Archive for July, 2009
Food Bank Friday
A hard day today. The shelves were essentially bare. The volunteers were scarce yesterday but the place was swamped. No time to stock the shelves.
Talked to a 20-something woman with a baby. Her husband got a raise — to $11 an hour –woo hoo — but Medicare dropped them because they were too rich. Then he got fired. They don’t know what they’re going to do.
I drive home trying to keep my head from exploding.
Cash for Clunkers is Dead?
Not good: More concerns about what the hell the Obama administration’s doing.
Cash for Clunkers – which benefited We the People (yeah, and the car makers too) — is apparently dead, after less than a week. I looked at that site yesterday after hearing lots of ads on the radio about it and — literally — and there were millions of dollars left.
We have two 20+ year old clunkers. We were thinking about turning both of them in for one new car, based on the clunker deal. We thought we had until November to do so but ah, guess not.
This doesn’t look good Obama — especially when compared to the billions given to the banks.
Here’s a screenshot of the cars.gov. site tonight.
Yesterday (wish I’d taken a screenshot) the dial was at about ten. But supposedly there was $779M remaining as of 10:00 a.m. this morning? That was all spent today?
Something’s seriously wrong here.
Unpatriotic Birthers
The birthers? They’re fundamentally unpatriotic.
They’re the same people who cheered the creation of new bazillion-dollar “security” agencies like the Department of Homeland Security. They love and trust the FBI and ICE. So what’s with thinking that a “foreign national” could slither in — undetected – and become the president of the United States? Isn’t that an insult to those institutions and their intelligence capabilities?
Obama Fail
We all know that per Fox “News,” President Obama (and Democrats in general, for that matter) can’t do anything right. The latest proof? This:
“Beer Summit” Countdown Clock
Unbelievable. MSNBC is actually showing a clock which is counting down to the 6:00 p.m. “beer summit” at the White House.
Oop, so is CNN.
I’m embarrassed to be an American when I see our “news” outlets stoop this low, treating us like idiots.
Fuck Bipartisanship
I am so discouraged and depressed at the bullshit the Democrats’ are spewing about “working with” Republicans on health care reform (which is now morphing into health insurance reform) that I’m having a hard time posting. Screw the bastards.
No one has said it better than John Cole:
I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years.
CNN Covers For Sarah Palin
CNN’s headline tonight (as of 10:08 p.m. ET) is, “Sarah Palin Steps Aside.”
How about telling the truth CNN: Sarah Palin quit.
Fox News Says Mitt Romney is “World’s Prettiest”
Being pretty is obviously something Fox “News” wants its mostly blond bimbo female journalists readers to be, but since when do wingers openly laud PRETTY men?
Rush Limbaugh Has a Chip on His Shoulder?
Oops. Silly me. Per a Fox Nation EXCLUSIVE!, Obama’s the one who’s got a chip on his shoulder.
Oh. Okay.
Sarah Palin’s Orgasmic Patriotism
Her latest tweet:
Sarah’s feeeeelin’ good. Who wouldn’t if they were about to rake in a bazillion dollars?
Amazon Buys Zappos
Good luck. Zappos is an amazingly efficient company but navigating their website has sucked of late.
Fox Nation: Universal Health Care Will Kill You
The evil people at Fox have this up on “Fox Nation” tonight:
The Billion Dollar Hate and Fear Industry — Who’s Profiting and How Sarah Palin Might Too
You HAVE GOT TO READ this article titled Sarah Palin, Inc. It’s about Palin yes, but it’s also about the billions of dollars wingers like Newt Gingrich and Michael Reagan (and Fox News for that matter) are making off of the business of hate and fear.
Money quote:
Palin also clearly knows one of the most important lessons of the world she’s entering: the urgent need for people to give now. She opened a legal-funds account earlier this year, and in the midst of a recession urged people to contribute money to cover her purported $500,000 debt — while at the same time, she was cashing a book advance reportedly worth between $4 million and $7 million. …
Finding and exploiting that urgent need, or even creating it out of thin air, drives the [hate and fear] industry.
…
…[G]roups like Gun Owners of America (GOA) — run by another titan of this industry, Alan M. Gottlieb — have been sending out action alerts warning, in dire terms, of an emergency threat to gun owners supposedly embedded in the Senate’s health-care-reform bill (and before that, in Obama’s stimulus package). The alleged danger lies in a provision that would create a digitized medical-information database, to increase efficiency, save money, and improve treatment. But according to GOA, it is possible that this could somehow result in a gun-store background check accessing your medical records — which could result (I am not making this up) in depriving people with Alzheimer’s the right to illegally purchase firearms by not disclosing their condition.
Hey, whipping the wingnut base up into killing people (like at the Holocaust Museum) or drooling over having a civil war is good for business, never mind the pretense of caring about the country. These guys are raking it in and for the most part pocketing billions of dollars while giving their contributors the impression that they’re fighting the bad guys like Obama and Pelosi. What an evil racket.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. — Ad Nauseam
President Obama made his “stupid” remark about the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on Wednesday night. Here it is, Saturday morning, and the “liberal media” is still chewing on this “controversy,” which was manufactured by the wingers.
Soon it will be August. Congress will have adjourned for the month and the president will take a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. The “liberal media” will be bored because, after all, they don’t report actual news anymore. So, undoubtedly they’re hoping that we have another “summer of the shark” or even a new Gary Condit.
I had an appendectomy in late July of 2001 and while I was laid-up recuperating, the only thing on any of the 24/7 cable news channels was the Condit/Chandra Levi scandal. The only thing that knocked that off the air was 9/11.
So expect a dry month ahead. Maybe they can stretch the Gates “controversy” all the way into September?
GOP Heat Seeking Missile Gets Caught Again
Never mind I-still-rely-on-my-parents-to-bail-me-out-Ensign. Or Vitter. Or Mark, the I-lie (it-has-to-do-with-walking-the-Appalachian Trail) guy. Here’s another one.
Aw. Look at that sweet innocent face.
A Fat Neil Cavuto Wonders Whether the Surgeon General-Appointee is Too Fat
The other day Fox’s Neil Cavuto aired a segment during which he and his guest speculated as to whether Dr. Regina Benjamin, President Obama’s surgeon general nominee, is too fat for the job. Sexist much? Not only that, but Cavuto has got to be a good 40 pounds overweight so who’s he to talk?
Goldman Sachs Owns the Planet
This “Cartoon Lounge” post from the New Yorker isn’t all that far from the truth.
Dan Quayle? Does Anyone Remember Dan Quayle?
Dan Quayle couldn’t put together a coherent sentence twenty five years ago when King George I picked him as his V.P. Lots has happened since (take a moment to reflect) but for all intents and purposes, he hasn’t said a word since. That is, until now. Half the population doesn’t even know who he is for God’s sake. But now, ah, we’re supposed to care what he says? As if he’s an elder statesman or something? The AP thinks so.
I don’t.
Dinner With Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite died today at the age of 92.
Cronkite was a much a part of my childhood as Michael Jackson was of others’. My family gathered around the television every night at dinnertime and watched the “CBS Evening News,” which was then actual news. Walter always signed off with, “And that’s the way it is…” after which he gave the date.
He seemed like a wonderful, kind man with tremendous integrity and again, he was a journalist and he reported the news. Back then, for the most part, news meant facts, not opinion. Undoubtedly he left this Earth distressed at the state of that institution.
RIP Walter. I’m glad I know what a real “news anchor” is. I hope the history books include your story so young people will have a sense of what we’ve lost.
How Dumb Does Mark Udall (D-CO) Think I Am?
I just called Mark Udall’s office (he’s my senator) to tell him about the little hospital experience my husband had recently and to urge him to get on board with single-payer health care, ah, as of YESTERDAY.
The guy who answered the phone said Udall “hasn’t taken a position yet,” to which I responded that it was about time he did. To that, the guy said “bear in mind that he’s a freshman senator” and he isn’t all that familiar with how the senate works.
What? What does that freakin’ have to do with forming an opinion as to what sort of reforms we need in our health care system? Nothing, of course, but they apparently think I’m dumb enough to think it does, and I’m supposed to believe it and go away.
Yeah, Sarah Palin Just HATES How the Media Treats Her…
But she’s willing to give endless television interviews — since quitting six days ago, ah, for the sake of her family — and to pose for the cover of Time magazine. Here’s the cover of the July 20 edition.
By the way, I hate to see this. Palin is an idiot and a liar. She’s no “Renegade,” and Time should be ashamed of itself for going along with her charade .
The Right and the Lies of the CIA
Thought: Why is it so hard for the right to believe that the CIA lied to congress? That’s something many of us have suspected for five, six years.
36 Hours in the Hospital — $10,675.00
Two weeks ago my husband was hospitalized for 36 hours. He was in the emergency room early on and then moved to a regular hospital room (not intensive care). They gave him a CT scan and seven stitches (staples, really) for a cut on the back of his head. They ran some blood tests and hooked him up to a cardiac monitor for 24-hours.
The bill — and this is just the hospital, never mind the radiologists and who knows who else — arrived today: $10,675.00.
