News & views …

The medicare scam is bubbling up and will develop into a shitstorm for the Cheney administration. Writes a reader to Josh Marshall:

I have just started on the inpatient cardiology service at xxxxxx and have admitted two patients to the hospital in the past 24 hours who were unable to get important medicines as a result of the new plan (or lack there of). It is truly amazing! I don’t think either is life threatening, but they
both could have and will cost the tax payers and Medicare tens of
thousands of dollars in needless hospital days.

But do not worry, the cavalry is on its way:

President Bush’s top health advisers will fan out across the country this week to quell rising discontent with a new Medicare prescription drug benefit that has tens of thousands of elderly and disabled Americans, their pharmacists, and governors struggling to resolve myriad start-up problems.

But for a short moment, let’s assume I am half smart elderly in need of the new medicare program and I indeed have a working PC and a modem in my home.

The pharmacist who just made me pay $54 for a weeks ration of betablockers, it was free of charge, i.e. paid by the state last year, said www.medicare.gov could solve my problem. So let’s try:

Cont. reading: Medicare E

Under pressure over lobbying abuses, House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert presented ideas for lobbying reform.

"We need to reform the rules so that it is clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what is ethically acceptable,"

he is cited. And he has serious ideas:

Cont. reading: Ethically Acceptable

Alternate Reality Department

lifted from a comment by gylangirl

Dems know how to attract votes from gays, blacks, latinos, and the poor: they put items into the Dem agenda that improve the economic status of those groups. But they don’t care to improve the economic status of women. Instead, they listen to the "leaders" of the feminist movement, who offer more tidbits only for women among the gays, blacks, latinos and the poor.

They ignore the biggest reason why women end up poor: the legal status of marriage as a method of economic oppression of women, especially mothers. In the U.S., motherhood is the number one risk factor for poverty! Why? The law uses marriage as an excuse to short-change women when it comes to calculating dual earner income taxes ["secondary earners" pay higher marginal taxes and are thus induced to exit the paid workforce], and calculating spousal social security benefits [spouses are counted as only half a worker], and legal acceptance of employers rewarding male-pattern work. [An example is use of the gender-loaded criteria of "seniority" for establishing pay scales.]

The law does not recognize the right of a wife/family to the wage-earner’s income. At divorce, she had to fight for it in court, often when she cannot afford the legal costs of doing so. The law does not recognize the subsidization of the economy by mothers as they raise of the future workforce, care for the sick and the elderly. That’s a lot of free labor which is not even counted in the GNP.

The politician who can recognize how women are systematically marginalized in these ways, and who can propose legislation to address these inequities, and campaign on those proposals, will attract the votes of women of all classes.

A good but long one. Some highlights:

This effort to rework America’s carefully balanced constitutional design into a lopsided structure dominated by an all powerful Executive Branch with a subservient Congress and judiciary is-ironically-accompanied by an effort by the same administration to rework America’s foreign policy from one that is based primarily on U.S. moral authority into one that is based on a misguided and self-defeating effort to establish dominance in the world.

…

Cont. reading: Gore Speaks Out

News & views …

The United States is in a constitutional crisis:

The "momentous" issue (Alito’s words) is whether this president, or any other, has the right to tell Congress to shove it. And even if one concedes that wartime offers the president extra powers to limit liberty, what happens if the terrorist threat looks permanent?

But the opposition party is completely unorganized. Dem senators are only interested in useless self promotion. Biden, after a shameful self-representation in hearings, now calls for abandoning committee questioning of SOCUS candidates and to leave the task to a suppressed press.

But Biden, who notes that Judiciary Committee hearings haven’t always been part of the confirmation process, says ditching hearings would leave nominees to make their cases in the media, where holding back and being boring won’t necessarily fly.

But look at the press or what is left of it. The Washington Post editorial calls for an Alito confirmation as does the newest addition to right wing circle, the LA Times.

After that confirmation the supreme court of the U.S. will have a 9 7 to 2 vote on the more conservative site and a serious majority on anything the Reps will demand.

That with a population that is about evenly split on most issues and much in favor of more central issues like freedom of the womb.

The secret of this devastating Republican area is not how they gathered their strength through a K-Street project, that is public knowledge, but how they eliminated any opposition to it.

How have they done that?

The Cheney administration is pushing leaks to the German media to discredit the former and the current German government.

Cont. reading: Friendly Leaks

[T]he most striking thing about the "Abu Zarqawi Hour" is how it demonstrates the deranged, almost hallucinatory, quality of our 21st century global village, in which the remaining boundaries between reality, propaganda and entertainment are all being rapidly erased, ..

The Abu Zarqawi Hour

Local Hīro
by beq
full size (150kb)

… in Ra’iatea he at last conceived a strong attachment for a most beautiful woman named Vai-tu-marie (Clear-still-water), who was the wife of a noted warrior named Tutae (Dung), and he determined to possess her himself. So he made advances to the man, sometimes feigning friendship and again aggravating him to hostility, until one day the warrior raised his spear to strike him, when Hiro caught him by the head and broke his neck. Thus freed of the husband, Hiro took possession of the wife, …
Hiro (text added by b)

News, views & opinions …

The WaPo editorial signs on to all out war on Iran:

So while the means of the Security Council must be tried, Western governments should also begin fashioning a policy of sanctions and containment for Iran that can be applied by a coalition of the willing. That should be coupled with a more concerted effort to support the large part of the Iranian population that yearns to free itself from repressive clerical rule.

In the last election in Iran (yes, it is a democracy), the majority did vote for guy who is fine with the clerical rule. And the last "coalition of the willing" was the U.S., U.K. and a few bribed states to go into Iraq to wreak havoc.

The Cheney administration’s calculation about the stupidity of their people and of some international leaders are correct. These people do not even remember the, ongoing, propaganda war on Irak. A read through the German press today shows a big tendency to follow through all the way to defeat in Tehran.

I did not expect this to go this fast. But next month, when Bolton and the U.S. will have the lead in the U.N. security council (whose security?), there will be some resolution that then will be interpreted to allow at least bombing runs, massive cruise missile attacks and tactical nukes on "hardened" targets in the midst of Iranian cities.

In some 50 years Iran will have no more oil. How are Persians supposed to switch on lights?

If there are really concerns about a Iran with nukes, why not give some assurance that these are not needed?

How a about a U.S. presidential declaration affirmed in Congress NOT to attack Iran if Iran does not attack anyone else? How about free trade?

The "carrots" offered to Iran to give up the RIGHT of the use of nuclear power was a gift wrapped empty box. How many of your rights would you give up for one of those?

Personal Ad

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If the Democrat Senators do not filibuster Scalito, they should be made to pledge allegiance to Ken Melmen (Don´t forget the Vaseline).

This is the most conservative judge you can imagine. His position on the "unitary executive" is a tool to introduce the Kingdom of the U.S..

Scalito says fuck these books of precedences whatever the are. (Hey – he DID marry a law librarian to be able to do so (and to do the crying)).

To him Roe vs. Wade is NOT settled law. He even openly explained how he will change it. In his words: "I would approach the question with an open mind." Open to whom?

If they let this one through the gates, is there anything left those politicians stand for at all?

If you are in the U.S., please call your Senator today.

Army officials said Wednesday that they had decided to send additional body armor to Iraq to protect soldiers from insurgents’ attacks.

The ceramic plates now worn by most members of the military shield just some of the upper body from bullets and shrapnel, and the Army said it would buy plates that would extend this protection to the sides of soldiers.
Army Sending Added Armor to Iraq Units

[T]he empirical evidence supports the following
broad conclusions about the U.S. Army in theatre over his period:

…

U.S. Army personnel instinctively turned to technology to solve problems. Similarly,their instinct was to seek means, including technology,
to minimise frequent close personal contact with the  local in order to enhance force protection, but this served further to alienate the troops from the population.
Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, British Army (PDF)

A Bipartisan Scandal

News & views …

Can´t they shorten the Alito questioning and just filibuster that freeper?

Well, yes they could. But the public needs more understanding of the case. Maybe Alito will come up with an answer to a question that results in more public resistance. Public opinion is what might grow some backbone into democratic senators and a few moderate republicans.

Roe vs. Wade is the case where some 80% of the public stands left of Alito. Maybe someone can squeeze the right answer to that case out of him.

The more important issue is Alito’s stand on executive power. But as a public explanation for a filibuster, it is hard to make this the decisive issue. Unless more outraging stuff of the NSA spying comes to light.

For me, the case was made when Alito explained why he mentioned specific very right leaning opinions in former job applications. He said he made those at that time just to get the job.

After such an answer, I would never hire that guy for any job with responsibilities.

Either he lied to get that job, and therefore may do it again this time, or his legal opinions are really some degrees right of Borg’s. Both are reasons never to confirm him to the Supreme Court.

No I do not intend to annoy anyone with the title of this post. That would be illegal now.

The Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act says:

"Whoever…utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet… without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person…who receives the communications…shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

It is a stupid law and the repubs sneaked it into a huge justice department bill. Bush signed it a few days ago (with what "signing statement"?).

But the law might also apply to senior administration officials and other anonymous government sources, who, without disclosing their identities and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten and harass, abuse the webpages of the New York Times,  Washington Post and other media.

Is this law retroactive so it can be applied to the Plame outing?

Semenpaddy – I did not find that word in any dictionaries, but it is the rough translation of a German slang expression.

It describes a state of mind and odd behavior young males invariably fall into when they have no release for their natural hormone induced horniness. Usually it unfolds as some crankiness, but it soon evolves into serious aggression.

That was the reasoning behind providing army whorehouses in WW I and II and recreational vacations to Asian hotspots for troops in Vietnam. A military with semenpaddy is aggressive, undisciplined and the soldiers do behave irrational. Any mastersergeant worth his stripes will care for his troops to have some occasions. But now this:

For the first time, the Department of Defense has specifically made it a crime for a servicemember to patronize a prostitute. The punishment: up to a year in prison, forfeiture of pay and dishonorable discharge.

The formal order came in a presidential executive order signed without fanfare Oct. 14, directing changes in the Manual for Courts-Martial.
Stars & Stripes

I grew up in German town with some 4,000 locals plus some 500 GI’s whose boring job was to maintain a bunch of nuclear rocket tips stored in the woods nearby.

Even with the needed establishments available, there still was a lot of strain and serious barfights between the locals and those GIs with semenpaddy symptoms. Without some services it would have been unsustainable.

So when the U.S. military does not allow homosexual behavior, does not allow intergender relations between lots of male and few female troopers and now prohibits visiting prostitutes, the aggression will look for other ways out.

The higher command tries to pray away the problem by providing lots of, mostly radical christian, religious services. But when your troops are asked to pacify an area with people of different believes that wad goes off in the wrong direction too.

In one room, cupboards used to store the shoes of those attending prayers had what appeared to be Christian crosses scrawled on them. Other footage showed papers strewn on office floors and windows smashed.
U.S. troops raid Sunni clerics’ Iraq office

From a plain operational perspective the new directive will lead directly to such incidents and does deny the political effectiveness of the troops in a the attempt to pacify.

That only, of course, if you really want to attempt to pacify.

Otherwise, the directive is even be effective to further the political aim.