Showing posts with label Howard Dean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Howard Dean. Show all posts

Another Day, Another Neolib Sellout

So much for Howard Dean being the "voice of the people." Another neolib I saw through years ago.

By the way, that "raising the minimum wage costs jobs" is a bunch of horseshit. If you raise the minimum wage, people have more money to spend, which means more demand, which means more jobs, and certainly more jobs are created than are those eliminated due to job loss, a myth anyway. It's the same principle that applies to any safety net programs--they, too, create jobs.

Rich people do NOT "create jobs." Job creation is purely a result of demand. Supply can only be created after there is sufficient demand for goods and services. You don't need a Ph.D. in economics from the Ivy League to know this simple truth.

The right wing has done a hell of a job persuading people the minimum wage is evil.

Political Crap

While Dean may be correct Fox News is racist, the REAL issue in the Sherrod debacle is the White House seemed to have caved in an effort to pander to the right and to "independents" and were made to appear weak.
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Oh, please. Nevadans aren't THAT stupid they are going to put in a complete dipshit in the United States Senate. The media needs to quit making a horse race out of something that was over and done with when the GOP picked Angle to run against Reid.
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Senator Charles Schumer of New York is ready to craft legislation that would add more weeks for those of us out here who have exhausted all unemployment benefits and face complete destitution, but he needs at least one Republican to sign on. If it means Democrats have to use the stimulus money, so be it. We have a jobs crisis out here, and something must be done.

The MA Senate Race,

which Democrats are expected to lose to a wingnut, will be an indication of how bad the Democrats are going to fare in November, especially if they keep taking the "base" for granted.

What is Left of Health Care/Insurance "Reform"

is no real reform at all.

This according to someone known for his outspokenness:

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

From the very beginning of this debate, progressives have argued that a public option or a Medicare buy-in would restore competition and hold the private health insurance industry accountable. Progressives understood that a public plan would give Americans real choices about what kind of system they wanted to be in and how they wanted to spend their money. Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to.


Keith Olbermann blathers against it as well:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Miscellaneous News

The LGBT community is all up in arms over Michigan's Blue Cross Blue Shield declining to pay anymore for "sex reassignment surgery."

Well, no insurance company should be paying for it anyway since it is elective surgery.

I have long stated on this blog my objections to this kind of mutilation and believe any doctor who performs it is acting unethically.

Call me a reactionary, but tough shit.
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It's "cry me a river" time now that an executive who resigned AIG published a letter outlining his cruel fate.

Whatever DeSantis's role at AIG, there is a crucial difference between the work of the plumber and that of the finance executive—besides the enormous disparity in pay. The plumber performs a socially useful labor. The financiers have played a socially destructive role, as the collapse of AIG and the larger economic crisis have made clear. Their entire raison d'etre is to enrich themselves and their cronies.


The difference is plumbing is an honest profession while being a robber baron is not.

I like this response.
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Unfortunately for Lawrence B. Salander, there is no government bailout for him.
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I hope the planetarium doesn't close.
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Nadya Suleman doesn't care one bit about her kids, according to a nurse.
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The former DNC chair has a petition on health care reform for people to sign. The idea of dual health care systems is virtually identical to what John Edwards proposed in his last presidential campaign.
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More Politics

The Mouth has decided to step down as DNC chair, saying he is not interested in serving another term.

As the Mouth Yaps

It isn't just Obama who has a lot hanging on this election; the Mouth's reputation is truly on the line now that he has rigged it in favor of his choice.

Having just barely regained some footing after two disastrous weeks in which he took a beach holiday while enduring a barrage of Republican attacks and saw his lead over John McCain vaporise, Obama arrives in Denver with his future on the line.

But another prominent figure has a lot at stake, too. For Howard Dean, the Democratic party chairman who will oversee the proceedings in the Rocky mountain city, it's not so much about his own future, but his party's future and his legacy as a political leader.

In his three and a half years on the job, Dean has dramatically departed from the traditional role of a US party chairman. Despite the lofty title, historically the chairman has been a glorified bursar. Their job has been to raise money, placate the donors and otherwise keep a low profile.


The Mouth was promoted by the nutroots to take over the DNC after his campaign took a dive thanks to his own self-destructiveness. When Obama loses big, and he WILL, the Mouth will go South and we will never hear from him again.

Who'd have thought many of us would be nostalgic for Terry McAuliffe's disastrous reign?

Democratic Convention

If you are so inclined, you can sign this petition to the DNC chair to persuade him to put Hillary Clinton's name in nomination.
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Campaign Follies.

It is unreal what is happening in the Democratic primaries and now the convention. Rumors abound about Hillary Clinton not being on the first ballot at Denver, despite her having received more popular votes than Obama. And what is this about key parts of the Democratic National Committee being moved to Chicago?

I can't believe the whole damned thing. I really can't, and this is going to have tragic consequences for the party in the fall.

The head of the DNC has to go.
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Since Obama's dad basically abandoned him, he thought he was qualified to preach about absent fathers on Father's Day.
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Campaign Follies.

People should demand the Mouth step down. The move by the Obama people to relocate the DNC to Chicago is not only unbelievably audacious, given the fact he hasn't technically been nominated, it is also risky in the extreme, given the likelihood Obama will be destroyed in November.

It will leave the Democratic Party, already hurting for money, in shambles.

Why in the HELL would a party leave itself open to GOP charges of Chicago-style corruption?

I can't believe the whole goddamned thing.

Campaign Notes.

The Obama campaign is diligently trying to get support from Clinton donors, but more than a few of them, like many of her less-wealthy supporters, are angry enough with the way Hillary Clinton was treated this primary season to say "no deal" to any such overtures.


A priority at this point for Democrats, however, is replenishing the coffers of the Democratic National Committee, which has suffered from the extended primary campaign. Traditionally in election years, most of the party’s cash, which can be used on behalf of the presidential candidate, comes in after a nominee is chosen. As of the end of May, the Republican National Committee had nearly $54 million in the bank compared with the $4 million the Democrats had on hand.

But several Clinton fund-raisers said they harbored too much ire for Mr. Dean to raise money for the party, even if they said they were willing to support Mr. Obama.

“Howard Dean and the D.N.C. will not get one penny from me or any of my friends,” Mr. Davis said.


If Obama loses in a landslide, as I believe he will if Democrats actually nominate him, the DNC chair will likely be sacked.

He should be regardless. It's been a travesty.


It's not just donors who are shying away from supporting Obama, either. A few elected officials are worried about their re-election chances if they are lumped together with a loser like Obama.

That's another reason I oppose his candidacy: he hurts Democrats in down-ballot races. He has no coattails whatsoever; if anything, he has negative coattails.
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Ron Paul is quitting his campaign tonight.

Campaign Follies.

Once the convention is over and done with, and there is no chance Clinton or anybody else can secure the nomination, John McCain can go home and relax for the final 10 or 11 weeks of the campaign with wife Cindy and let the media and 527s do the dirty work for him.

Virtually the entire West will be a sea of red. Virtually the entire East will be a sea of red. The South will be a sea of red. Alaska and Hawaii will be a sea of red. The territories will be a sea of red. It will be a red map from sea to shining sea. Even D.C. will be in play.

This whole farce of a campaign makes one see red.
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Since the Mouth helped create this mess with Obama, Obama has decided to keep him on as DNC chair.
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He's baaaack!!!!!
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As the Mouth Yaps.

Since the DNC chair is partly responsible for the mess the party is in, and furthermore is in the tank for Obama, he's hardly going to be able to mediate the Florida and Michigan situation.

Whether Dean can broker a compromise and amicably resolve the Florida and Michigan crisis - and then stitch together his party after this year's bruising nomination battle - could go a long way toward determining who is the next president. Some are skeptical about his ability to finesse such a delicate, high-stakes situation.


He can't do it, period.

Is There Any Doubt At All

the DNC chair is completely incompetent, as proven by the Florida and Michigan fiascoes?




McAuliffe, who knows incompetence when he sees it considering his own mediocre reign as DNC chair in 2004, is right.

(H/T: No Quarter and Hot Air blogs)

As the Mouth Yaps.

After much criticism that he tends to favor Obama over Clinton, the DNC chair seems to be singing a different tune.

I don't know if these clips are in the exact order:

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:




Part 4:

Campaign Follies.

The Mouth is freaking out, and he wants a decision to be made "now" about the primaries by the superdelegates.

Apparently Obama's horrid performance of Wednesday night has made him desperate.

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Crater Lake National Park Photos 1

 Here are a few pictures I took at Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon today, including a couple of them from the historic lodge: