Glock21's blog

I can argue all sorts of reasons why Dan Hynes is a better candidate than our current governor, but I imagine any readers here can check out the candidates' policies on their pages and history themselves for such a determination pretty quick. I'd just like to add to that consideration, especially those leaning towards or on the fence about Quinn, something that honestly should not be forgotten.

Our last election led to Illinois being center stage of a national embarrassment. This was not some unexpected shocker given that the guy who won the last Democratic Party primary was already under state and federal investigation with several corrupt acts in the public domain. And while Quinn personally vouched for the integrity and honesty of that man, and would love to get away with playing dumb now... don't let him.

I'll let the guy who ran the anti-corruption campaign against Blagojevich in that primary explain why people like Quinn simply do not deserve re-election in the State of Illinois let alone any position of trust over Illinois citizens (in its entirety here):

In 2006 I challenged Rod Blagojevich in the Democratic primary for governor. I ran because Blagojevich sold out the public for piles of campaign cash.

 

I said “no” to Blagojevich when it mattered.

 

A very savvy pol recently said to me, “Ed, if we only knew then what we know now.” I replied that we did know it then. He laughed and admitted it was so. That’s a far more grown up response than the “I-knew-it-was-bad-but not-this-bad” dodge that’s in vogue.

 

They all knew. The majority of the House impeachment report cited documents that were public before the election — the same documents I cited when arguing the governor should not be re-elected. Instead of standing with me at the time, the party leaders poured over my petitions to see if they could keep me off the ballot.

 

The governor had spent his first term raking in campaign cash at the astonishing rate of $2,667 per hour, giving him millions to spend on re-election. (I won’t here revisit how he raised this cash, who is already jailed because of it, or what services the people of Illinois were cheated out of to secure these gifts.)

 

Nearly all of the state’s Democratic politicians calculated, correctly but shortsightedly, that rallying around the governor would ensure their re-election. Voters count on their leaders to stand up when it matters. Voters also deserve choices. With the 2006 election looming, Democrats could look forward to neither.

 

...

 

I ran a tough but underfunded campaign and came up short. Still, by the time the election came I had a lot more company than I did at the beginning. A handful of Democratic politicians began to distance themselves from the governor. A few were quite helpful. Many others publicly worked for the governor’s re-election but privately wished me well. Several editorial boards endorsed my campaign. More than a quarter of a million ordinary Democrats voted for me and I carried a handful of counties.

 

On election night 2006 I talked about our values and the better angels of the Democratic Party. I said we would ultimately prevail and clean up our state. A reporter followed up asking me if that was a concession. I certainly was conceding the night. But I never would, and never will, concede the fight to change the poisonous culture of corruption in Illinois.

 

Edwin Eisendrath challenged Rod Blagojevich in the 2006 Democratic Primary. Eisendrath served as HUD regional administrator in the Clinton administration and two terms as a Chicago alderman.

Quinn played a central role in ensuring Blagojevich's re-election. He threw away his reputation and dignity. The choice is simple: hold Blagojevich's enablers responsible this election season, or send them a clear message that voters no longer care about accountability.

I'm voting for accountability. I'm voting for Dan Hynes on February 2nd.

Who do you like for the upcoming gubernatorial races? Who do you dislike? I haven't heard much about the candidates nor heard much from them, so why not have a thread for praise/mud-slinging fun?

I'm leaning strongly towards supporting Dan Hynes in the primary myself. For an Illinois Democrat he seems to have far more credibility in opposing Blagojevich than perhaps most Democratic politicians in Illinois, and especially more than our current govenernor who threw out any claim to clean government by throwing his own reputation under the bus to vouch for Blago's integrity. He effectively threw away his own integrity so he could keep his Lt. Governor job. Just pathetic.

On the issues, I generally like Hynes' economic proposals though I have some strong concerns about how they may effect our competitiveness for businesses given some of his tax/revenue proposals. I do however support moving Illinois income taxes to a progressive system. On social issues I have some concerns about where he might stand and more importantly act on gun restrictions, but he appears to be the strongest candidate on LGBT issues with his support of full marriage rights as opposed to Quinn's separate but equal compromise and Republican candidates likely to make Quinn seem like an activist. In general he seems to be a pragmatic mix of fiscal moderate with social liberalism that seems to be a good fit for the state, even if I may not agree with him on everything.

I strongly dislike Quinn and if he wins the primary I'm likely to vote for a Republican in the general. He along with any other Democrat who aided Blago's corrupt idiocy that made Illinois a national laughingstock have revoked their license to govern in my eyes.

Now how about y'all?

...because Dems are too.

If you've heard your average Republican talk about health care reform bills floating around congress lately, you've probably heard accusations that they completely take over American health care, either by endless regulations or forcing everyone onto government plans by making coverage mandatory and also bankrupting private insurers.

If you've heard your average Democrat talk about health care reform bills floating around congress lately, you've probably heard excuses on why the bill isn't even what they'd prefer (generally a single payer system or some other far more extensive reform), but that we should support it anyways. The excuses generally range from the idea that this is some sort of "dent in the armor" to get "real" reform later to the idea that it is better than nothing to ensure costs go down.

Of course all of the above is either outdated, exaggerated, or flat out wrong. From factcheck.org:

The early House bill called for a federal insurance plan that would pay health care providers at Medicare rates, which are 20 percent to 30 percent less than what private plans pay on average, according to the Lewin Group. If this type of federal plan, which would be substantially cheaper than private insurance, were open to everyone within three years, it could lure as many as 114 million away from private insurance, Lewin estimated. The revised bill calls for a federal plan that pays negotiated rates, putting its premiums in line with those of private plans.

The Lewin Group has not released an analysis of the latest House bill, but it did model what would happen under a similar situation, with a federal plan paying negotiated rates. Lewin found that such a plan would result in 10.4 million to 12.5 million people moving off of private plans, in favor of the "public option." Why the big drop? Because those with private insurance wouldn’t save much money, if any, by switching to the federal plan.

CBO analyzed the revised House bill, and it came up with even lower numbers. CBO estimated that 6 million Americans total would join the so-called "public plan" by 2019 — and that premiums would be "somewhat higher" than the average private plan premiums offered through an insurance exchange. CBO said the plan would be most attractive to the less healthy members of the population, forcing premiums higher, despite the fact that the federal plan would save some money on administrative costs.

In one fell swoop it knocks out the government takeover and savings memes as it notes that the medicare rates in earlier versions are no longer in the current bills, which prevents the public option from actually being much different in cost of care issues than the private insurance it would be competing with. By some estimates the public option may end up being more expensive and thus less competitive.

And as for the future holding some magic remedy for "real" reform later, and thereby justifying GOP concerns that this is just a first step towards the government takeover they fear, while being the single payer or other far more extensive government plan the Democrats really want... neither worry nor hope is a big secret. While Democrat leaders dismiss the notion in public to allay fears, the activists and prior statements of the leaders make it clear that this is what they hope for. But the reason they're not taking advantage of their current super-majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the White House with a resident sympathetic to the cause (and advocate of the same while on the campaign trail) is because it's simply not politically feasible. Such hopes (or worries if you're on the other side of the aisle) rest on the idea of some super-duper uber-liberal majorities to pull off in the future. A future that no expert on either side of the aisle is expecting to come to fruition any time in the short or long term.

If they could pull it off, the time is now. Activists on the left are fully aware of this... and doing everything they can to try to do so now. Activists on the right are fully aware of this... and doing everything they can to shut down anything of the sort while the Democrats hold such vast power in this current Congressional term.

So what are we left with?

• We have bills that create a public option that isn't very competitive, if at all, with private insurance.

• We have bills that signify a death knell for any sort of single payer or more extensive government reform of health care in the foreseeable future.

• We have bills that do little nothing to address the increasing costs of health care and the adverse effects it is having on the economy and stability of future government budgets on all levels of government, let alone any real benefits in the short term for the current recession.

• We have bills that do little to nothing to address the boomer and other crunches coming with medicare and medicaid beneficiaries.

• And We have bills that do little to nothing to reform current health care programs, such as the Veterans Affairs and Medicare/caid systems, that are in dire need of improvement.

But it's not all bad. The mandatory coverage and subsidies will ensure far more people are covered that previously would have been unable to get it. This comes at the cost of forcing a lot of people into coverage who would otherwise not get coverage, adding to the profits of insurance companies... so much so they're unconcerned with the provisions that end denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, an otherwise typical thing in any other type of insurance. You won't find too many auto insurers that will pay for a car you already smashed to bits, or home insurers that will take you after your home burned down... the risk is 100%, and taking such folks wouldn't be "insuring" them, i.e. it'd be a boneheaded business decision.

But people don't really want insurance for their health care. They want health care coverage. It still boggles the mind when people get mad at insurance companies for being insurance companies and not pay-my-bills-for-me companies as if they were a government safety net program.

The bills also open up interstate competition for insurance, which could have some net positives, though the nationwide standardization of coverage minimums will put a damper on that meaning much to the average joe who can only afford the minimum with or without subsidies.

Unfortunately none of the bills really do much to address the rising costs which are overwhelmingly on the provider end of the spectrum... and as noted above, they really don't do much on the insurer/coverage end of the spectrum either. Nor do any of them address the already heavily problematic government programs already in place that, in spite of recent improvements here and there, generally have a mixed history with some real nightmares rivaling the horror stories being pumped out by current proponents of reform of the private industry.

What's clear is that the Democrats are missing a clear opportunity to attempt real reform now, something shockingly admitted by Democrats themselves if you talk to them about it outside of some partisan pissing match. And while the Republican opposition generally seems to be misguided or overwhelmingly based in hysterical fears (to be fair somewhat grounded upon the stated hopes of Democrats themselves) there's little reason to support the current bills (also, ironically enough, echoed by the Democrats themselves).

For all the costs and effort being put into unrealistic hopes of some magic fix later in the support of this bill, it's an unnecessary waste at a time when the government cannot afford to waste anymore resources on non-solutions to a very real economic crisis.

How about a pumpkin thread?

...who needs prosecutors?

Or judges, or forensic experts, or... anything beyond throwing lighter fluid on a carpet and suddenly we're all arson experts! Neat!

Just more damning evidence against the State of Texas (double entendre intended) when it comes to the death penalty. For the full blown narrative of this case, which will take you on a trip from doubt to absolute horror, the New Yorker has an excellent article on the case from beginning to end.

This is the same case where the governor has done everything in his power to thwart the commission investigating whether Texas executed an innocent man from doing so. From CNN:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has removed a fourth member of a state commission charged with investigating claims that an innocent man may have been executed, his office said.
A family photo shows Cameron Todd Willingham with his wife, Stacy, and daughters Kameron, Amber and Karmon.

The Texas governor has now replaced all of the four members that, under law, he is allowed to appoint to the commission. The remaining five members are appointed by the state's lieutenant governor and attorney general.

...

Levy said at the time of his replacement he had told Perry's office "that it would be disruptive to make the new appointments right now."

"The commission was at a crucial point in the investigation," he told CNN. Asked about the future of the Willingham investigation, he said, "I don't know if it will ever be heard."

Both Levy and Bassett said they had asked to remain on the board.

Evans declined to give an opinion on the Willingham controversy when contacted by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for a story Friday, saying all he knows on the matter is what he's read in the newspaper.

"Because I haven't had involvement with the commission, I can't really comment on what's been going on in the commission in the past," he said. "I will work very hard to make sure the duties of the commission ... as given by the Texas Legislature are carried out."

Beyler's report -- the first commissioned by a state agency -- is the latest of three to conclude that arson was not the likely cause of the 1991 fire.

It's about time they stop desperately avoiding the facts and man up to the error and start addressing reality instead of protecting their guilty consciences.

I got nothin' to add to that.

According to a former Clinton appointed diplomat who was working with the UN on election oversight of the Afghanistan elections... yes. In a recent TIME Magazine article he lays out the known pre-election fraudulent and suspicious activities that have become the focus of the disputed ballots and election results that came to light after the election:

Unfortunately, I am unable to provide reassuring answers. Over the past four months, I served as the deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kabul and had a firsthand view of the fraud that plagued Afghanistan's presidential vote. Each time I proposed actions to deal with it, Kai Eide, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, overruled me. Like any good subordinate, I respected my boss's decision, but in private, I told him I thought he was making a mistake in downplaying the fraud. When the press learned of our disagreement (through no fault of ours), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon removed me from my post. This is an account of what went wrong — and why success in Afghanistan will remain beyond our grasp until the problems I witnessed are fixed.

He goes on to lay out several complaints about the process and how he was blocked by his UN superiors from inhibiting the fraudulent tactics emerging in front of their eyes:

Along with ambassadors from the U.S., NATO, the E.U. and the U.K., I urged the election commissioners and the Afghan Ministers of Defense and Interior to close down these ghost polling centers. Serving a President who was to benefit from the fraud, the Afghan ministers complained about my approach to my boss, Eide, and he ordered me to stop. On election day, these ghost polling centers produced hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes for Karzai. (After controversy erupted over my dismissal, the U.N. told some reporters that I wanted to disenfranchise voters by closing polling centers; this was absurd. The only ones I wanted taken off the books were ones that had never opened.)

...

Days later, the IEC discovered that sticking to its published safeguards would exclude enough fraudulent Karzai ballots to keep his total below 50%. This would lead to a second-round runoff, which Karzai desperately hoped to avoid. The IEC reconvened and voted 6 to 1 to drop safeguards, explaining that the commissioners had just read the Afghan election law and discovered that they had no authority to throw out fraudulent votes. This novel and inventive reading of the law did not convince many Afghans. My boss, however, sided with Karzai, and I was ordered to drop the matter. Four days later, I left Afghanistan and was subsequently relieved of my position by the Secretary-General.

The whole thing is worth the read, as painfully frustrating as it is. Extremely frustrating for reasons the article notes:

Because the elections were so critical to political stability in Afghanistan — and, therefore, prospects for the U.S.-led military mission — the U.S. and its allies needed them to go smoothly. The U.N. Security Council tasked the U.N. mission in Afghanistan to support the IEC and other Afghan institutions in the conduct of "free, fair and transparent" elections.

They intentionally helped Karzai game the vote to ensure that there wouldn't be a run-off vote and supposedly ensure greater stability. Instead they helped them de-legitimize themselves, any faith in the elections, now or in the future... and of course have seriously endangered our mission, and with it the lives of our servicemen on the front lines who will suffer the consequences of their madness.

The Afghanistan government is very young and existing in an environment of great instability and doubt. Few democracies deal with election issues the right way in these situations as they hold in the balance the fate of the nation and very often the lives of the leaders of it. We knew this. The UN knew this. They were charged with ensuring that the Afghans didn't do something stupid and make the situation worse.

Instead the UN helped them make it worse, actually abandoning the principles they supposedly hold dear in the process in hopes of some positive result. Paving, quite literally, a road to hell with their good intentions.

Of all of the complaints about the Baucus bill or the health care reform bills in general, this one hasn't gotten much attention yet:

Witch Doctory in Senate’s Health Care Plan.

ATHEISTS OPPOSE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE “FAITH HEALING” PROVISIONS IN HEALTH CARE REFORM BILLS

An Atheist public policy organization today called for elimination of requirements in Senate legislation which would reimburse faith-based “healers” for their services.

The Senate Finance Committee has taken up the America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 which has an amendment titled “Religious Non-discrimination in Healthcare. The provision bans insurance companies from denying patients “benefits for religious or spiritual healthcare. Similar legislation, the Affordable Health Choices Act, has already cleared the U.S. Senate, and has a similar provision.

Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists, warned that the measure amounts to a public subsidy for certain religious groups.

“Any adult in the legislative or executive branch of the federal government, or of any state government, who wants to use unproven, unscientific ‘remedies’ should be free to do so,” said Buckner. “But support for such irrational nonsense violates the separation of religion and government and the canons of good sense. Including faith-healing or other non-medical ‘treatment’ in health care legislation must be rejected.”

Giving any sort of legitimacy to quackery, religious or otherwise, seems inherently dangerous to me. Especially dangerous and indeed often fatal to children of folks who take this stuff too far. While this particular amendment doesn't seem to change the fact that killing a child with faith based denial of care is still generally illegal, it could encourage more of it and even reward those who attempt it and propagate irrational fears, distrust, or dismissal of proven medical treatments to those who might otherwise not know better. Of course empowering the government to decide what treatments should be covered is bound to cause even more issues along these lines. Will insurance companies or government programs be forced to pay for scientology thetan tests too? How about subluxation tests/treatment in the quackier side of chiropractic care which has roughly the same scientific grounding... i.e. none. Will we end up with a public option for prayer circle coverage too?

Let's just avoid the slippery slope towards absurdity and kid sized body bags and just knock this nonsense out of any current or future health care bill. These bills have enough problems.

One gigantic heart:

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - After serving in the Korean War, John Wright apparently lived a quiet life in Danville, where he volunteered at the local Veterans Administration hospital but otherwise kept to himself.

As it turns out, Wright was also building a fortune in real estate and other investments worth $1.56 million, all of which he left to the eastern Illinois town's VA hospital when he died.

The staff and other volunteers he got to know in his 40 years volunteering at the hospital's recreation therapy section were the closest thing Wright had to family, said Douglas Shouse, a hospital spokesman.

...

The money will buy a 16-passenger van to take veterans on outings and will be used to renovate a recreation hall that will be named in his honor, according to Shouse.

Wright was buried in the Danville National Cemetery near the hospital.

A well earned salute to this guy.

From local Chicago news outlets on the bigger issues of the 2016 Chicago Olympic bid. First from the Chicago Sun-Times:

We admit to having mixed emotions. Professionally, it would of course be a very good thing. Newspapers and their brethren thrive on huge stories, so it's little wonder that the local media have climbed aboard the 2016 bandwagon. For seven years, we would have an opportunity to examine the Olympic process up close and personal, and the result would be plentiful and fascinating story angles involving local news, business and sports. The media would be a big part of the story, which is why you read so many glowing accounts about the wonders of the Olympic experience: If you're in the media, you get to go to the events, meet the athletes, talk to the visiting fans. You're invited to the party, so naturally it seems like a wonderful thing.

Of course, if you're an Average Joe, forget about it. The tickets are much too pricey and difficult to acquire. You'll end up watching it all on TV, same as you will if the games are awarded to Rio. If you live in Chicago, you will have to put up with countless inconveniences, the shutdown of streets and lakefront facilities, the tedious traffic jams and the misplaced priorities. And, as a taxpayer, you will be on the hook for any and all cost overruns, as rubber-stamped by the cheerleading City Council.

Local history tells us it's the movers-and-shakers, the power-brokers, who will cash in on the Chicago Olympics. Mayor Daley's legacy will be ensured, and those with clout will reap rich rewards. Now, are all those who are engineering Chicago's Olympic bid in it for themselves? Of course not. The vast majority are upstanding, civic-minded individuals who are absolutely convinced they are acting in the city's best interests. They may well be right. But it's debatable how much the general populace will benefit, in terms of new jobs, new construction, increased tourism. Who knows what the economy will look like seven years from now? Chicago as a whole likely will gain some tangible lasting benefits, some invaluable enhancement of its image, but at this point, that's difficult to quantify.

And from the Chicago Tribune:

But the city -- whose mayor is hoping once again to cast it in the best light for the 2016 Olympics -- has a dark side. Despite its dazzling profile and the self-congratulation attendant to an Olympic bid, Chicago can never truly be a world-class city until it figures out how to save its children.

Consider this: The Black Star Project, an advocacy group that mentors and tutors black and Latino students, has counted 53 children and teens under 18 who have been killed in Chicago from Sept. 2, 2008, to Sept. 2, 2009.

"Since the Iraq war started in 2003, we've lost 10 soldiers who resided in this city, and that's awful," said Phillip Jackson, executive director of Black Star. "But during that same time, we've lost about 300 of our children. So you tell me: Is this not a war?"

The Tribune article goes on about the efforts put forth to gain the money pot of an Olympic event being held there and asks for a similar effort be made for the endless Columbine loads of deaths Chicago faces year after year after year after year after year...

Some how, some way, this Olympic bid, whether it succeeds or fails must be used to beat this corrupt government over the head until it actually makes real progress in bringing real change to this unbearable situation. Ignoring it between brief moments of half-measures has got to stop. Enriching the 'haves' with Olympic pork for maintaining the status quo of the 'have nots' continuing to die in the streets while just trying to go to school is unacceptable.

And honestly, if all we can do is maintain that status quo, does any body in Chicago or this State deserve any Olympian perks? Hell no.

The Center for Inquiry has been promoting "Blasphemy Day International 2009" on facebook and elsewhere on the interwebs, specifically set on this date:

Why September 30? The last day in September is the anniversary of the original publication of Danish cartoons in 2005 depicting the prophet Muhammad's face. Any visual depiction of Muhammad is considered a grave offence under Islamic law.

The fury which arose within the Islamic community following this publication led to massive riots, attacks on foreign embassies and deaths.

The newspapers which chose to publish these cartoons were in many cases blamed for the outpouring of violence which followed. This unfortunate yet inevitable sequence of events clearly demonstrated a dangerous misconception that had piggy-backed into the 21st century on the shoulders of ignorance, fear and apathy, that all religious beliefs and ideas deserve respect and are beyond criticism or satire.

International Blasphemy Day is a movement, not just a day, to remind the world that religion should never again be beyond open and honest discussion or reproach. Our future depends on it.

This issue hit our own little community at the time with our local college paper getting into all sorts of controversy about publishing, and the behind the scenes story of how it got published, and of course the protests and other reactions to it. They've decided that the recent UN consideration of blasphemy prohibitions and Ireland blasphemy laws being continued have created a need for people to get a little bit more used to free speech than they may be comfortable with. There are concerns, however, even by folks within that organization that this is a bad idea, and what may be well intentioned to promote tolerance could easily backfire and encourage intolerance.

My own take is that some folks will be idiots about it and cross the line from promoting freedom of speech into promoting hatred, but that overall we as a society are generally far too sensitive to religious taboos on irreverence and that needs to be challenged. But even though I have no problem playing the part of the mocking militant atheist on my personal blog, it seems like a more productive conversation could be had here on the issues of religious tolerance, free speech, and whether or not it is appropriate to use one's free speech in such a way even if it should be permitted by law.

Then again, after the last religious thread, perhaps everyone is sick of the topic? I suppose we'll see.

Here are the claims from tonight's address that jumped out at me that have been debunked as false or misleading in the past:

• About keeping your current coverage: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/keep-your-insurance-not-everyone/

   

• About the plan being "paid for" or reducing the deficit: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/obamas-health-care-news-conference/

   

• On not covering abortion: http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/abortion-which-side-is-fabricating/

Obviously these aren't little issues to many voters. And some are primary concerns.

The New Yorker has a very long but very worthwhile article on their website today: Trial By Fire... one that should not be ignored. If you have passionate views on the death penalty, either for or against, it is absolutely a must-read.

It starts off, as many of these stories do, with fairly damning evidence... but as it unfolds the doubts grow and one finds themselves in the shoes of a man who suffered violence, rape, isolation, fear and demonization for 12 years for a crime that you can decide for  yourself if there was reasonable doubt he committed. You can feel horrified at the deadly bureaucracy that one must navigate in order to save your life if you're wrongly convicted. You can witness the sad state of our justice system as money and resources to put up a competent defense is simply not going to typically happen when you rely on the State's appointed public defenders.

You can reel with shock as lives are destroyed by common knowledge being used in evidence over scientific proof.

You can see the manipulation of the justice system by debunked pseudoscience and its backers. You can see the courts and jury manipulated by religious superstitions and fears on what should be a matter of factual debate.

You can witness due process being twisted into a Milgram Experiment where everyone washes their hands of responsibility for their deadly games, all for the greater "good."

I still view the death penalty as Constitutional (hard to have a prohibition on depriving someone of life without due process unless it assumed that the state could deprive it with due process).  But until the justice system of any particular State has gone through some serious reforms to resolve the current problems with death penalty inequities, absurdities, and bureaucratic snafu... with serious verification afterwards... I see no choice but to demand moratoriums on all death penalty sentences for the foreseeable future.

Once again here is the article link: Trial By Fire

Please take the time to read it. Bookmark it for later if you don't have the time now. But please read it.

If there's one thing that annoys the hell out of me, it's conspiracy theorists. Whether it be folks who believed Bill Clinton had some sort of Clintonista Death Squads offing problematic associates, people who'd swear to all that is holy that Bush was going to use emergency powers to cancel elections, throw people into FEMA death camps, and institute a fascist dictatorship, or yahoos who still believe that Obama isn't a natural born citizen... their arguments are always bizarre non sequiturs of disparate facts, half-truths, and a lot of utter BS.

And while the current conspiracy du jour is the Obama birthers, one particular group of conspiratorial nitwits still takes the cake in my book: 9/11 truthers.

9/11 truthers run the gamut of paranoid weirdos. Everything from devout antisemitic scumbags to irrational militant revolutionaries. They often get support from some of the nuttiest fringe politicians and ignorant celebrities from either side of the political spectrum here in the U.S. (examples such as Ron Paul's sucking up to them for nutterbutter votes and Cynthia McKinney's paranoid leftist delusions come to mind).

Today I learn that one of these scumbags is a top adviser to the White House on the environment. I was highly skeptical of the claim at first due to the source of the information, Fox News' own Glenn Beck, a nutter in his own right and probably the epitome of modern cable news yellow journalism. But in this case, Beck for all his flaws, found one that even the rest of the media is jumping on now. From ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper:

A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."

Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is Number 46 of the petitioners from the so-called "Truther" movement which suggests that people in the administration of President George W. Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."

In a statement issued Thursday evening Jones said of "the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

He did not explain how his name came to be on the petition. A source said Jones did not carefully review the language in the petition before agreeing to add his name.

The Washington Times confirmed that this wasn't some accidental signing:

Mike Berger, a spokesman for 911Truth.org, told the Washington Times over the phone that all of the signers had been verified by their group. He said 9/11Truth.org board members “spoke with each person on the list by phone or through email to individually confirm they had added their name to that list.”

It'd be impossible for someone, especially someone as politically savvy as Mr. Jones to be oblivious to what this group is about or what the intentions of any statement they wanted him to sign was about. The name of the group alone gives it away, and for something as sensitive as 9/11 would necessitate anyone without severe brain damage to make friggin sure what it was they were signing.

Mr. Jones' excuses ring hollow.

But as the ABC article notes, this is not his first foray into controversy:

In 2005 Jones told the East Bay Express that the acquittal of Rodney King's assailants in 1992 in that infamous police brutality case changed him significantly. "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist."

Jones and other young activists in 1994 formed a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, rooted in Marxism and Leninsm.

It's still unclear in any of the news articles I've read thus far when exactly Mr. Jones stopped being a communist. But regardless of when it is clear that this is recent history, not something that can be dismissed as "you know those 60's, man, everybody was just crazy!" as folks have rationalized Bill Ayers. Or dismiss the paranoid and racist delusions of a pastor that was much closer to Obama than his supporters will ever admit (though Obama had numerous times in the past)... afterall Obama didn't make him part of his administration and disowned him when the pastor confirmed that it wasn't just taken out of context.

Nope, this guy was recently a communist and a supporter of the truther movement and now currently has the ear of the President of the United States. This is unacceptable. While everyone has the right to be as idiotic and utterly insane as they want to be when it comes to conspiratorial nonsense, there is no reason that someone with this kind of crap on their resume should be getting cushy government jobs in the administration. Obama needs to make it clear that 9/11 trutherism is unacceptable and incompatible with his administration and either have Van Jones resign or outright fire him.

With the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks coming up in roughly one week, the sooner the better. Anything less would be an insult to the American people.

As far as this story getting its traction from Glenn Beck, I think it safe to say that it doesn't excuse his other flaws and dubious nature. It is however a fairly strong indictment of the rest of the media for not catching on until after a hack like Beck found something they should have been asking about long ago.

Ted Kennedy died last night due to the brain cancer that he had been struggling with for a while now. A champion to many in his own party and ideological persuasion and everything from a respected opponent to beliefs that he got away with manslaughter or murder due to his status from the other side.

The chatter on the interwebs thus far range from how he will be replaced, whether by the system he pushed when Romney was governor or if the Massachussetts government can change it back per his recent request to ensure passage of the healthcare bill, to speculation on how his death may be used by Democrats to push a reform bill that has been suffering in public support up until this point, or if his long support of pushing for health care programs will create its own sympathy bounce.

What do y'all think?

From the LA Times:

[DoJ Attorney] Scarborough said that only about 4% of department decisions about care or coverage are subject to "significant delays," and that pilot programs to improve on the timely delivery of services were underway.

[Chief Judge] Kozinski asked whether the other 96% were satisfied customers or if many might have gotten frustrated and abandoned their claims.

[Defendents' Attorney] Erspamer said that was precisely what was happening, with even those with the most severe mental illnesses being turned away from veterans hospital emergency rooms and told to get on the waiting list for appointments.

"Then they go home and kill themselves," Erspamer told the court.

The judges appeared perplexed, though, as to how they could effect change with a court order.

"How do we go about telling an agency 'You've got to work faster?' How do you implement something like that?" Kozinski asked Erspamer. "If we find in your favor, what's to keep the federal courts from taking over and running any agency of government? We've got lots of agencies that are slow."

That was the view of U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, who agreed after an April 2008 trial that veterans suffered unjust claim denials and unacceptable delay in treatment but said the problem was beyond the court's ability.

The whole article is worth the read and is unfortunately very representative of the problems facing the VA health care system. The VA has something in common with private insurance here. Most people end up getting what they need out of the deal and don't have many complaints about their own care. It's the folks that get screwed, that small percentage who, when read off as a statistic, seem to not matter to folks supporting either or.

When the private insurers screw you over, the judges must hold them to their contract, though arguably with limited success due to similar issues with crafty bureaucratic legalese. When government screws you over, there is no contract. Just rules and regulations that are often ambiguous in wording and interpreted as needed. With the VA you have to fight through administrative appeals (run by the VA itself) for years upon years upon years before you'd ever see a judge. For Social Security related claims such as medicare you'll have a similar experience with an exception. Administrative law judges in the middle of the administrative appeal process. They work out of SSA offices and they, in spite of claims of neutrality, serve as both prosecutor and judge of your hearing.

The end result is that while you can reassure yourself that the system is working in any one of these systems by going off of the cheery anecdotals, this merely drowns out the real damage they're doing to a significant minority. That's significant in normal meaning, not government statistical meaning.

One thing that seems to be showing through in recent polls is that people want reform. Not necessarily because they dislike their own health coverage, in fact time and time again most people claim to like their own. They overwhelmingly want reform if they're the few getting screwed or folks with good care that want others to have good care as well.

Meanwhile people debate and bicker about whether there really are "death panels" or if that's just an oversimplified way of describing how a bureaucracy that can decide which treatments are effective enough to cover will end up working out in practice or if that whole concept is just ludicrous hyperbole.

What people need to know who have been screwed over by private insurance, Social Security related programs such as Medicare, or VA care by cold calculating bureaucratic decisions on resources, manpower, utilizing ambiguous language to deny or delay on technicalities, etc...

What they need to know is when are they going to get real reform?

They're dying to know. No "death panels" required.

For all of my complaints about MSNBC lately, I haven't focused much on Fox News beyond material for comparison on similar hypocrisy. Since the Daily Show always does it better, I figured I'd just share theirs:

And just to be fair, another older video that bashes the cable networks across the board:

And for a good measure a recent editorial cartoon on the subject:

Redstate nabs MSNBC red-handed deliberately distorting a video to claim racial hatred towards Obama... the problem is that they had to crop the video a great deal to use a black gun owner and depict him as a white gun owner:

OK, remember last weekend, when there were a bunch of reports of armed people at the Arizona town hall? Lots of stories of bemused reporters trying to get their heads around the notion that in Arizona you can wander around with an AR-15 -

Which is not a fully automatic weapon, by the way. You can’t buy fully automatic weapons in the USA* [clarification in original article at link above]. I mention this because this is apparently news to our journalistic class.

- anyway, lots of bemused reporters, not least because of this picture (via here):

Health care rationing protester, by the way. See also this video, and stop at about 0:28.

OK, yup, same guy. Now watch this:

They cropped the video to obscure this guy’s ethnicity. Because it didn’t fit their narrative, which was that they think somebody - somebody white - was going to try to hurt the President.

I usually don’t say this sort of thing all that often, but this is one of those times: this is inexcusable. THIS. WAS. DELIBERATE. They had the clip. They knew that the guy was a peaceful protester making a point about the Second Amendment. They knew that - by definition - he was not a crazy white right-winger itching to take a shot at the President. But they altered his appearance so that it matched their argument that there is an active risk of crazy right-wingers itching to take a shot at the President.

Journalistic integrity? Nah!

Integrity at all? Nah!

So what's important to MSNBC? Having a narrative that appeals to their audience, which as DailyKos recently noted through one of their polls is almost entirely Democrats. With their attempts to outdo Fox News when it comes to appealing to a particular political persuasion, they seem to be giving them a run for their money... and in cases like this, taking the cake.

From DailyKos:

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 8/3-6. All adults. MoE 2% (No trend lines)

How often do you watch ___; daily, at least once a week, a few times a month, rarely, or never?

...

MSNBC was easily the least-recognized network of the bunch, with 60 percent of respondents unable to give an opinion. That "not sure" number was only 22 percent for CNN, and 24 percent for FNC.

CNN won Democrats, some Republicans, and won the most independents over, what few watch cable news, that is. Fox of course won over Republicans with some Democrats and Independents. And MSNBC appeals only to some Democrats... and barely anybody else. I wonder why?

Mimicking a network you hate to win ratings? Pathetic.

Inciting racial tensions by deliberately distorting the facts to play to your fan base's narrative? Friggin' irresponsible.

Rachael Maddow is concerned.

She has seen some disturbing things, including insane anti-government conspiracies, in the recent protests.

She has pointed out examples of what she feels is un-American.

And downright anti-American [censored image].

With actions that seem to threaten violence.

Or suggest some sort of ideology where they feel such justice may be necessary against people in the American government.

But rest assured she is aware that some nutters who may show up at a protest cannot be used to generalize the whole without stumbling into logical fallacy territory and would never ever ever ever suggest that everyone with concerns about health care, the direction this government is taking, are just promoters of violence, supporters of terrorism, assassination, and murder in service to corporate masters in their beloved insurance industry:

Or maybe she wants her show to be the left-wing version of Bill O'Reilly's endless generalizations of entire groups, causes, or issue supporters/opponents based on the actions of fringe nutters and unconnected anecdotals? MSDNC vs Faux News: They play to preconceived notions, we barf.

All pictures above from a single protest event after the 2004 elections. For more pictures of the Zombie Time collection, keep in mind they are NOT safe for work generally, but are available here at ZombieTime.com.

Someday the right-wing will learn how to ensure that no fringe people are allowed to show up to their protests in spite of freedom of speech, assembly, etc. Maybe they could take some notes from the left. They'd never allow such nonsense.

[cough]

[cough]