct when they say a corporation is a person

2012-01-12T15:57:00.002-05:00

You can blame a good part the present disgusting state of political affairs on the five- member majority of the Roberts Supreme Court who, in the Citizens United Case, declared that corporations are people.

They opened the floodgates of corporate “free speech money” that in some of the primaries (and guaranteed in the coming Presidential election) drown out any voice that isn’t as rich as America’s richest corporations.

Now Willard (“Mitt”) Romney has joined the chorus, declaring in Iowa, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Well, anyway, it’s looking as if the corporations are Romney's friends.

But are corporations really people? Here’s a simple three-step test you can perform with the corporation nearest you:

Stand the corporation up against a wall.
Blindfold it and offer it a cigarette.
Shoot it through the heart.

If it falls down, bleeds and dies, it’s a corporation. If it doesn’t, it isn’t.

Lower court judge overrules higher court, saying the government can secretly check out who you’re writing to, and who writes to you

2012-01-10T11:56:00.002-05:00

This is weird on several counts.

• In Federal Appeals Court, Twitter is appealing an order from U.S. prosecutors to turn over account information belonging to a member of the Icelandic parliament, a dutch activist and a computer security researcher. Their awful “crime?” They once supported WikiLeaks publicly on Twitter.

• So the prosecutors took their case to a lower court – where U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady ruled that whether the case is under appeal or not, Twitter has to turn over the information. “Litigation of these issues has already denied the government lawful access to potential evidence for more than a year,” said the judge, according to an article in E.week.com.

• Of course, if Twitter turns over the information, the case before the Federal Appeals Court asking that Twitter not be compelled to do so becomes meaningless. And there goes the litigation.

• The case, in which people are investigated for having an opinion on a matter, and a lower court judge jumps in and snatches a case away from a higher court, is being pressed by the Obama administration’s attorney general. So much for Obama’s civil rights credentials. The only person I can imagine doing worse in the White House would be a Republican. Almost any Republican.

Worst of all, if this ruling by a single judge stands, it means that the government can decide, in secret, to in effect hack all your electronic accounts and find out out what you read, to whom you’re writing, and who those people are associated with. And the government doesn’t like what you’re reading or writing, you become, in effect, "a person of interest."

The government has also been pressuring Twitter to shut down the accounts of people and organizations it doesn’t like. As one person quoted in the article said, “If the U.S. were to pressure Twitter to censor tweets by organizations it opposes, even those on the terrorist lists, it would join the ranks of countries like India, Azerbaijan, Syria, Uzbekistan, all of which have censored online speech in th name of ‘national security.”

When the president’s people act like an arm of the Assad government, and judges decide cases by thumbing their noses at higher courts, we’re all screwed. (Note to the G-man reading this post: screw you, too.)

The Iowa Straw Poll, murky political muck, and the magical “Mushiness Index”

2012-01-04T16:29:00.009-05:00

So, uh, according to all the news, George Romney won the Iowa straw poll by eight – count ‘em folks, eight! – votes.

Meanwhile, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul are yapping at his heels. Newt Gingrich is grumbling (justifiably) that Romney is a liar who, if you’ll pardon my own awful metaphor, is stabbing him in the back with clubs. Or clubbing him over the head with stilettos. Something like that. And Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry seem about to crawl back into the murky caves from which they emerged and call it a day. Oh wait a second. After crawling into his gave to rethink his candidacy, Perry crawled out again, to lose again another day.

What’s it all mean?

It don’t mean a thing – and not only because all those candidates ain't got that swing.

To explain the mucky murk:

the old “Mushiness Index”

Back in the 1980s, there used to be a polling and market research company called Yankelovich, Skelly and White. It had since disappeared, although it first metastasized into two separate rival companies that are still doing business, one called Yankelovich; the other called DYG, which claimed to have the real Yankelovich as a co-founder. But I’m getting off track here.

A now-deceased woman at Yankelovich, Skelly and White named Florence Skelly invented something called the “Mushiness Index.” This purported to measure not the things or people that individuals like you and me are for, but how intensely we are (or aren’t) for them.

For example? Ask me if I prefer ice cream or chocolate cake and I’ll tell you ice cream. But my preference is really rather “mushy.” At any time I might change my mind, and go for the chocolate cake if I’m in the mood. Or next Wednesday, mindful of my diet, I might say to hell with both the ice cream and the cake and go for jello. Although I've picked a dessert at your request, my preference is anything but firm.

I have a deep, abiding suspicion, that every last candidate in the Iowa Republican Straw Polls, including the one who just shot her own candidacy in the head, has a following that is largely mushy to the point of being downright squishy. Sort of like stepping into eight inches of mud with shoes that only go two inches up your ankles.

Yes, the voters went for Romney over Santorum by something like a mushy 1.0008 to 1 – on Tuesday of this week, at any rate. Next week things might go just the opposite way. Or, as we’ve seen, the votes might instead go to Ron Paul, or Newt Gingrich, or Rick Perry if he doesn't change his mind about running again, or John Huntsman or, for that matter, the man in the moon. Or the troll under the bridge.

Are Democrats "mushy" too?

All this would be good news for the Democrats, if not for the fact that I suspect we Democrats, at least some of us, are furiously mushy ourselves.

President Obama made the mistake of playing diplomat to a bunch of Republican barbarians, preferring “consensus,” or some damn thing like it, to victory. As a result, Republicans walked all over his face. Obama compromised away the public option, leaving forced purchase of commercial health insurance as the key means of covering Americans for health expenses, rather than chancingf “Medicare for all.” Or at least for all who wanted it. The Republicans loved – trust me, loved – the opportunity that this compromise gave them to generate political hysteria. Obama next compromised away environmental safeguards when he opened the gulf to offshore drilling – just in time for the BP disaster.

It goes on. Budget compromises. Limiting how much he really should have demanded to kick start the economy. Laying Social Security and Medicare on the table for negotiations that never happened anyway. And other gross insults to the base who once supported the president.

As we’ve seen, the one time Obama stood firm – on the two month payroll tax-relief and unemployment insurance extension for the middle class – the Republicans folded as quickly as you'd fold a poker hand containing a pair of jokers.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama learned too late. That’s assuming he learned anything

These days I’m getting bombarded by increasingly desperate-sounding e-mails threatening “deadlines” to cough up three bucks for Obama. Sorry pal, I ain’t coughing. Not even a paltry three bucks. And neither are thousands of other once-devoted Democrats, judging from the frantic tone of the e-mails.

Yes, there is a moral

The moral is, don’t betray your own base, or they’ll give you as much support as a lump of jello will give a highway bridge.

Does that mean I want any Republican to win? Nope. But neither do I want to go out of my way to support Obama any more, after he betrayed my Democratic ideals and some of the policies he ran on.

So call me mushy, but as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Obama, you’re on your own. Speaking of which, I’ll have the Boston cream pie. Nope, come to think of it, maybe the banana fudge ice cream. Well, if you don’t have any more banana fudge, do you have any rice pudding? No?

Well then, is Hillary still around?

Is the New York Times about to collapse into a miasma of inefficiency, bollixups, and obscene pay for screwup executives?

2011-12-28T13:24:00.000-05:00

As Janet Robinson departs the New York Times, $15 million richer – for having quartered shareholder value, gotten rid of many valuable people, and frozen the pensions of Times employees abroad who literally risked their lives for the paper – a new problem emerges.

Seems the Times can't even get its subscription operations straight.

A few hours ago, a notice popped up in my e-mail inbox. I quote it in full:

Dear Home Delivery Subscriber,

Our records indicate that you recently requested to cancel your home delivery subscription. Please keep in mind when your delivery service ends, you will no longer have unlimited access toNYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps.

We do hope you’ll reconsider.

As a valued Times reader we invite you to continue your current subscription at an exclusive rate of 50% off for 16 weeks. This is a limited-time offer and will no longer be valid once your current subscription ends.*

Continue your subscription and you’ll keep your free, unlimited digital access, a benefit availableonly for our home delivery subscribers. You’ll receive unlimited access to NYTimes.com on any device, full access to our smartphone and iPad^® apps, plus you can now share your unlimited access with a family member.^†

To continue your subscription call 1-877-698-0025 and mention code [redacted code numbers] (Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. E.D.T.).

There's just one small problem. I'm not a home delivery subscriber. I'm a digital subscriber. And I certainly didn't want my digital subscription cancelled.

So I called the 877 number in the notice and got a mechanical brushoff. The system is to effin' busy to take my call. It tells me I can call back later. Or write a letter and fax the damn thing someplace or other.

No thanks.

And by the way, New York Times: If you by mistake cancel my digital subscription, don't expect me to renew.

Yours very crankily,

The New York Crank

Update: I just came across this article, indicating that what at first was thought to be the work of a spammer or a spoofer is indeed actually caused by a massive goof at the Times itself.

Second Update - "Pay no attention to the e-mail we sent you": At approximately 4:55 p.m. today I received the following e-mail from the Times:

Dear New York Times Reader,

You may have received an e-mail today from The New York Times with the subject line “Important information regarding your subscription."

This e-mail was sent by us in error. Please disregard the message. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Sincerely,

The New York Times

Final (I hope) update: Dec. 28, 10:45 p.m.

As you'll discover if you click on the comments, twenty-something readers chose to comment on this post, a good many of them saying, or implying, that I'm an idiot for not recognizing that all I received was some malicious spam.

Not so fast, dumdum. According to an article now on the Times website, written by Amy Chozick, "

"The New York Times mistakenly sent an e-mail on Wednesday to more than eight million people who had shared their information with the company, erroneously informing them that they had canceled home delivery of the newspaper.
"The Times Company, which initially mischaracterized the mishap as spam, apologized for sending the e-mail. The people who received the message represented a cross section of readers who had given their e-mail addresses to the newspaper, said Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Times Company..."
You can read the whole story here. So take that, you idiot shoot-from-the-hip nincompoops who implied that I hadn't checked this out and didn't know spam from Shinola! Look who's up to their necks in Shinola now.
.

Beat up, shoot and try to murder America’s heroic war veterans – one tactic used again the Occupy movement. What’s next? Maybe outlawing snow suits.

2011-12-26T15:20:00.001-05:00

Sitting here in New York City, it's pretty easy to lose sight of the fact that the Occupy movement is happening all over America, not just on Wall Street. The 99 percent is mad as hell at Republicans and bankers from sea to shining sea.

What initially brought this to my attention was an e-mail from Brian Sonnenstein at Firedog Lake about what's been going on in Erie, PA. He wrote:

"The police are trying to drive occupiers out of the park by seizing their blankets and sleeping bags, so they've asked Occupy Supply for arctic lined coveralls to keep them warm at night..."

So I went web surfing and found the Occupy Erie website, where I learned that the Erie protesters are examining instances of police brutality against occupiers from Erie to California. Said the Erie occupiers:

"Excsssive use of force toward those in the Occupy movement has led to arbitrary arrests, a fractured skull for one veteran and a reputured spleen for another...[and all these actions] have been deployed against peaceful U.S. Citizens."

So great. You go to war for your country. You get shipped halfway around the world on one, two, maybe even three or four tours of duty, dodging bullets, IEDs and car and truck bombs. And when you get back, some cop feels duty bound to beat the crap out of you or try to shoot you to death. Is this the greatest country in the world or what?

Here's one example:

Then there was the vet in Erie who got shot in the face with a teargas cannister, resulting in a fractured skull.

Of course, if all else fails, the town fathers of Erie can get rid of the demonstrators by outlawing their arctic coverall snowsuits that the occupiers are starting wear when they sleep outdoors since the cops confiscated their sleeping bags.

And I suppose the cops will claim that they're not really blocking free speech for arresting people for wearing snow suits, because the Occupy protestors will still be free to stay out in the freezing winter of upstate News York and demonstrate, so long as they're naked.

WORK SWAMPS CRANK'S BOAT, DRIVING CRANKY BLOG INTO CRABBY HIATUS

2011-12-09T21:35:00.000-05:00

What is it with my business clients? Well, I'll tell you what it is.

It's the end of the year and if they don't blow their budgets by December 31, some corporate uberfuhrer will say, "Well, obviously we allocated too much money to you in 2011, so we're cutting your budget for 2012."

In other words, it's use it or lose it time. Which means hapless scribblers like me get called out to produce great stuff, in great gobs, under great pressure, until the end of the year.

Where were all these guys in September when I needed them? Shepherding their budgets, of course, so that they wouldn't get caught short in case an unexpected, umm, situation came along that would demand a big expenditure.

For the top guys in American business, it's all about stuffing their pockets with huge wads of cash that would otherwise fall into the hands of their employees, or their stockholders, or in the form of lower prices to their consumers.

But for the poor shlubs in middle management it's about playing Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They spend not too much, not too little, but just right – until the end of the last quarter when they dump their budgets like a drug dealer pursued by a police car, desperately throwing bags of cocaine out the window.

Listen, I'm not complaining about the middle guys. Thanks to them, I've survived for the past 20 years living on the crumbs that fall off corporate America's table.

Same as the middle management guys and all the rest of us, come to think of it.

So I'll see you when I'm back to complaining that I'm not getting any work.

Why should the New York Crank badmouth Newt Gingrich when I can get Ron Paul to do it for me? (Be sure to scroll down and see the video.)

2011-12-04T21:52:00.000-05:00

Republicans have an odd habit of worshipping losers, liars, lunatics, and lunkheads.

Among their company is Newt Gingrich, whose star is now on the ascendancy after Herman Caine’s fell, owing to what used to be called “wimmin troubles.” Before that was Michelle Bachmann and Governor Tex Whatzisname, who could stick their own feet in their mouths while standing up ramrod straight with their lips tightly shut.

Now one of the lunatic fringe candidates – no I take that back. He’s not on the fringe. He’s batshit crazy. Anyway, looney tunes Doctor Ron Paul has decided that Newt is a serious threat to his own candidacy, and has taken his case of the vapors to the Internet to denounce Newt.

Of course, in my own cranky opinion, Newt deserves denouncing. It’s just that I wish Doctor Ron wouldn’t blame the fall of western civilization on Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, when they were mere bit players. Fanny and Freddy followed after the big boy players in the mortgage meltdown, from Bear Sterns (remember them?) and Lehman Brothers (and remember them too – and also Countrywide Financial?) to the still-standing Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and other Wall Streeters who are occupied with their bonuses rather than the troubles they’ve caused America.

That said, without further ado, I turn my blog piece for today over to my guest blogger, Ron Paul, who sent me the following screed in an e-mail (he thinks I’m a conservative libertarian for some reason) along with this video denouncing Newt. Take it away, Ron:

]

Dear [Another name for the New York Crank],
You might have seen recently that Mr. Gingrich traded on his former political office to land a $1.8 million lobbying contract with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Why is this so disturbing?

Because while these out-of-control federal agencies were ruining the housing market and causing millions of homeowners to lose their homes and life savings, Newt Gingrich was earning millions advising them.

At that same exact time, I was publicly declaring they needed to be stopped before they ruined the economy.

I guess Newt Gingrich and I have a different idea of what to do with federal bureaucracies. I fight to rein them in and shut them down before they can do harm. He pads his personal bank account while they wreck our economy.

While I was fighting environmental extremists, the out-of-control EPA, and the Soros-funded green movement, Newt Gingrich was filming commercials with Nancy Pelosi.

While I was fighting government bailouts, Newt was saying he would have voted FOR them.

Don't be fooled by the words candidates use when they are running for office. Look hard at their records. My record is one of true limited government, anti-Washington, D.C. conservatism.

Newt Gingrich has a long record of liberal appeasement, flip-flopping on key issues, and lobbying for insider millions.

Millions. That's right. Remember the individual mandate I mentioned earlier that Newt supported? His healthcare group received nearly $40 MILLION in contributions from the healthcare industry.

I have rarely seen a candidate who represents so much of what is wrong with Washington and what is wrong with our political system.

We can and must demand better.

We must demand REAL conservative values. We must demand a person who puts faith, family, and freedom ahead of all else. And we must demand a candidate who has remained true to principle his entire career.

I believe I am that candidate, and I ask you to take a look at my Plan to Restore America at www.ronpaul2012.com.

You can tell I mean every word in it -- just as I've meant every word I have said in public life. And that's something that everyone will admit, whether they agree with all of my positions or not.

With me, what you see and hear is what you get. Wouldn't that be a nice change?

I am the only true conservative in the top tier of candidates running for the GOP nomination. And I ask for your support.

Together we can stop the counterfeit conservatives AND the liberals in the White House. We can take back and Restore America Now.

For Liberty,

Ron Paul

P.S. Whether it's flip-flopping on TARP, supporting the individual mandate that served as a model for "ObamaCare," joining with Nancy Pelosi in support of the global-warming crowd's radical agenda, or making millions off of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they helped destroy our economy, Newt Gingrich is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

He's what I call a "counterfeit conservative."

Here's an ad my campaign put together explaining his record of supporting liberal policies. Please take a moment to watch it.

And, if possible, contribute to my campaign as generously as you can to help me run this ad and get my message of liberty out with mail, internet advertising, and an all-out media blitz.

Paid for by Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee

“The devil made me do it. Oh, wait a second, actually it was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

2011-11-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

The folks who have been sinking America can be lovely companions – good conversationalists, charming dinner company, amusing raconteurs – the kind of affable folks you’d want as pals. Just so long as you steer clear of politics and what they do for a living.

I was an invitee sitting across a dinner table from one of those delightful people this Thanksgiving. He was an investment bank institutional securities salesman. The two of us were doing absolutely fine, on the verge of becoming BFF’s, until he asked me how I make my living.

I went through my litany of stuff-I-do-for-money and then I made the mistake of mentioning a non-income-producing sideline of mine, this blog.

“Blogger?” he asked, sounding just a bit suspicious, as if I had told him I’m an assistant university football coach who also leads a cub scout troop and that I occasionally indulge in a bit of playful shower-room towel snapping with the little boys.

“One of those left-wing bloggers?” he asked. As if right-wing bloggers, political neuters and recipe publishers were somehow absent from the blogosphere, if not the entire Internet.

I told him, as I tell everyone, that I’m a 1950’s middle-of-the-road Democrat who has been standing politically pat for over half a century. Meanwhile, the rest of America forgot its roots and its own needs and has begun a long, mad hike to the right. So that today, for example, some people are willing to bargain away – or let the Obama Administration bargain away – a good part of their own old-age Social Security and Medicare benefits in exchange for a minor upward adjustment in taxes for the wealthiest Americans. And that increase would be a small fraction of the rates the rich paid half a century ago.

Before you could say “financial crisis,” we were knee-deep into a mortgage meltdown fracas. “It’s all the fault of the U.S. Government,” he insisted. “Fannie Mae was selling mortgages to people who weren’t qualified.”

I’ll spare you ninety percent of the impassioned back-and-forth wonkery that followed. Suffice it to say that the guy across the table absolved every financial entity on the planet for the mortgage crisis – Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac excepted. He put the blame squarely on Congress and its insidiously destructive secret agents, Fanny and Freddy, for encouraging as many Americans as possible to be homeowners, in part so they’d have a direct stake in the financial stability of America.

I in turn pointed out that it was the mortgage originators who were encouraging liars loans – and putting pressure on borrowers to go for adjustable rate mortgages rather than long term fixed rates – and that this was neither the law nor the intent of Congress. And that it was Lehman, and Goldman-Sachs, and Citi Corp, and Bear Sterns, and Merrill Lynch, and on and on who were peddling bad mortgage securities. Not to mention the role of AIG, the firm that insured the junk without the reserves to pay the insurance claims if they ever came due.

The securities guy, in turn, assured me that Ace Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG, and Sandy Weill, the former CEO of Citicorp had enough “skin in the game” (money invested in their own institutions) that they would have never let this happen had they been in charge.

(Bullpoop! The banks were packaging and trading mortgage crapola, and AIG was insuring it, while Ace and Sandy were still wallowing in the cash from their annual incentive bonuses, set by the boards of directors they helped to appoint. Oh, not to mention Jimmy Cayne, the CEO at Bear Sterns whose “skin in the game” didn’t stop him from allowing his now-defunct company to become a major player in the mortgage derivatives market.)

As for not doing due diligence on mortgage applications, or robo-signing foreclosure orders, or packaging baroque tranches of mortgages into securities that were virtually impossible to evaluate, well, my almost-BFF insisted, that was because there were too many mortgages to process, y’see. And besides, those people who got foreclosed on shouldn’t have had mortgages in the first place.

What it all came down to was, it was everybody’s fault except the financial industry’s for in effect “forcing” the industry peddle that worthless stuff.

Betcha didn’t know that before!

And to think I naively thought the devil made them do it.

The U.S. constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. (Except in front of the Bloomberg mansion.)

2011-11-20T22:06:00.000-05:00

Less than a week ago, I posted on No More Mr. Niceblog a suggestion that the Occupy Wall Street Movement occupy East 79^th Street, in front of multi-billionaire Mayor Bloomberg's personal, private mansion.

Well whaddya know! That’s just what they did earlier today (Sunday, November 20^th). Or at least they tried.

But when hundreds of Occupy Wall Street marchers arrived at East 79^th Street, they found that the entire block between Fifth and Madison, the block where the Emperor Bloomberg lives, had been blocked off by cops who work for, umm, lemme see now. Oh yes, that's right – they work for Michael Bloomberg.

His majesty The Emperor-Mayor evidently didn’t want to look out of his window and see any damn protestors. So instead of occupying East 79^th Street, cops shunted the protesters around the corner to Fifth Avenue between 79^th and 80^th Streets at the edge of Central Park. His Royal Bloombergness couldn’t see them from there, although Elliott Spitzer, who lives just across that stretch of Fifth Avenue from the park, probably could.

That high-handed treatment of the marchers, plus the civil rights brouhaha that is brewing thanks to the efforts of a State Senator, a civil rights lawyer, and others who are furious at the way occupiers were evicted from Zucotti Park last week, should have made prime time news. But the mayor wasn’t worried. He had a little diversion up his sleeve.

Evidently, the cops for weeks had been investigating and following a “home grown terrorist” who is also "an Al Quada sympathizer." Well, he’s either that or a homicidal lunatic who needs to be locked up, if police and his His Bloombergship’s reports are true. No disputing that. It's the rest of it that has a bit of a problem passing the smell test.

The person in question, a a 27-year-old (Hispanic, not Arab or Persian or Pashtun or Pakistani) named Jose Pimentel, had been reading Al Quada websites and was building bombs, said the Emperor and his police commissioner. To prove the point, the cops showed off a model that they themselves had made of one of the bombs. Heaven only knows why they weren't showing off the actual weapon. But let's give the cops and the emperor a little leeway here.

It's possible Pimentel, if accurately accused, might have killed somebody. But an Al Quada agent he evidently wasn’t, at least not according to any evidence so far disclosed. Which may explain why the FBI and other Federal authorities were having nothing whatsoever to do with this. Their absence from the press conference had me scratching my head.

But what’s even more curious is that Pimentel was under surveillance for months, but only arrested yesterday when Occupy Wall Street’s plans to occupy East 79^th Street were announced. And then His Royal Slipperyship and his police commissioner held their press conference at 7:30 p.m. – that's prime prime time folks – just when the local news otherwise would have been focusing on the cops rousting the demonstrators from in front of Il Bloombergche's own house and sending them over to bother the Spitzers instead.

Why do I think that if the cops who raided Zucotti Park get really, really out of hand one of these days – say by committing wholesale clubbing of demonstrators and maybe even shooting a few – the Mayor’s going to hold a press conference to announce he plans to compete on America’s Got Talent?

That, or he’ll declare his engagement to Kim Kardashian.

Occupy East 79th Street? Read all about it on No More Mister Nice Blog.

2011-11-17T22:41:00.000-05:00

As a favor to somebody I truly admire, I've put my latest post up on No More Mr. Nice Blog.

Click here now, then hurry over and read the piece.

“We are Penn State?” Actually, you are a bunch of unfeeling, heartless, self-centered, violent, and pro-violence imbeciles.

2011-11-11T15:51:00.000-05:00

Memo to those Penn State students who are angry at the dismissal of Joe Paterno: you are living evidence that no Penn State student or recent graduate deserves an iota of respect, much less a job upon graduation.

It’s no secret what happened. Over a period of some fifteen years, several little boys were raped by a member of the coaching staff. Another member of the coaching staff reported it up the line in the athletic department, but failed either to call police or to intervene while the rapes were happening to stop them.

And the beloved head football coach, “Joe Pa” Joe Paterno turned out to be Joe Enabler, also failing to put a stop to the matter. He won a lot of games for you? Good for him. But he didn’t report the physically injurious and deeply psychologically damaging anal rape of little boys, thus allowing the rapes to continue?

He belongs in prison with the guy who reportedly did it. Prison is where he he might experience a little of what he previously ignored and learn why stopping child rape is so important.

As for the Penn State students who rioted in the streets, turned over news trucks, started fires – and for their fellow students who think what they did is proper – don’t be surprised to learn that you have dragged your university and its reputation through the mud. I haven't seen or heard about a single mass demonstration on behalf of the raped little boys. Your priorities and your morals – to say nothing of your sympathies – belong in a cesspool.

Nor should you be surprised if any recent or near-future graduate of Penn State turns out to be suspicious or damaged goods to prospective employers. That even when the recession ends, there will be minimal interest in giving many of you – or perhaps any of you – a job.

Thanks to you, Penn State has become Scum State.

Post Script: About six hours after this post went online, I saw a television news report saying some Penn State students are planning a march, in part to express sympathy with the raped boys. Well hallelujah! It's about time.

What the guilty verdict in the Dr. Conard Murray case tells us about Medicare

2011-11-08T14:58:00.000-05:00

I feel sorry for Dr. Conrad Murray. With crowds of Michael Jackson fans cheering like the crowd at Place de la Concorde whenever a head rolled during the French Revolution, Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, according to the Orlando Sentinal, which was reporting on the TV reporting.

(It’s a sad state of affairs when newspaper staffs have been decimated so badly to cut costs, that in a breaking story of national interest, the reporter covering the story can only tell you what he saw on TV. But that’s for discussion some other time.)

No, I don’t think Dr. Murray deserved to walk. Nor should he keep his medical license if he used it to support the demands of a performer who was, essentially, a prescription drug addict. All the same, I think Murray was a victim of the job (which he chose for himself), rather than any kind of malevolent medic.

One of the facts that emerged from the network coverage was that Michael Jackson paid Dr. Murray $150,000 a month. If you haven’t done the math, that comes to $1.8 million a year. That’s quite a premium given that the median income for cardiologists in the United States is about $219,000-and-change, and even the most successful cardiologists max out somewhere around $450,000 a year. Or at least so says Healthcare Salary Online, which gets its numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By comparison, Dr. Murray was getting paid like an investment bank bond trader on a rocket-powered trip to the financial stratosphere.

Which brings us around to Medicare

Thanks to our skinflint, anti-entitlements Congress, Medicare reimbursements for doctors are pathetically low. The Republicans in Congress have every intention of pushing them lower still, in an effort to destroy Medicare.

Consider the cost of training a doctor: A doctor has to do well at a good four year college, which can leave him or her in debt for $200,000 or more in college loans – and then go on to medical school for four years. Figure medical school at twice the cost of college.

After that, there’s a year of internship, a year or more of residency, specialty training, endless continuing physician education, the cost of setting up an office with all the high tech equipment it takes to practice cardiology these days … well, you get the idea. It takes many doctors years to get to the point where their loans are paid off and they can begin to have a life.

Forcing doctors out of Medicare

The truth is, this nation should be paying doctors the way we pay bankers, and bankers the way we pay shoe salesmen. By putting the financial squeeze on doctors in the name of cost-saving, Congress is forcing more and more doctors out of the Medicare system. These days, the first time senior citizens call a doctor for an appointment, they usually have to ask if the doctor even accepts Medicare. More and more don't. You can thank the Republicans for that.

Between the ever increasing cost of a lengthy medical education, and the steadily eroding reimbursements both from Medicare and private insurance companies, it’s little wonder that some doctors start refusing to take Medicare. Or insurance.

Enter "concierge medicine," the medical care hogs

Instead, some doctors join organizations offering concierge medicine, which are based in well-heeled towns like Greenwich, Connecticut, and charge a flat $5,000 to $10,000 a year (depending on the applicant’s current age and heath.) Concierge medicine offers basic medical services, appointments on short notice, and even house calls in some cases.

A successful doctor practicing concierge medicine will take care of many fewer patients and earn up to 60 percent more than colleagues who take Medicare and other insurance reimbursements.

So instead of earning $219,000 a year, or maxing out around $450,000 a year if you're a top doc, a run-of-the-mill cardiologist can earn $464,000 – considerably more than his or her highly paid counterpart. Which would you do if you were a doctor?

Exactly. And that’s why there are fewer and fewer really superb doctors accepting Medicare. This is putting medical stress on 99 percent of the population while the top one percent calls a concierge doc for a case of the sniffles and demands that the doctor come right over “because I feel too achy to come into the office.”

But even more piggy of medical services than concierge customers, a few of the super-super-rich, Michael Jackson for example, become the sole employer of a doctor. The doctors travel with their patients and the patientss families, administering to their aches, pains, immunizations – and occasionally, as in Dr. Murray’s case, feeding their addictions. And here, too, one can sympathize with the doctors.

When doctors become slaves of their only patient

If you’ve given up a normal practice for a chance to make big bucks for a single patient, that patient owns you. Refuse some nutty or drug-addled demands, say for Profocol, and you could be out on your butt, your income down from nearly two million bucks a year to zero, with little prospect of similar future employment. So the tendency is to give the patient whatever the patient wants, even if it’s dangerous or against the law.

The Murray case should serve as a warning about single-patient medicine not only to other physicians, but also to the rest of us. Society needs to pay doctors enough to reward the cost, hard work and time it took them to become doctors and specialists. If Medicare doesn’t do this, pretty soon there won’t be any Medicare.

But doesn’t Medicare have to cut costs?

No, not the cost of paying doctors (or for that matter, hospitals.) If need be, uncap current Medicare payroll deductions to help pay the freight. And if we have Medicare for all, the cost per-patient will go down, simply because younger Medicare recipients will need less medical and hospital attention than the 65-plus crowd.

That’s why the “public option” that President Obama walked away from was so important, and why his abandoning it was so unforgivable.

As for the Republicans who would destroy our healthcare system and leave in its place healthcare for the rich only, they are beneath contempt.

Who ratted out Herman Cain? The thick plottens.

2011-11-02T17:40:00.000-04:00

Aw c’mon. You’ve seen it on TV. You’ve heard about it on radio. You read it in the New York Times. And on 100 zillion blogs. Do you really need more than one link – if that – to know what’s with Herman Cain?

He’s charming. He has this crazy plan to “flatten” taxes by making everybody pay a nine percent tax on everything from their income to their babies' infant formula and their blood pressure pills, and he’s pulled ahead of the Mad Doctor, the Dumb Texan who likes to execute people, and Clueless-About -History Michelle, and is now running neck and neck with Mitt (what kind of a name is Mitt? Have you ever met another Mitt?) …anyway, with Mitt Romney.

Then from out of the blue come revelations that way way, back, sometime in the 1980s when Herman was running a restaurant association, he was accused of sexual harassment of not one, not two, but at latest count three women. And, in the course of crafting a response to these revelations, Herman has forgotten that the truth is the only reliable guide to keeping your story straight.

He didn’t remember it, he first declared. Then he sort of remembered it. Then he misremembered it. There was no settlement paid. Well there was something paid, but it wasn’t a settlement, it was an agreement or something. But he didn’t touch her. Well he may have made some gesture relating to showing one of the women the height of his wife. Well…

Yikes! I’m not going to go through all of it. I have a bigger question.

This has all the makings of

a trite detective novel

I keep hearing that some Republicans are saying the Democrats leaked the story, but that makes no sense at all. At least not yet. It is to Barack Obama’s advantage to have all the sharks in the Republican presidential pool going after one another as long as possible, spilling each others’ political blood, wrecking one-another’s images, smearing each other so that the Democrats won’t have to and can take the high road instead, come the presidential elections.

We ought to have a movie with a scene in which a great detective hauls into the library Herman the Hermanator, and Slippery Mitt, and Texas Rick the Executor, and the Newt Man, and Michelle the Misinformed, and Mad Doctor Ron, and Santorum from the Sanitarium, and whoever else the Republicans can haul in from their comic book cast of characters.

“One of you tried to kill the Hermanator,” says the great detective, “and none of you is leaving until we have the guilty party. Now let us begin.

“Mitt Romney, you have the most to gain. You were in the lead, and now the Hermanator is neck-and-neck with you, and if opposition research knocks the Hermanator off his pedestal, you stand the most to gain.

“Rick Perry, you were number one in the straw polls against Mitt until you proved in debate you’re so dumb that if they made you dog catcher, you’d fill the pound with hot dogs. Besides, CNBC on the evening of December 2nd, was rife with rumors that the agents who leaked the news about Herman's harassments was you. So maybe you’re leaking on Herman to get him out of your way so you can be one of the ones in the lead again. You’re ignoring warnings that even if you pull ahead, your Republican opponents are going to start a whispering campaign. You know, if they said it in Texan it would be, “That good ole boy is dumber than a box of rocks.”

“Michelle, don’t you worry. I’ll explain to you later what a rock is. And also what a gay person is, since you obviously wouldn’t know one if you stumbled over him at a wedding.”

Well, you can see where all this goes. Finally it comes around to Herman.

Did Herman rat out himself?

“Herman, you’re a suspect, too. You’re in over your head. Somebody may have sat down with you and showed you that the vast majority of people who will vote in the presidential elections is saying “Nein, Nein, Nein!” to your nine-nine-nine plan. The best way for you to get out of the mess you'd be in if for some reason you became president is to say you’re not playing any more with people who dredge up thirty year old scandals to smear you with, so you’re taking your bat and ball and you’re going home.”

So who did do it?

A little birdie told me it’s those stiletto-smooth guys in the Romney camp. But what do I know?

Have some madeira m'dear

2011-11-01T15:48:00.000-04:00

Here, sit next to me on the bed and have a glass of this. I wouldn't think of trying to get you drunk, sweetheart. I'm merely trying to help your heart.

So at last we know what Herman Cain is really, really running for.

2011-11-01T10:23:00.000-04:00

He wants to be the next American Idol.

Occupy Wall Street’s support keeps getting bigger. And bigger. From steelworkers to doctors, they’re mad as hell.

2011-10-24T15:42:00.000-04:00

I paid another visit to Zuccotti Park over the weekend. This was five days after Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s cops first thought to invade the park and oust the protestors and then thought better of it.

The police brass changed their minds – or Bloomberg changed their orders, I’m not sure which – because an army of union people began descending on the site, shortly before the planned 7 a.m. rout last Wednesday.

It wasn’t a matter of simply how embarrassed the mayor would be if his brass suddenly gave out the order to pepper spray the union folks and haul ‘em off to the slammer. Nor was it the sense I have that most of the cops are in some sympathy with the mob. You can exclude from that remark the white shirted brass. But the average Joe and Jill in blue seem a bit uncomfortable about what they're doing. But that's only part of it.

Had the unions taken umbrage at seeing their people busted, the Transit Workers might have gone out, bringing the city's subways to a full stop. The Teamsters, who were most certainly there, might have simply moved their trucks into the center lanes of every street in the city and created a traffic snarl of historic proportions. The city workers might have brought municipal government to a standstill. The one percent who have all the money are greedy. But they’re not suicidal. At least, not deliberately.

There were blue collar guys converging on Zuccotti Park who during Viet Nam sided with Lyndon Johnson and then Richard Nixon against the war protestors. In 1968 it wasn’t safe for a war protestor go march past a skyscraper construction site. A hammer or a brick or a bolt might have fallen on your head. Today, these union guys are so fed up with the intransigence of the Republicans and an occasional conservative-in-Democrat’s-clothing that they’re also helping to occupy Wall Street.

This morning, the doctors showed up. NY1, the local TV news outlet in New York, let a medical doctor explain on camera why the demonstrating doctors are so sick of the anti-“Obamacare” stance in Congress. Repeal of Obamacare, if it succeeds, will leave hundreds of thousands of kids (and yes, fetuses whom the Republicans claim so dearly to love) uncovered by ordinary medical care designed to keep them healthy and alive. So much for pro-life Republicans.

Here’s a partial list of the unions that have supported Occupy Wall Street as of Sunday Morning. The full list was printed on the back of the poster you see above. If working guys and women, from hard-hat steel workers and truckers to highly educated nurses, can show up, isn’t it time you showed up, too?

•AAUP-UFT Rutgers

• AFL-CIO

• AFSCME District Council 37

• Teachers’ Federation of Puerto Rico

• International Brotherhood of Teamsters

• Laborers’ International Union of America

• National Nurses United

• NY Metro Area American Postal Workers Union

• Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY)

• Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)

• Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 1199, Local 32BJ

• Transport Workers Union of America

• Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100

• Teamsters Locals 111, 560,701, 814

• United Auto Workers

• United Auto Workers (UAW), Region 9A

• United Tederation of College Teachers – Pratt Institute

• United Federation of Teachers (UFT)

• United Steel Workers (USW)

Who says the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have no demands?

2011-10-19T16:55:00.000-04:00

You want demands? I'll give you demands. I've posted them on a blog called No More Mister Niceblog, where they're attract more eyeballs than the eyeballs scanning my own blog. But I encourage you to visit No More Mr. Niceblog and examine the post entitled, "A list of demands for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators."

Among the topics covered are reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall act, laws preventing commercial banks from operating across state lines (as used to be the case until the 1980s or so) more income tax brackets, with steeper brackets at the top. And even more demandsmore.

More? The demands also deal with Social Security and Medicare, college tuition and college loans, and the need for a constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people, but artificial constructs.

Just go here and scroll down until you can read the damn thing.

A once-bad ad agency becomes a lot worse

2011-10-14T10:32:00.000-04:00

Years ago, in its heydey, an advertising agency named for its founder, Ted Bates, was both famous and infamous.

It was the agency famous for showing hammers banging inside peoples’ heads in TV commercials that promised, “Fast, fast, fast relief” with Anacin. It was famous for selling M&M candy by telling people it “melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” These lines, promising a distinctive product benefit, were called “USPs” or unique selling propositions.

But infamously, some of the selling lines, like the one promising fast, fast, fast relief, brought to mind a movie called The Hucksters. In one scene, the film portrayed a client who deliberately spits a gob of saliva on an ad agency conference room table and then declares:

“Gentlemen, I’ve just done a disgusting thing. But you’ll never forget it.”

Ted Bates did that sort of work. Disgusting. But unforgettable. I never worked there, but I knew some copywriters who did. They went through the workweek in a state of overwhelming depression. Their most animated moments were those they spent plotting to jump ship for a better advertising agency where they could proud of their work.

But at least you knew what Ted Bates stood for. And at least you knew what the products it advertised were supposed to do for you. No longer.

These days, Ted Bates is just “bates.” Yes, with a lowercase b. Why this affectation?

Perhaps because bates, now merely another generic cog in the wheels of an advertising conglomerate, has little else to say or show for itself. WPP, the company that now owns bates, is one of a handful of advertising conglomerates that literally control the business. And what advertising agencies are supposed to produce first and foremost these days is not memorable advertising, but big profits for the parent conglomerate.

If bates can’t be famous for what they do any more, perhaps they can be famous for an all lower-case name, and a new logo that has some comic book voice balloons in it. That seems to be what substitutes for thinking these days. Pathetic!

Even more pathetic is that the new bates has evidently forgotten how to communicate in plain English. They’ve gone from ugly-but-straightforwward shouting at TV viewers about headache relief, to locutional blubbering worthy of Jacques Derrida.

Here is one of their “regional chairman” explaining what the advertising agency is all about, as reported in an English trade journal named Brand Republic. Notice that he never mentions advertising:

"Change has always been what we do best, and remains so. In a world where change is so rapid and fundamental, being change experts is even more relevant than ever. However, our insights on change need to lead to an active benefit to clients. It needs a sharper ear to the ground, an understanding of inflection points, and real time action," said Tim Isaac, regional chairman of bates.

And this means what in terms of the look, language, drama and brand images created by advertising?

My guess is, absolutely nothing.

The late Rosser Reeves, the genius behind the USP at Bates and the ugly-but-perfectly-clear ads that emerged from it, must be rolling around in his grave.

Here's something that I'll bet the women who sympathize with Occupy Wall Street haven't tried yet...

2011-10-12T21:12:00.001-04:00

Might work, at least for the ones who married Republicans.

Wall Street's reply to the national Occupy Wall Street protest movement: "Let 'em eat cake!"

2011-10-10T10:22:00.000-04:00

Check out this video. It was taken as an Occupy Wall Street demonstration passed 55 Wall Street, a former bank building now converted to luxury apartments and a chi chi restaurant run by Harry Cipriani

As you'll learn from Cipriani's own website:

On one of the world's most famous streets, Cipriani reinvents the power breakfast and business lunch to provide an experience worthy of its location. On a spring afternoon you will enjoy a cocktail on the balcony overlooking Wall Street once the exchange has closed and there are a few moments of respite on Wall Street business person's busy schedule.

These champagne-swilling folks on Cipriani's balcony don't have a clue. Their behavior is so embarrassing to America's greedy right wing that even some members of the right are making excuses. You'll hear, based on the appearance of one or two people in tuxedos, that this was a wedding. It wasn't, unless tux, or business suit, or tie-less were all acceptable dress options. (Was that the case at any wedding you've attended?) You'll hear that these were ordinary working class people out having a relaxing drink after work. Working class $40,000 a year men and women swilling champagne? At Cipriani prices? Gimme a break!

No, these are the well-to-do heirs and heiresses-apparent to Queen Marie Antoinette. As the story goes, when told that the people of Paris were in the streets demanding bread, Marie Anbtoinette mocked, "They have no bread? Then let them eat cake."

I'm fighting hard to avoid imagining a guillotine set up in the square at Wall and Broad, across from the from of the New York Stock Exchange.

Incidentally, I wandered down to the protest encampment at Zucotti Park yesterday, to take it all in for myself. One of the first things I noticed was, despite all the chatter about the protest being an action by "a bunch of hippie kids," there was plenty of gray hair among the demonstrators.

This may (or may not) have begun as a youth movement. Now however, we are seeing more of those of us who are old enough to remember when incomes were distributed a bit more equitably, there were tax brackets into the 70- and 90-percent range, and yet nearly all of America felt prosperous, well fed, well housed, and confident of the future despite high taxes. And why shouldn't we have felt that way? The taxes supported not only a new interstate highway system and other infrastructure, but also a space exploration project that fed work to thousands of contractors and subcontractors, creating millions of jobs.

The lessons from the gray heads among us is simple: when you feed the greed, you do it by sucking the prosperity out of America. Most billionaires would easily survive a national economic meltdown. They'll simply move to Zurich or a ski chalet in Gstaad, and steal from someone else. It's the rest of us who are screwed.

Meanwhile, across Broadway from Zucotti Park, a couple of 20-something pranksters, wearing suits and ties despite yesterday's balmy Sunday weather, were pretending that they were Wall Street billionaires, waving signs that said, "We are the 1 Percent," while loudly announcing that "we like the status quo," and insisting they had a right to keep all of America's wealth.

It was a pretty funny bit that reminded me of what "Billionaires for Bush," once did to poke fun at the previous administration. While Billionaires for Bush still have a website that proclaims the motto, "Small Government, Big Wars," they seem to have simmered down lately. Which made room for the two jokesters who said the name of their movement is "Occupy Occupy Wall Street."

Waving signs that said, "Bankers of the world Unite!" they insist, with mock seriousness, that their aim is to launch a counter-protest movement so that the rich can keep "pretty much all the money in America."

Everybody seemed to get the gag when I was there. One exception was the Washington Post, which took them seriously, reported that the investment bankers were protesting, and then had to print a retraction. Which tells me that some reporter has the sense of humor and insight of a rock.

Meanwhile, the Occupy Wall Street movement is opening a wide fissure in the real status quo. The job of those protesting in the streets is an enormous one – literally to democratically wrest control from the people who have all the power, all the money, and (sadly) who control with bribes described as "campaign contributions" all the Republicans and too many of the Democrats.

And yet I have a gut feeling that in time the Occupy Wall Street movement may succeed.

Michael Bloomberg’s grave mistake

2011-10-04T16:42:00.000-04:00

The chaos created by New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s police department has been covered up the whazoo. You can even read about it on Bloomberg News. To sum up:

• A handful of demonstrators began an “occupy Wall Street” movement.

• Bloomberg sent in the cops. If you’ve seen the videos, you’ve seen that most of the uniformed guys were doing their sheepish best to follow orders without being brutal. The worse most of them (with a few exceptions) could summon up by way of intimidating the protestors were commands to “Get the fuck back.” This was hardly consistent with the Police Department motto here, “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect,” but it wasn’t a grave offense against humanity, either.

• Then some white-shirted command-level people – the ones highest up the food chain, and in frequent contact with their commissioner, who takes orders from the mayor – started to run amok. One, for no reason, walked up to a young female demonstrated, pepper sprayed her in the eyes, then walked away. The internal affairs folks at NYPD are “investigating” the incident. Yeah, sure. Burying it, more likely.

Why hasn't the deputy inspector who did the pepper spraying been suspended pending conclusion of the investigation? Once upon a time, New York cops who were known to perform psycho acts like this were called "rubber guns" because even if they were protected until they could collect their pensions, they were kept on unarmed duty at the precinct house, doing chores like sweeping out the detective squad room.

I haven’t brought up the entire demonstrater-police mess before because I detest Bloomberg enough to follow the advice of Napoleon Bonaparte here: “Never interrupt the enemy when he is making a grave mistake.”

Bloomberg’s mistake has been to unwittingly fertilize and water a small group of justifiably discontented demonstrators enough to turn them into a national movement. Now the demonstrations have grown exponentially in New York and are popping up in big cities all around the United States.

As for Mayor Bloomberg’s character, you only have to pay attention to a remark he made, not only after the pepper spray incident but also after the police entrapped roughly 700 of the demonstrators by luring them into a traffic lane of the Brooklyn Bridge and then arresting them for being there. Incidentally, these arrests mean that instead of a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge, there’s going to be one in the city courts.

“The police are doing exactly what they’re supposed to,” Bloomberg said.

I rest my case.

Fallout from Onion spoof reporting on a “hostage-taking” Congress proves nobody in Washington has a sense of humor. Least of all Republicans.

2011-09-30T12:04:00.000-04:00

If there’s anything Congress hates more than an agreement that could put the United States back on a stable economic footing, it’s a spoof that highlights its Republican-driven incompetence and irrationality.

Case in point:

The satirical newspaper The Onion ran a spoof – both online and in Twitterfeeds – that purported to follow Congress taking twelve children hostage and demanding $12 trillion to let the kids live.

A half brain-dead idiot would have to know it was a spoof, and a damned pointed one at that. It featured a Photoshopped picture of John Boehner holding a pistol to a little girl’s head. That’s it, at top right.

The spoof included a Tweet that said, Three-course lunch from Charlie Palmer's Steakhouse delivered as per Rep. Boehner's demands #CongressHostage

And what was that, if not a pointed reference to the fact that in the United States, wretches starve while the Congressmen, who could turn around the economy if they wanted, instead stuff their faces and make trouble for the nation?

The spoof even included a followup story that involved the pompous pontificating of Senator Mitch McConnell, who has had a major hand in holding up agreements in the Senate. Here’s the Onion explaning McConnell’s alleged position on the ransom:

Obviously, the most important thing here is to reach a deal that works for both sides," read a statement from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the disputed $12 trillion agreement that would free the young children currently being held at gunpoint by the country’s legislative branch. "But many important questions still remain: How will the ransom money be allocated? How can we cut needless expenditures such as individual ski masks for every congressman? Should there be a stipulation to take one of the children with us to ensure a clean getaway? Unfortunately, it may be quite some time before we can reach an adequate consensus on these and other issues." At press time, FBI officials said Congress had moved to extend the money drop-off deadline until early December.

The bad congressional behavior that inspired this spoof was so pointedly reflected in this story that the Republicans must have had a Category Five meltdown. Next thing you know, the Capitol Police — this is for real now — began investigating the Onion reports.

C’mon! What’s to investigate? We know where the report originated. At the Onion. We know what their motivation was: to spoof Congressional bad behavior. And we know who did it: The Onion staff members.

I met a few dumb cops in my police beat reporting days, but never this dumb. Why do I suspect that the cops aren’t "investigating" on their own?

Why do I think that somebody on the Republican side of the aisle is putting them up to it — perhaps by threatening sotto voce to cut the Capitol Police budget is they don’t make a big deal out of this to punish the Onion staff?

Instead of investigating The Onion, I have a better idea. Let's investigate Congress.

High Tech Thomas Favors Low-Tech Lynchings

2011-09-27T10:54:00.001-04:00

Famously, during his U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, now-Justice Clarence Thomas decried his own "high tech lynching" when accused of sexual harassment of a woman who worked for him. (A recent check indicates this link isn't working. Oh, damn!)

But when it came to an opportunity to prevent the low-tech lynching of Troy Davis, now executed for a murder he probably didn't commit, Mr. Thomas took a pass.

More in the post, "Capital Punishment For Dummies," recently left at No More Mr. Nice Blog at the invitation of the blog's proprietor.

Republican budget cutters to vets who went through hell sacrificing for America: “Screw you!”

2011-09-19T14:41:00.000-04:00

If you need still more proof that the budget-cutting Republicans who refuse to raise taxes and want to kill off Medicare and Social Security have no interest in America, its economic future, its military security, or even its heroes, check out this:

Yup, the same crowd that embraces people who shout out at meetings with Ron Paul that uninsured Americans should die (and then complain about nonexistent “death panels”) now want to cut so deeply into the budget that even those who fought, suffered, or were grievously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan are on greed's chopping block.

Republicans are not interested in the future of America. They are interested only in the propagation of their greedy, anti-American, anti-full employment doctrines.

If you vote for a Republican – you encourage these callous psychopaths, who are the real death panels. A vote for a Republican – any Republican – is a vote to bury America to benefit the greedy few.

Remember: Not one Republican. Not now. Not ever. Say it to yourself. Think it to yourself:

Not one Republican. Not one Republican. Not one Republican.

Credible shmedible! Who gets to search the body cavity?

2011-09-15T15:34:00.000-04:00

No, the ad at right is not there by mistake. I’ll get around to it. But first I have to tell you the news:

A woman was arrested on “credible evidence” that she was smuggling heroin across the Mexican border in a certain, umm, body cavity. She was busted in or near Las Cruces, New Mexico. A judge ordered that she be taken to a hospital so that her, you know, body cavity could be searched.

The hospital found nothing that didn’t belong there. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Then the hospital billed the woman $1,122 for, uhh, professional services.

The good news is that the rather embarrassed Metro Narcotics Agency is picking up her hospital bill. Thus they avoid becoming a target of unquenchable ire and extreme ridicule. But the whole incident raises a number of questions:

• New York City was in near panic mode on the 9/11 just past over “credible evidence” that there was a plot to bomb us, or blow us up somehow, or something or other. A lot of cops and firemen made a lot of overtime money converging with lights flashing and automatic rifles at the ready around various points in town. A lot of TV newscasters spent a lot of time talking about nothing else. I rode the subway on 9/11, and for the first time in months, if I had seen something (which I didn’t) I could have found a cop to say something to. Which raises the question of whether we ought to have a legal definition of "credible evidence." Was the evidence that some desperate guy on a waterboard said something to keep the CIA from forcing more water up his schnozz? Was the evidence two guys overheard talking in a bar in Toledo? I mean, come on!

• The woman in Las Cruces got billed $1,122 for the body cavity search that was forced on her. Which involved what? Let’s say someone at the hospital looked into not just one of her cavities, but every orifice in her body, from ears and nostrils on down. How much medical skill does it take, and how long does it take, to shine a light in, stick your umm, tongue depressor in, look around and say, “Nope, no shipment of heroin in here!” Let’s generously say ten minutes. That comes to $122 a minute in compensation for the hospital. And you wonder why your medical insurance is so expensive, or why Medicare is supposedly going broke?

• What kind of qualifications do I need in order to get hired as a body cavity searcher? I promise you, I’m not being kinky. Some of those cavities can be downright unpleasant. But at $122 a minute (that’s $7,320 an hour) I’ll grit my teeth and take the work.

•Finally, an explanation of the ad above. It appeared next to the article about the $1,122 orifice search on the website of the Las Cruces Sun. A subhead says, “Like floating on a cool pool of energy savings,” whatever that means. But then the ad shows its true Dada-ist colors when it says, “Save $700 in home energy. Air mattress not included.” As if one would naturally expect an air mattress to be included whenever I buy something from the local power company. While they’re at it, why don’t they mention that the pool is not included either, or the water?

But never mind all that. Just tell me were I get that $7,320-an-hour job searching body cavities.

“To demonstrate my displeasure with you, President Obama, I’m going to blow my own brains out.”

2011-09-13T10:31:00.000-04:00

This evening we may experience yet another example of the limitless capacity of most Americans to vote down their own future.

At issue: a special election for the seat in Congress formerly held by Anthony Weiner, the loose-screw congressman who was fond of e-mailing photographs of his, umm, weiner to young women.

On the right is Tea Party radical Bob Turner who will vote with the Republican congressional roadblock to bring down the president by voting against anything Obama is for, regardless of the consequences. Against: healthcare, Medicare, Social Security, abortion, an infusion of capital into the economy or, if the issue ever comes up, washing your hands after flushing the toilet.

On the other side is a Democratic party stalwart, David Weprin, who will support Social Security, Medicare, programs to get more of us employed, infrastructure repair and improvements, better schools, and a woman’s right to decide whether or not she will bear a child.

The district, I’ve heard, is roughly two-thirds democratic. So who is projected to win?

At this moment, it’s Bob Turner, the Tea Party wing nut.So what’s going on here?

Simple. Lots of democrats, like me, are pissed off at Obama, who has fiddled around attempting to compromise with the uncompromising right wing of Congress while the economy continues to go down in flames.

Add to that, Obama’s position on Israel isn’t quite as pro-Israel as some people in the district would like. So even though Weprin is an orthodox Jew who is as likely to vote against Israel’s interests as Michelle Bachmann is to start shooting gay porno films, the voters in the old Weiner district are going to get even with the President.

The polls show a slight lean toward Turner. To demonstrate to Mr. Obama how mad they are, the democratic district may vote today for a man who will cut their Social Security, destroy their Medicare, jerk the rug out from their school-age and college-age kids, vote to sink the economy, and force their daughters to bear the children of rapists.

That’s like the idiot kids who blow their own brain out to punish their teachers.

Morning After Report: Yep, my fellow Dems did it, last night. They pulled the trigger and blew their own brains out, voting to destroy their future and the future of the kids in order to tell off President Obama. Bob Turner Won.

The New York Times reported:

“I am a registered Democrat, I have always been a registered Democrat, I come from a family of Democrats — and I hate to say this, I voted Republican,” said Linda Goldberg, 61, after casting her ballot in Queens. “I need to send a message to the president that he’s not doing a very good job. Our economy is horrible. People are scared.”

Unfortunately, Linda, you also sent yourself a message. It reads, "I'm mad at Obama, so screw me!"

The Times also reported:

Mr. Turner predicted that voters elsewhere would also rebuke Mr. Obama in the elections next year.

“We have lit one candle today,” he said. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”

Nice going, Dems. You've added one more obstreperous Republican to the ranks, one more for the President to "compromise" with.

Sorry, I gotta run out on you for a while. I've got "Mal de Republicanism."

2011-08-19T10:39:00.000-04:00

I'm gone until after the Labor Day Weekend. I'm outta here. On vacation. I have my reasons for blowing town.

First of all, I'm having problems with Republicans stealing my stuff. Now, Republicans haven't had an original idea in years. Their political ideas were new three centuries ago. Their notions of religion and freedom of religion are medieval. Their ideas about economics and science have the sophistication of a Neanderthal throwing rocks at an elephant

To make up for a complete lack of imagination, they steal. They make money for their rich buddies by stealing money from the middle class and the poor. (I guess they've either got the Robin Hood story backwards, or identify with the Sheriff of Nottingham.) Okay, the world is watching when they pull that kind of flim-flam. But I draw the line at their stealing from me.

At the beginning of this month, I posted a piece suggesting that Eric Cantor and other "Tea Party" Republicans were treasonous in their political behavior, which was sinking the U.S. economy.

And guess what? As you've probably read in the papers and noticed on TV, Rick Perry, the know-nothing governor of Texas who's seeking the Republican nomination "suddenly" got the bright idea of declaring that Fed Secretary Ben Bernake is guilty of "treason" and sinking the U.S. economy. They stole my hammer. And now they're trying to drive a rubber band into a brick wall with it.

Is somebody on the Perry campaign staff is gleaning my cranky little blog for ideas? (Is that really you, Rick?") Mabe.

Or maybe it was merely a coincidence – a spontaneous idea that flew into Rick's mouth. At any rate, I've had it with the Republican crazies and those who kowtow to them. I've had it with Michelle Bachmann. I've had it with the sudden reemergence of Christine O'Donnell. I've had it with Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, and – well, you get the idea.

So I'm taking a short vacation, from this blog, from work, even from New York.

See you in September.

How the middle class is getting nickeled and dimed to death

2011-08-10T17:14:00.000-04:00

NOTE: Don't leave until you watch the video at the bottom of this rant.

Yikes! The month's electric bill arrived yesterday from my power supplier, Consolidated Edison of New York. According to their bill, I used 116 kilowatt hours of power. for which they’re charging 13. 3190 cents per kilowatt hour, a total of $15.95.

Therefore my bill ought to have been $15.95, right? Hell no! It was $48.56.

So how can anybody be billed $48.56 for $15.95 (retail value) worth of electricity? I am so glad you asked?

1. The "somebody else is a deadbeat" charge. Con Edison charged me a 55-cent “Merchant function charge.” What’s that? Con Ed helpfully explains that it’s a “Charge associated with procuring electricity, credit and collection related activities and uncollectible accounts.” Which means, in part, that they’re charging me extra because they couldn’t get the money out of some anonymous deadbeat, so they're taking it out of my pocket. God help us all if Con Ed's chairman ever goes to Las Vegas and loses his own wad.

2. The "you-pay-my-taxes" charges. Con Ed also charged me for “Taxes on Con Edison gross receipts from sales of utility services and other tax surcharges.” In other words, I’m paying a tax because I, and a bunch of other consumers, gave them money and Con Ed doesn’t want to pay its own taxes on the money we're pouring into their coffers.

3. The "shipping not included" charge. I paid a “delivery” charge of $10.78 because the power company is “maintaining the system through which Con Edison delivers electricity to you.” It's like having an extra charge tacked on to your groceries because the supermarket has to sweep out the store at night. Well, I suppose the power company is entitled to a delivery charge, although a charge costing two-thirds of what the product itself costs sounds a trifle steep to me. Suppose you bought a necklace for, say, $1,000 and the jeweler tried to charge you $666 for delivery. See what I mean?

4. The "this is only temporary (har-har!)" charge. I have to pay charges for renewable energy, a “temporary” New York State surcharge of 46 and a half cents per kilowatt hour (I’m betting that charge is "temporary" until they raise it to 63 cents). There was also another gross receipts tax on the “delivery” charges that Con Ed socked me with, plus there were sales taxes. These brought the bill for my less-than-fifteen-and-a-half bucks worth of electricity up to the $48.56.

I keep finding the same kind of nickel-and-dime charges on my cell phone, cable, Internet connection and landline telephone bills. While buying legislators to destroy the middle class by reducing the services, benefits and Social Security and Medicare support you and I get from the government, the corporate honchos get bigger and bigger salaries and tax breaks. And now they're doing even more to destroy us with these blood-from-a-stone charges.

Which brings me to this:

Is Rep. Eric Cantor deliberately trying to sink the U.S. economy to line his own pockets? If so, it isn’t politics he's playing, it's treason.

2011-08-08T15:56:00.000-04:00

Mr. Cantor, the Republican congressman from Virginia, may be trying to line his own pockets by working to destroy the U.S. economy, if you read between the lines of this article.

In essence, he's gambling that he'll make a lot of money if we suffer an economic collapse – the kind of collapse brought on by a loss of confidence in the U.S. Dollar and the U.S. Treasury. And that's just the thing that's happening now thanks to Cantor's no-budging-on-the-budget stand on the debt ceiling.

Such an act isn’t merely politics. It isn’t merely greed. It’s an act of war against the United States that will contribute to the ruin the national economy – an act committed so that Eric Cantor can make money while millions of Americans lose their jobs, their homes, and their standard of living, and while the United States capacity to defend itself is weakened. I read that as treason, pure and simple. Treason, treason, treason!

Moron Business 101 for Budget Balancing Republicans (and also for President Barack Obama)

2011-08-04T15:33:00.001-04:00

Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to your first day at the College for Dummies, class for slow learners in economics and business administration. Let’s start with a quiz.

For the following question, let’s assume that you own a candy store that brings in $30,000 a year and that it is in debt for $30,000.

Let us also assume that you also want to stay in business and not turn into the most ghastly failure in your town’s business history. However, you have some problems.

Your overhead is $15,000 a year. Fresh stock costs you $15,000 a year. You’re nearly out of stock, and a lot of your products are old, stale, out of date, and looking tired. Moreover, the big, new, and very shiny China Candy Store across the street not only sells fresher candy, but also milk shakes and hamburgers, so it’s attracting nearly all of the business you used to get.

Oh, and one more thing: A friendly banker is ready, willing and able to lend you all the money you want – provided you use it to buy fresh candy and other products, freshen up your store’s infrastructure, and advertise.

Should you:

A) Say, “No, I’m going to pay off my debt first so my son won’t have to inherit any debt when I die. To do that, I’m not going borrow any moey so I can sell fresh candy or renovate my store or add new products and employees. Instead, I’m going to keep selling stale candy until I run out of stock and have nothing to sell and no customers. That’s the only practical way to pay down what I owe and leave something for my son.

B) Borrow enough money from your friendly banker to get fresh stock, open up a milkshake and hamburger counter that competes with the China Candy Store across the street, and renovate your premises so it will look nicer and attract more business than your competitor’s. Oh, and also spend some money on advertising, so people will know what a great candy store you’re running these days and will want to patronize your store again. As the money starts coming in, use some of it to slowly pay off your debt, and the rest to keep refreshing your stock, your advertising, your product offerings, and to hire new employees to handle the overflow business you start getting.

C) Go home and beat the crap out of your wife, Democrata. Tell her it’s all her damn fault that you’re in hock and you’ve got almost no customers left, and that if she didn’t keep asking you to borrow some more money to get your business restarted, everything would be better.

D) Call your banker and say, “Look asshole, stop saying that if I don’t borrow some money and fix up my business and start selling more, new and better products I’m gonna go bankrupt. Bankruptcy isn’t so bad. Even if the Sheriff padlocks my store, people can pass money to me through the mail slot and I can slip stale candy back at them through the same slot. And if the Sheriff has the nerve to seal the mail slot, I'll pass the candy through the keyhole. And that way I can pay off my debt. And if the sheriff comes and starts selling off my stale candy and store fixtures, the money from those sheriff’s auctions will pay off some of the debt, too.

E) Borrow money from your banker, but instead of using it to by fresh stock and renovate your store, use it to firebomb the China Candy store across the street. And maybe some of those Muslim-owned stores down the block.

ANSWER: If you chose B. You’re a Democrat. If you chose A, C, D, or E you’re either a Republican and an idiot, or you’re Barack Obama trying to pretend you’re reasonable.

What to cut when Congress demands budget cuts

2011-07-29T09:30:00.001-04:00

1. Cut congressional salaries. Cut them down to the monthly stipend that Social Security recipients get. If Social Security payments go down, or stay static, keep congressional salaries at the same level.

2. Cut the salaries of congressional aides. (See above).

3. Cut the congressional medical plan. Put them on exactly the same Medicare program that seniors receive. If Medicare gets means tested, means-test the congressional representatives, too. Some of those guys are millionaires. They should pay out of their own pockets, just like the seniors who, after paying into the system for decades, will be declared "too rich" to get the Medicare they bought.

4. Ditto congressional aides.

And if the U.S. Government defaults...

Let's default from the Capitol Building down. First, Mr. President and Mr. Secretary of the Treasury, don't pay Congressional salaries. Or benefits. Or expenses.

And for the love of heaven, don't pay to have their toilets cleaned. Tell them to do it with their own toothbrushes.

Bad news from all over: from budget crises, to Christian vs. Muslim extremists, to Saudi Arabian beheadings, to Texas executions to dumber Americans

2011-07-26T16:18:00.000-04:00

1. Nevermind the budget crisis. The U.S. Government isn’t the only flat broke entity.

"A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that 47% of Americans say they cannot raise $2,000 within 30 days without selling an asset. (Surprising and sad.) Pawnshops and payday lenders service a huge and - in this economy - growing market."—Alexander Green from an e-mail letter sent to Oxford Club members on June 26^th, 2011

2. You think those Muslim extremists are bad news? Watch out for those pro-Christian extremists.

On July 22, 2011, a man dressed as a police officer opened fire at a youth camp on the Norwegian island of Utoya, killing scores people in a two-hour long massacre, authorities said. The alleged gunman, identified in media reports as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, is also suspected in a bombing that left seven people dead in the capital of Oslo earlier in the day. In all, the death toll was estimated at 76 by the following Monday. "What we know is that he is right-wing and a Christian fundamentalist,”said one official.

3. Fun fact for Budget Crisis fans.

Even Congress’s own budget office says that the that to dig ourselves out of the financial hole our government is in, we ought to consider increasing revenues [that’s code for raising taxes.] But nobody seems to be listening. Not President Obama. Certainly not the Republicans. The Congressional Budget Office states…

Under current laws and policies, an aging population and rapidly rising health care costs will sharply increase federal spending for health care programs and Social Security. Unless revenues increase at a similar pace, such spending will cause federal debt to grow to unsustainable levels. If policymakers are to put the nation on a sustainable budgetary path, they will need to let revenues increase substantially as a percentage of gross domestic product, decrease spending significantly from projected levels, or adopt some combination of those two approaches.

4. A big “tip of the head” to our pals the Saudis. (And also to the Texans.)

During 2010, our big buddies, the Saudi Arabians, executed (mostly by decapitation) “at least 27 people” according to Amnesty International. You can read the full story here, but beware: the photograph accompanying the story is fairly horrifying.

Besides, if you think that’s something, consider Texas. They had 318 prisoners sitting on death row at the beginning of this year.

5. The dumbing of America.

The United States once had more college graduates among 25 to 34 year olds than any other nation on earth. As of last year, 11 other countries were whupping our butts when it came to leading the world in college graduates of this age. So what do those rocket-scientist deep thinkers in the Tea Party want to do? Why, cut government spending on education, of course! They claim government spending on education is “dumbing us down.”

So what will contributing nothing to our schools give us? Duh?

The Speech to the nation on taxes and the Tea Party that President Obama will never make

2011-07-19T17:38:00.000-04:00

My fellow Americans: this morning Federal Agents, following my executive order, arrested Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann, and group of other so-called Tea Party Republican legislators and flew them to the U.S. Army base in Guantanamo, Cuba, where they are now incarcerated

I gave this order under the authority granted to the President of the United States by an overwhelming vote of Republicans after 9/11, which allows me to determine who is an enemy combatant and order their arrest and incarceration without trial. Some Democrats protested that this was an unconstitutional power, but most Republicans insisted on it, and since they refused to take back down from this position, I am using it.

The arrested individuals are in every respect enemies of the United States, combating us through our economy. They will be charged with conspiring to destroy the economic structure of the United States and, in so doing, attempting to destroy the lives of million Americans citizens, most notably the elderly, infirm, and helpless. This is every bit as much a crime against our citizenry as blowing up a car bomb in Times Square, only on a far greater and more vicious scale.

The courts have not ruled that waterboarding is torture and illegal, and therefore I am happy to tell you that after enhanced interrogation, Representatives Cantor and Bachmann and some of the others confessed to a deliberate attempt to sabotage the United States so that they could overthrow the current administration – in effect, create a governmental coup-by-crisis so that they could take over Washington.

Because of security considerations, most specifically concerns that armed Tea Party zealots will attempt to assassinate the jury, the accused will not be tried on U.S. soil. Instead, they will be tried in Guantanamo and, if found guilty, they will be executed for treason.

Now, I would appreciate it if the remaining members of both houses of Congress would get back to work, before I beome annoyed. I want the debt ceiling raised, and paid for by instituting new tax brackets for the wealthiest Americans, going up to 80 percent for that part of any individual’s income that goes over three million dollars a year. Taxes on excess corporate profits must be taxed similarly. And I am asking for a new job export tax, equivalent to five years’ salary for any American employee whose job is shipped overseas by a corporation, wherever it does business.

We understand that all Americans will have to share at least some of the pain. Therefore, Social Security and Medicare deductions on pay will get extended to cover all earned income. It is my intention to balance the budget

Thank you and goodnight.

You're welcome and good riddance!

2011-07-10T16:15:00.000-04:00

Rupert Murdoch's notorious News of The World put itself out of business this weekend after scandalous revelations surfaced of its staff and agents hacking into the cell phones of dead soldiers, murder victims and others.

Let us hope that Murdoch's Fox News channel is next.

Is it time for the Democrats to put up an anti-Obama primary candidate?

2011-07-08T14:06:00.000-04:00

It’s time to come right out and say it. Barack Obama hasn’t merely disappointed his base. He has betrayed us.

He has put Social Security and Medicare on the table – to him nothing more than chips than he can exchange for some vague Republican promises to fiddle around with tax revenues.

This will “cause some political pain…” I heard him say on TV this morning. Political pain?

How about real human pain? The pain of hunger among many seniors and disabled kids, just for openers. Not to mention the pain felt by all of us over 65, who cheerfully accepted Social Security and Medicare deductions from our page checks for decade after decade – because we knew the money were putting in would tide us over and take care of us when we were ill in our old age.

And now we're being cheated out of delivery of a promise and a lifetime of contributions. The Republicans are raiding Social Security as if it were an abandoned bag full of money. And Obama says, well okay, my own supporters don’t want you to do this, and you do want to do this, so we’ll compromise. You can do it.

He “compromised” this way at least once before, when he bargained away his once staunchly defended “public option”

I don’t know what Obama thinks he’s doing. I don’t even know if he thinks. Some deep personal flaw leads him to turn on the people who put him in office — perhaps assuming that come the next Presidential election, Democrats will have no one to vote for save Obama anyway. If that's his thinking, he is a terribly flawed president indeed.

It’s time for us to turn on him. We need a prominent and thoroughly gutsy United States Senator, former senator or a civil servant with experience on the highest level to prepare pronto to run against Barack Obama in the presidential primaries.

In my heart of hearts I know that Russ Feingold or Barney Frank or Bernie Sanders couldn’t carry a national election, even though if we had one of them in the White House, we'd have a great president. Which leads me to one simple question:

Hillary, where are you when we need you?

Luddite would-be rapist tries an attack the old fashioned way – with a bow and arrows

2011-07-05T12:27:00.000-04:00

While it was clearly nothing less than a nightmare for the two victims and I don’t mean to belittle their terror and agony, there’s something about this story I have to love.

A young couple, he a New Zealander named Matt Scheurich, she a French anthropologist in graduate school, were enjoying a picnic and swim at a river in New Guinea when a native rapist attacked them – with a bow and arrows.

Here’s an excerpt from the story in The Huffington Pos t:

He fired an arrow at Matt Scheurich as the 28-year-old New Zealander relaxed on a river bank while his girlfriend, a French doctoral student studying tribal life, swam in the river.

The first arrow hit Scheurich on the right side of his chest, Dr. Turharus said. The attacker then emerged from his hiding spot and fired a second arrow at Scheurich which hit him in the left side of his chest and deflected down into his stomach.

"Normally they use these arrows for hunting, for shooting at cassowaries and bears," Dr. Turharus said.

Cassowaries are large, flightless birds native to Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The attacker also threw rocks at Scheurich's head, the doctor said. The man then attempted to sexually assault the French woman, but she managed to bite his hand and run to a nearby village…

Think about it. In a day when terrorists who want to restablish medieval Sharia law born of a nomadic culture attack with airplanes and IEDs…when forgers pursuing an ancient art now use their MACs to scan and copy $100 bills…when American rapists use semi-automatic pistols …. this dude tries to pull off a rape with his bow and arrow and by throwing rocks.

That’s Ludism for you. And if you managed to doze through this little nugget in your history class, Luddites were followers of Ned Lud, a 19^th Century technophobe who tried to protect the jobs of hand weavers, who were being automated out of their jobs, by smashing those newfangled weaving machines.

The escape from rape was also begun without the help of technology. The intended rape victim bit the rapist’s hand. But after she ran to safety, she activated a temporary locator beacon. She and her fiancée were evacuated by aircraft. Saved by technology.

Now the would-be rapist, whose identity is known, is being sought, presumably with every high tech tool at the local constabulary’s disposal.

“It might take some time, but it won't be difficult,” one of them said.

I’m not sure what this bodes for folks who, thanks to technology, have seen their jobs exported, their incomes reduce sometimes to nothing, and their lives and future wrecked by the onslaught of applications designed to make sure the rich grow richer while the rest of us grow broke.

Nor do I think there’s a ray of hope here for those of us who have to keep updating our computer technology at the whim of Apple and Microsoft executives. When humanity stands up to the cold hand of technology, it seems that technology wins almost every time.

But I can tell you this. When the high tech forces of the super rich come for me, I’ll be ready to fight them until they zap me off the planet. I’m sharpening my arrows now.

Speech coach arrives from Mars to coach Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin

2011-06-28T15:38:00.000-04:00

New York:- His flying saucer put down at JFK International Airport at three o’clock in the morning when there were few people around to witness his arrival.

Within moments, Nictu Platu, the famed and often mysterious speech coach from Mars, had boarded a helicopter and was secretly whisked off to New Hampshire to help coach Republican presidential primary candidate Michele Bachmann with her interview appearances on television and before the public.

“Michelle needs help,” Platu explained briefly to a bleary-eyed press pool reporter who had been awakened from a gin stupor by a phone call from his editor and told to go interview the visiting Martian. Platu is said to work only for way-far-right Republicans and a few disturbed Libertarians.

“What kind of help?” the reporter asked.

“Well, she confused the press, which thinks she mixed up John Wayne, the movie actor, with John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer,” said Platu. “This was in Waterloo, Iowa, which she said was the birthplace of John Wayne. Actually, it was John Wayne Gacy’s birthplace.”

“Right, said the reporter.”

“Well, the truth is, she was thinking about John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer,” said Platu. “It’s just that the press refused to accept Michele’s word at the time and forced her to change her story.

"The truth is, she admires serial killers. That’s why she was for the pointless war in Iraq. That’s why you’ve never heard her complain in a right-to-life speech about the rights to life of an abortion doctors who was gunned down in church. Also, she loves TV serials and cowboy movies, which is how she learned about life in the first place. Not to mention history.”

“You mean the Paul Revere’s ride thing?” the reporter asked.

“Nah, now you’re talking about Sarah Palin, a different one of my students,” said Platu.

“Why do you only take Republican candidates?” the reporter asked.

“On Mars we have a saying. Only a dull knife needs a honing,” Platu said mysteriously.

And with that, he shut the helicopter door and took off for New Hampshire.

Is the AARP about to betray millions of its own dues-paying senior citizens...again?

2011-06-17T15:12:00.000-04:00

When the AARP came out in support of the Medicare Part D "donut hole" a few years ago, it was a sellout from which millions of American seniors suffered higher drug costs that they're still paying today.

Now, from FiredogLake.com comes this communication, which I quote verbatim without further comment. Read it and draw your own conclusions:

It's time to burn your AARP card.

According to news reports this morning, the AARP will drop its opposition to cutting Social Security benefits. The huge organization wants a "seat at the table" to will decide how to void our country's social contract.

What's worse is that AARP will now use its considerable wealth and stature to advance this devastating idea in Congress. The group plans to hold town hall meetings across the country to evangelize this new stance to their millions of members.

Social Security is in grave danger. Tell the AARP that you won't back down to threats against Social Security.

As one of the largest lobbying groups in the country, AARP will likely now focus much of its $1.4 billion on providing cover for members of Congress, the administration and others seeking to cut Social Security.

AARP was instrumental in the passage of George W. Bush's disastrous Medicare Part D plan that diverted millions of dollars to private insurance companies. In the end, AARP ended up with huge profits from the corporate giveaway that passed Congress.

Now that they've decided that Social Security and the millions of seniors that depend on the program are no longer worth their time or money, you can bet that they'll use those same resources against us.

What's insidious is their attempt to paint this move as a good thing to their members, and that the death of the Social Security and Medicare programs are inevitable. Despite countless reports of their stability, AARP is now feeding the public the same lines as Alan Simpson and Obama's Deficit Commission.

Can you add your name to our letter and show your support for protecting Social Security?

The fight to protect Social Security has huge implications for future generations of Americans. Thank you for standing with us as we vehemently oppose any attempts - big or small - to kill these critical programs.

Thanks for all you do,

- Brian

Brian Sonenstein
Organizer, Firedoglake.com

PS: For more information on this story, check out this Firedoglake.com post from Eric Kingson, professor of social work at Syracuse University and former social security advisor to President Obama during the 2008 campaign.

Our disgusting news media

2011-06-16T15:15:00.001-04:00

Watch it and puke!

Nancy Pelosi held a press conference, to talk about the economy, how to keep your job and Social Security safe, what we can do to save Medicare – the things that concern nearly every American.

She didn't want to talk aboutCongressman Anthony Weiner's resignation. And to tell you the truth, there's almost nothing left to say.

But when she announced that she would be talking about America's pocketbook issues and not Weiner's weiner, t he networks cut away . They're a bunch of philistine nincompoops. May they'll all get fired in the next wave of media layoffs. Maybe there ought to be a National Switch Off The News Day to protest. Anyone?

Anyway, check out the clip from TPM.

House Republicans take food from the mouths of starving American children but feed azaleas

2011-06-14T16:51:00.000-04:00

You can't make this stuff up.

Michelle Bachmann and the big lie that got away

2011-06-14T16:13:00.000-04:00

I’ve been waiting – and waiting, and waiting, dudes – for some press truth squad to point out that Michelle Bachman was so full of bullpoop during the Republican candidates debate in New Hampshire the other night that she could have fertilized a 40-acre turnip field.

I’m speaking particularly of her reference to America’s roots as a Christian nation.

She caught me off guard. I wasn’t taking notes because I didn’t think any claim so bald-facedly false would emerge from the debate. But at some point she lectured us on the founding fathers’ belief in Christianity and how this make us a Christian nation.

Her proof? The line from the Declaration of Independence (Didn’t she mistakenly say the line was from the Constitution?) that “all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights ….”

She, she in effect said, the founding fathers wrote “creator” because they believed in God.

Sorry, Michelle. Once again you flunk history. The revolutionary founders used the word “creator” because they didn’t want to use the word “God.” There were quite a few deists among the founders. They believed there was something that created us, but whether it was a god or some other force they couldn’t say.

Go here and you’ll learn

Deism has no church and no official organization, hence, it is not considered a religion. It is more a reason-based view of religion in general. Deism is sometimes referred to as a religious philosophy or a religious outlook. In general, Deism did not see Christ as the Son of God, did not believe in the Trinity, had no strong belief in miracles, and had no belief in atonement or resurrection. The Bible was not considered “sacred text” among most Deists, although most Deists were (like Franklin) Christian-friendly.

Deism could fall into certain subcategories of Deist-Christian (i.e. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson) and Deist non-Christian (i.e. Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen). Deist-Christians generally believed the Bible provided good lessons to live by and they attended church regularly. Deist non-Christians generally felt that Christianity was largely an impediment to growth and they did not attend church regularly.

In fact, in a 1796 treaty, the United States declared that the United States government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”

So shut up, Michelle and stop spewing your bullpoop. Just…shut…up.

Take off that mask, “Public Advocate of the U.S.” Your name sounds like you’re part of the government. But you’re really a hate group.

2011-06-09T11:36:00.000-04:00

If you got an e-mail from someone calling himself “Public Advocate of the U.S.” you might be tempted to think you were hearing from a government official.

Not a chance. You’d be hearing from a group in Falls Church, VA., the late Reverend Jerry Falwell’s old turf. According to their own website, the group is devoted to opposing same-sex marriage, prohibiting women from choosing to have an abortion, fighting against “Gay Rights” (they put the phrase in quotations marks), and a whole bunch of other early-Neanderthal ambitions. Oh, but they’re for something, too. Tax cuts.

The kind of anti-homosexual hatred the Falls Church creeps are stirring up is the kind that leads to lynchings, street assaults, bullying and harassment of kids in school and other violence.

I didn’t go looking for these goons. They found me. Here’s how it happened:

I put one of my e-mail addresses on the mailing list of a “self defense” training school some while ago. I wanted to do – and did do – a blog piece about the school because it was giving away just what the average Joe needs to blow away the neighborhood and disembowel his neighbors: free AK47s and bayonet sets.

Evidently Dr. Ignatius Piazza, the chiropractor-turned-gun-guru who runs the school traded my e-mail address to the so-called “Public Advocate.” Hey, it makes sense. If I’m really interested in owning a free AK-47 and a bayonet set, it stands to reason I’m the kind of red-blooded patriot who’s also open to bayoneting pregnant women as they try to enter abortion clinics, blowing away doctor who provide abortion services, or reducing the National Endowment of the Arts to rubble.

The Falls Church creeps wrote to me asking me to contribute money to fight The Student Non-Discrimination act, aimed at the reduction and bullying of gay and lesbian kids in classrooms around the United States. To get me fired all up with outrage, they keep calling the act “The Homosexual Classrooms Act.”

The purpose of the act, they said in a truth-twisting and sometimes outrightly lying letter, is to

Indoctrinate an entire generation of American children with pro-homosexual propaganda and eliminate traditional values from American society.   Their ultimate dream is to create a new America based on sexual promiscuity in which the values you and I cherish are long forgotten.  I hate to admit it, but if they pass the deceptively named “Student Non-Discrimination Act,” that’s exactly what they’ll do.  

The letter from the “Public Advocate of the U.S.” also lied to me that the Student Non-Discrimination Act would:

Exempt homosexual students from punishment for propositioning, harassing, or even sexually assaulting their classmates, as part of their specially-protected right to “freedom of self-expression;”

Nowhere does the act say any of this. You can read the bill yourself, S555, straight from the U.S. Government Printing Office (a real government agency) here. Warning: the text is so boring you may have to prop your eyelids open with toothpicks.

What the so-called “Public Advocate of the U.S.” really wants is your money. They’re asking for “contributions” of $30 to $200 so they can keep making a living by pumping out hate-filled, lie-laden trash.

Beware.

Here's my nomination for the best smart aleck comment of the year. So far.

2011-06-08T13:23:00.001-04:00

"Only in America would an elected official call a press conference to confirm the identity of his penis."

(Gail Shister commenting on Weinergate at TV Newswer.)

Warning: Once Zacks.com gets your e-mail address, they might spam you forever, like they’re spamming me

2011-06-02T11:30:00.000-04:00

At noon on May 31^st, I sent an e-mail to support@zacks.com headlined, “Get me off your database, damnit.”

My misadventure with Zacks started months before, when I made the mistake at some other financial website of clicking on an ad from Zacks.

Then the e-mail started coming in. Various come-ons to buy something I didn’t want. Day in. Day out.

Finally, I’d had enough. I clicked on a paragraph at the bottom of the spam mail that said, “If you would prefer to not receive future profit-producing emails from Zacks.com the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service, then please click here and confirm your request."

I clicked, and got a screen inviting me to unsubscribe. Which I did.

I quickly got back a message that said sorry, the e-mail address I was giving them was not in their database.

Huh? They had just e-mailed me at that address. I went through the process again. Same result. And several days later, still again, producing the same result yet another time.

Finally I wrote to the only Zacks e-mail address that seemed to apply to my problem, support@zacks.com.

My message to them – the one headlined “Get me off your database, damnit” – said:

“I keep receiving e-mail at the address [redacted]. I keep writing you to stop it. I keep getting messages back from you that this address is not in your database.

I think you are in violation of the law. If I receive one more – one more – e-mail from any Zacks entity, I will blog this all over the Internet.

Stop it! Just stop e-mailing me! Stop it!

I didn’t get a reply from the “support” people at Zacks. But since then, on two successive business days, I’ve received two more pieces of spam from Zacks.com. One offered me an “insider opportunity,” extended “but only until tonight.”

The other is trying to sell me the Zacks “Research Wizard” with the offer of a free trial. It tells me the product Zacks is selling is "like a license to steal," which sounds to me like not just poetic license, but a guarantee of investment results, in violation of FCC regulations. And it scolds, “...why haven’t you jumped on this opportunity?”

I’ll tell you why, Zacks. Because Zacks is a pain in the butt that does lousy research, that’s why. I have a Fidelity account, and whenever a list of analysts’ ratings of stocks contains the Zacks name, Zacks is almost inevitably near the bottom of the StarMine Accuracy scores.

Examples: Coca-Cola, 36 out of possible 100. Johnson and Johnson, 15 out of a possible 100. 3-M, 21 out of a possible 100. Pitney-Bowes, 21 out of a possible 100. Most of these stocks give the best analysts scores in the 90s.

The truth is, – based on their consistently pathetic StarMine accuracy ratings – Zacks couldn’t correctly guess the weather in a snowstorm, much less analyze stocks in any consistent and trustworthy way. But they can eternally pester you.

They seem to be experts at violating even the wishy-washy the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. They not only ignore your unsubscribe messages, but also lie about having you in their database while regularly sending e-mails to you on database autopilot.

What the victims of Zacks need is a law firm to launch a class action suit against the spammers at Zacks.

A Democrat's prayer (and also a comedian's)

2011-05-31T14:19:00.000-04:00

Oh please Lord, let Sarah Palin win the Republican nomination for President. Yes, nominate Sarah, who once revealed to Katie Couric that she doesn’t know the name of a single newspaper, probably because she has never read one. Assuming she knows how to read.

If it can’t be Sarah Palin, Lord, let it be Michelle Bachman, whose ignorance of history makes her a laughing stock.

If it can’t be Michelle Bachman, Lord, let it be the plastic Republican who is named after a baseball glove and who once strapped his dog to the roof of his car and roared down the highway, and who was for Obamacare before he was against it.

If it can’t be Mitt Romney Lord, let it be Paul Ryan, whose plot to kill Medicare has the majority of Americans seething with outrage.

Y’see, I believe that America for some strange reason is coming to its senses. And when the process is complete, the Republicans are finished. I was about to say “the crazy Republicans,” but is there any other kind?

Harold Camping was right. The world absolutely did end on Saturday, May 21st. You simply failed to notice it.

2011-05-23T12:07:00.000-04:00

According to a story by Joanne Scheffler in the Cincinnati Enquier, end-of-the-world prophet Harold Campaing is “missing in action” while his radio station is playing nothing but music.

Camping has not made, says Scheffler, “at least an attempt at an explanation as to why his predictions "... have failed again … just like his last on September, 1994.”

Okay, so I have a theory. I know it’s only a theory, but play along with me here.

Suppose the world did end on Saturday. So many of us were left behind that we haven’t noticed any changes. Harold, of course, has gone up to heaven.

Meanwhile, the end of the world is happening, only it’s happening on the slow side. A tornado wipe out a third of Joplin, MO. Do you think that’s simply a coincidence? Than how about the flooding Missouri and Mississippi Rivers?

It’s too late to repent, dudes. You and are doomed. The righteous are already in heaven. As for the rest of us, none of us is getting out of here alive, even if it takes a few decades to die.

Incidentally, you’ll know for sure you’re in Hell if the Republicans take over the Senate as well as the House come the next elections.

New York’s Emperor Mayor Michael Bloomberg, hoodwinked by fairies, seems to think subway beggars have been whisked off to Never-Never Land

2011-05-17T15:16:00.000-04:00

So if you regularly ride the New York subways, you’ve heard speeches something like the these a couple of times a week from somebody shaking a filthy paper coffee cup full of coins at you:

“Ladies and gentleman, your attention please. I got AIDS. My wife is in the hospital with TB. I’m homeless. I got three kids to support and one of them is in a wheel chair when he fell out a window on the other two, who are on crutches. I’m a Viet Nam veteran. I lost my job. All I’m asking is that you give me a dollar, a dime, even a penny will help, anything you got….”

“I am part of da United Effort To Help Da Homeless Inc. If you’re carrying a cheese sandwich you don’t need, a ham sandwich you don’t need, a happle you don’t need, anything like dat, we will pass it on to some hungry people. Udderwise, please donate money…”
“I ain’t out there robbing nobody or killing nobody like other people….all I want is money to buy food. Do you want me to have to mug you for it?”

You’ll also occasionally hear people around you muttering, “Why doesn’t the mayor do something about this? This is against the law.”

Well here’s why he’s doing nothing – or at least nothing effective. According a story by Leo Standora in the New York Daily News, during a press conference somebody asked the mayor about panhandlers in the subway. His immediate reaction?

“Bloomberg got irritated when the question of panhandlers came up in a press conference.

He cut off the questioner, saying, "There aren't very many panhandlers left, in all fairness to the MTA. Come on."

Yeah, right. Come on, Emperor Mike. There are also the quartets that come through crowded cars, elbowing riders out of the way to sing do-wop songs or to play mariachi music, followed by some aggressive passing of a hat. There are people with sunglasses banging passengers' shins with white canes while holding out a cup or a hat or a bag.

And did I mention the insane homeless who can empty a car during rush hour while they lie across seats, reeking unbearably of days-old sweat and excreta in their pants, picking lice and bedbugs from their hair and clothing, while laughing insanely, or cursing, or glaring menacingly at the passengers halfway down the car who are trying not to inhale?

Nope, the mayor, who claims to ride the someway to work regularly (although he takes a limousine, escorted by a security detail, to a subway entrance in midtown rather than walk to the one near his private mansion)…the mayor hasn’t noticed any of this.

Maybe he’s just out of touch. Maybe, as the New York Daily News suggested, the security detail that precedes him into the subway at 59^th and Lexington (his home is on East 79^th Street, a mile and two subway stops to the north)…maybe the security detail scares the panhandlers away. Maybe he’s secretly blind and has cotton stuffed up his nose and in his ears.

Or maybe he’s been hoodwinked by his staff, or maybe even by leprechauns or fairies, into believing those aren’t really beggers, they’re tailors who are sewing him a new suit of clothes. After all, the expensively-tailored Bloomberg did in effect declare himself emperor, overturning a term limits law that he had himself supported so he could run for a third term.

Given the Bloomberg bait-and-switch record on term limits and other matters, my guess is that he’s simply a liar.

So is he so out of touch that he doesn’t see or hear about the legions of panhandlers in the New York subways? Or does he see them but pretend they don’t exist? As my pal Hotwire Kellington from down the block during my Brooklyn childhood used to say, “Youse pays yer taxes and youse takes yer cherce.”

Mass murder accessory gets 15 and a half days in jail for each person he helped kill. Not a bad deal (for him) in my opinion.

2011-05-13T13:11:00.000-04:00

I read that John Demjanjuk, the former SS. Guard at Sobibor concentration camp during WWII, is biding his time in a nursing home after a court sentenced him to a whopping five years in prison for being a Nazi death camp accessory to 28,060 murders.

I whipped out my handy-dandy calculator (well, actually I clicked on its icon) let the math happen, and calculated that he gets 15.6 days in prison for each person he helped to exterminate.

At that rate, it would pay some enterprising-but-out-of-work person to contract to kill, say, three people at $25,000 a head. You, for example? You'd have to do 46 days plus in prison, but you'd emerge with 75 grand in walking around money. Not a bad tradeoff.

Why such a light sentence?

I get the feeling the legal authorities felt sorry for Demjanjuk. He’s 91, wheelchair-bound, and got schlepped almost straight from court to the tender ministrations of what I suppose are geriatric nursing home nurses. And he had been on trial for two years. Poor baby!

Okay, okay, to be fair to the prisoner, an Israeli court dismissed a conviction against him (which named him as "Ivan The Terrible," a particularly sadistic death camp guard) as a case of "mistaken identity." And Demjanjuk claims he was framed by the Soviets, although it's hard to imagine why they'd go to all that trouble to mess up an otherwise nonentity.

Anyway, he’s not off to the clink yet anyway. He has six months or more of an appeals process coming up, during which he’s free to enjoy his nursing care, so long as he doesn’t leave the country.

My guess is he’ll die of natural causes before the bars ever slam shut behind him . Meanwhile the Ukranian community of Munich will take care of him and his ailments.

And not with gas in a “shower room.”

Too bad. This is almost a case of life imitating art, the art being a 1970-something book by Lawrence Block in his Tanner mystery series called The Case of the Cancelled Czech.

Tanner, a kind of freelance secret agent, captures another doddering former concentration camp killer and wheels him – on a gurney if I remember correctly – to an oven, and shoves the SOB in while he's still alive.

However, real life is so much more civilized than art.

Except when it isn't.

What good is Medicare if doctors won’t accept it? Thank Republicans in Congress if you can’t find an experienced doctor to treat you.

2011-05-05T14:40:00.000-04:00

Someone I know in California is 66 and has a heart condition. He’s had open heart surgery in the past. He had to wait six weeks to get to see his own cardiologist.

He’s not alone.

The problem is that while inflation increases, our Republican Congress has been whittling away at reimbursement rates, all in the name of cutting medical costs. Consequently, fewer and fewer doctors are accepting Medicare patients.

What follows is the general impression I get of paperwork that people have been getting from Medicare recently. It certainly feels right:

Your doctor charged: $9,750

For: nine hours of tricky neurosurgery.

We reimbursed him: $18.79.

You may be liable for the balance.

Have a nice day.

Sadly, doctors are being reimbursed at a pinchpenny rate that would bring joy to the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge. Yes, we need to control Medicare costs. But the way to start is by allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, medical equipment makers and other profiteers – the big businesses that are out to make the elderly swallow a bitter pill of backbreaking costs on medications for chronic illnesses. These are costs that no other western country is paying.

Little wonder that last year, the number of doctors accepting Medicare patients dropped to record lows thanks to ridiculous provider payment rates.

And little wonder that Buzzflash.com is declaring, “Eric Cantor implies he supports death panels, as long as insurance companies decide and the rich are exempted.”

As long as the Republicans keep driving down doctors’ reimbursements we can be sure that:

•Fewer doctors will accept Medicare patients

• More Medicare patients will die or become gravely ill unnecessarily

• Fewer smart and talented people will want to incur the debt for the education it takes to become doctors. Instead, they’ll seek out a career trading subprime securities derivatives – and make billions while the nation grows poorer and sicker.

•Thanks to Republican (and some Democratic) servants of the insurance agency, there will be one class of medical care for the very rich and for Congress. The rest of us can face Republican death panels.

No wonder they’ve carried on about these death panels in the past. The Republicans invented the idea and evidently are champing at the bit to deploy it.

While you were watching the royal wedding this morning...

2011-04-29T12:55:00.000-04:00

I'm only kidding. But it's a good thing I'm only kidding. Television news this morning – I toggled between NBC and CNN while I got dressed – was a "vast wasteland" as the late Newton Minnow once put it, of frippery, tomfoolery, and royalty worship.

Hey news viewers, while you were looking at the dowdy hats of the invitees and so-called "news people" (even Meredith Viera was wearing a dumb hat) there was a major shift in diplomatic alliances in Egypt. There were people made homeless by a storm in Alabama. The economy was continuing to "recover" while real people failed to benefit from it, continuing to lose their homes and find themselves unable to get real jobs, or in some cases even "McJobs."

Did I mention that American civilization as we used to know it is slowly slipping down the drain?

But oh, we got to see replays of the first royal kiss. I mean, is that what matters or what?

Send your favorite member of the broadcast media a lump of coal.

Bad News For Believers

2011-04-21T15:59:00.000-04:00





According to AOL and the Internet, there is 
either no God, or no Heaven,
or none of either. I present the following evidence:
The line beginning with "<<<" describes 
the specific reason your e-mail could not be delivered.  
The next line contains a second error message which 
is a general translation for other e-mail servers.  
Please direct further questions regarding this 
message to the e-mail administrator or Postmaster 
\at that destination.  --AOL Postmaster      
 ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- 
<God@Heaven.org>     
(reason: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected God@Heaven.org)     -
---- Transcript of session follows ----- 
... while talking to smtp.secureserver.net.: >>>
 RCPT To:<God@Heaven.org> <<< 
550 #5.1.0 Address rejected God@Heaven.org 550 5.1.1 <
God@Heaven.org>... User unknown

Don’t envy the super rich. After they’ve stolen all your money … their lives, and their spouses' and their children’s lives will be in grave danger.

2011-04-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

Some years ago when The Crank’s Beautiful Girlfriend was still alive, the two of us went down to Ecuador. Our intention was to see the Galapagos Islands, but we also let some travel agent talk us into spending four days in mainland Ecuador, escorted by a private guide.

It turned out that we needed our own guide because the experience was not pleasant. As we soon discovered, Quito is a dangerous place. Even in downtown Quito, we were advised that it was unsafe to cross the street at night. I mean that literally. One night, just as the sun had set, we stepped through the front door of our luxury hotel.

“Where are you going?” the doorman asked.

We pointed to another luxury hotel just across the street, where there was a restaurant we had been told was pretty good.

“I’ll call a taxi for you,” said the doorman.

“But it’s only across the street!”

“It is not safe,” insisted the doorman. He blew his whistle. A taxi pulled up. The doorman held the door open for us.

I thought this was a scam to earn a tip for the doorman and a fare for the taxi. Little by little I became convinced it was something else.

Once we exited the taxi across the street I noticed that the driver waited watchfully until we entered the hotel restaurant on that side. Just as we walked in, he pulled away.

It was the same story on the return trip. Another doorman pleaded with us not to cross the street back to our own hotel, except within the safety of a taxi. And again, the taxi waited until we were inside before driving off.

The super rich get to pay for two armed killers at the door

Then, during a ride through one of Quito’s“nicest” neighborhood, we found ourselves getting driven among the hills above town, past nice-looking but not extraordinary suburban-style houses. Most of the houses had a uniformed armed guard with an automatic rifle standing at the front door. A few houses had two armed guards with automatic weapons.

I asked why a smattering of the houses had two armed guards instead of one,

“Oh,” said are guide, “those are the homes of the super rich.”

And that’s when I saw the future of America’s top ten percent of the population that owns and controls seventy-one percent of the wealth.

No, there will be no revolution against them in this country. No chance of the masses rising up and taking control as they did in Egypt and Tunisia.

We eliminated that possibility ourselves when we eliminated the draft. That insured us that instead of having a citizen-soldier army, like the one that refused to fire on their fellow citizens in Egypt, we would have an army loyal to the people who rule – like in Libya. If you mass to protest in a way that will seriously threaten the power structure, you will die in a hail of bullets. Kent State was just a precursor.

Suddenly to be super rich will be to put your life on the line

Instead, what will destroy the quality of life of the super rich will be the cost of attempting to defend themselves from gangs of ambitious thugs who form little fiefdoms led by ruthless and ambitious criminals who kidnap, torture, rob, and kill in order to survive and amass wealth outside of the power structure.

In short, the thugs who are robbing America of our Social Security and Medicare and product safety and education today will live in fear of even bigger thugs tomorrow.

This is how it is these days in most of Mexico, most of Nicaragua, much of El Salvador – in fact in every one of the impoverished Latin American nations where the top few have all the money and power while the people at the bottom struggle desperately to survive. Here’s travel authority Rick Steves talking about it:

The saddest thing about visiting Managua and San Salvador is experiencing the fear caused by the violence that comes with extreme poverty in a big city. Every major hotel and nearly every business has an armed guard. It's unwise to walk around after dark, especially with a big camera. While you're unlikely to be hurt, the risk is that groups of young thugs might just rob you at knifepoint. I found that, rather than whole safe neighborhoods, there were mostly small islands of safety around malls and fancy hotels. A wealthy tourist (and nearly all tourists here are wealthy, in relative terms) happily pays triple for a taxi that works with the hotels so you know you're safe. You generally hop from one safe zone to another by cab.

The future of super wealth in this country will be a future filled with fear of kidnapping. Fear that gangsters will surround your car and shoot your driver, drag you into a truck, chop off your thumb and send it to your family to show that they are truly sincere about wanting all the cash your relatives can put their hands on.

If it's not you who gets kidnapped, then it will be your son. Or your daughter. Or your wife.

Believe me, the “kidnapping tax” rate will be higher than any income tax that any Democrat has ever called for.

Decapitated heads at your font door

Expect to see decapitated private policemen among those who you hired to protect you. Dead guards lying in pools of blood in front of your bullet-riddled front door. Expect to take your daily drive to the office by a different route each day, preferably in a different automobile each day, to confuse those hoping to kidnap you and torture you.

It boils down to often-repeated history: those who sow unreasonably acquisitive greed will reap a whirlpool of blood.

And all when it would be so easy if you simply accepted a marginal tax rate a few points higher than you pay now, rather than demanding a tax cut while you milk the middle class and the poor for their social and medical security, driving them into penury.

Enjoy your money now, pal. It’s going to be hard shuffling your bankroll to count your wad when your thumbs are chopped off.

Stupid Savings Vs. Priming The Pump: A Cranky Fable For Our Times

2011-04-12T14:35:00.000-04:00

In the tiny village of Wingnutia, the people went to the village pump one day. They intended to pump up their daily rations of water from a well that was dug deep into the earth.

But even when they pumped as hard as they could, no water would come out of the pump nozzle. And to make matters worse, they were all were running low on the water they had taken home from the pump a day before.

“That pump needs priming,” declared a passing wise man, who was on his way to the capital to pay his taxes and to observe a few rogues getting impaled on pyramids.

“What is priming?” asked one of the Wingnutians, a dimwit who had never seen a pump primed before.

You pour some water in the top,” explained the wise man. Then when you pump, you create a water seal that in turn creates a vacuum, and that gets the pump functioning again.

“But we’re short of water,” complained the village dimwit. “Why waste water pouring it into the pump?”

“It’s not a waste,” said the wise man. "The process primes the pump, which will bring up water shortly. Then all of y0u will have not only enough to drink, but also extra water to take a bath on Saturday nights before you go to the village witch burning ceremony."

“Oh no you don’t!” growled another suspicious Wingnutian. "We villagers have a water shortage as it is. We’re not wasting any precious water priming any pumps. Instead, we should make drastic cuts in our water usage.”

The Wingnutians drove the wise man out of the village with their sharpened palins, and their lead-heavy bachmans, and a roaring of ryans and a trumpeting of trumps. Then they very gradually drank up the little bit of water they had. When it was gone, they all died of thirst.

Moral: If you refuse to prime the pump, don’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling very, very thirsty.

Second Moral: You've got to spend water to make water. Or something like that.

Third Moral: If you're down to your last glass of water, you might as well enjoy it with your seed corn.

If you were Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, which half-truth and half-lie would you tell? And should you tell it in a suit or shirtsleeves?

2011-04-07T12:07:00.000-04:00

From the “Politicker” Column of the New York Observer comes word that Mayor Bloomberg is “testing” at least two different junk mail packages to see which one does more to support his budget and fading reputation.

One talks about “no new taxes” which sounds nice, until you understand that the “no new taxes” he’s talking about amount to a tax saving for the rich. That would be people like, umm, Michael Bloomberg.

The package also talks about “fighting for new jobs in every borough,” while failing to mention that he plans to put some teachers out of jobs, which amounts to destroying old jobs.

The second package talks about “nearly $2 billion for our schools, while working to keep the best teachers in the classrooms.” That would be nice, if completely true, but again, he’s planning to fire teachers. And since younger teachers earn less than older teachers, what do you want to bet that the “not best” teachers will be mostly older than 50, an age category where new job opportunities are slim?

Clearly the $2 billion isn't a wind blowing a lot of good to most New Yorkers. Mayor Bloomberg knows that compared to his own personal wealth of $18 billion, it's a pittance. Why, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if by the time he retires from politics, Bloomberg will have spent almost a billion bucks just advertising himself.

How William and Kate’s wedding could help Tea Party Republicans destroy Social Security

2011-04-05T13:18:00.001-04:00

It’s no secret there’s a Republican plot afoot to “recklessly slash funding to the Social Security Administration” in an attempt to jeopardize its ability “to get vital benefits into the hands of seniors and people with disabilities and provide assistance to the public.”

But how can they get away with it when so many disabled and older Americans rely on Social Security for their very survival?

In the past, Republicans created distractions. Gay marriage. Gays in the military. Abortion. Any emotional wedge issue that could get some Americans so fired up that some of us would forget about our bread and butter issues.

Now the Republican Tea-Party fringe is having an opportunity handed to it on a sterling silver platter. On April 29^th, Prince William and Kate Middleton will be getting married, and our fickle press will turn its full attention, or nearly full attention, to England.

According a piece by Nat Ives in Advertising Age, which follows the networks and the broadcast advertising dollars,

“CBS's expansive plans include Katie Couric anchoring the evening news from London for three nights starting April 27”
“NBC News has also introduced a free 'Royal Wedding' iPad app with hundreds of photos, more than 40 new and archival news reports, an interactive royal-family tree and a countdown to the wedding.”
"Extensive coverage by CNN, which was less than a year old at the time of Prince Charles and Diana's wedding,” has already begun
"'…and there's going to be so much hype, it's going to be wall-to-wall Will and Kate,’ said Brad Adgate, senior VP-research at Horizon Media. 'I could see people buying DVRs just for this or HD TV sets for the occasion.'”

And on and on. It’s a perfect opportunity for mischievous Republican bullies to put millions of Americans on a cat food diet by cutting their Social Security while the rest of us are focused on Kate's gown, which fewer and fewer of us could afford, since the middle class and working poor only get get tax increases while the rich get tax cuts.

The Republicans do their thuggish work best when the nation is distracted. This time, it’s the royals who could be doing the distracting.

GE: "We bring good spin to lies!"

2011-03-29T12:09:00.000-04:00

Caught with its pants down lying and insisting that it did pay Federal income taxes while the truth is it actually didn't, GE tweeted its knickers into a twist. (Okay, so I'm muddling metaphors. So kill me.)

Here's a link to the story by Henry Blodget on Business Insider, called 'WHO'S FULL OF CRAP? GE, the New York Times, And the Hazards of 'Tweeting The Record Straight.'"

You have to read it all the way through to the very bottom, because first it looks like GE is lying, then that it isn't lying, then that it is ... and so on until they get caught red handed (but evidently not red-faced since outright lying is turning into big business standard operating procedure.)

It's time for Congress to come down hard on tax-beating big business. (Yeah, that'll be the day.)

Hey, Bruce Barlett: You can cut Medicare deficits by negotiating with drug companies instead of cutting drug plans, you pill!

2011-03-21T12:22:00.000-04:00

Over on the Underbelly blog, my friend Buce observes that Republican opinion-maker and supply-sider Bruce Bartlett is melting down over drug costs that George W. Bush signed into law.

Oh please! Spare me!

Up in Canada, they get the same drugs that Americans get for half the price or less. How? The government negotiates with the drug companies.

Medicare isn’t permitted to negotiate under a law passed because of Republican pressure and a few Dems in the pockets of some drug companies. So the drug companies charge you and me more, and then charge the government more – and that second charge also comes back to you and me in the form of taxes or deficits.

If you cut all the “don’t intefere with business” garbage and simply stuck the fingers of some multi-million dollar salary drug company poobahs into thumb screws, the price would fall faster than a drunk tripping on a curbstone.

There’s more than one way to cut a deficit and effectively robbing millions Americans by drowning them in costs isn’t one of them.

A St. Patrick’s Day memo to the lunatic fringe birthers who think this nation’s President is a Muslim secret agent.

2011-03-17T10:39:00.000-04:00

On this St. Patrick’s Day, I’d just like to remind you that his name is O’Bama.