New Developments III

[Sonic Youth]

I wouldn't take the interpretation of anyone in the mainstream media -- especially the AP, which has been carrying GOP water since Ron Fournier took it over -- for gospel. If I hear the plan has actually been dropped, I'll be disappointed. Hearing "some people tonight SEEM to be signalling it's dropped" is worse than worthless, and exactly the sort of bad reporting that's marked all coverage of this debate.

Oh, I disagree. I think the term for what's going on is "trial balloon".

The New York Times reported this much the same way in yesterday's paper. And I'd stay away from news blogs and other outlets to the left of them, because they'll probably be less than charitable in their read of what's going on.

The New York Times, and the rest of the press, also reported that: Hillary had exposed Obama's fatal weakness with white working class voters; Sarah Palin was going to single-handedly swing the election to McCain; Cash for Clunkers would be stopped by the Senate; and Sonia Sotomayor could never be confirmed before Fall. The Times in particular has a "Democrats in disarray" article-template they trot out periodically, of which this is the latest variant.

I do agree that portions of the lefty blogosphere are equally guilty -- Arianna leading the way -- because in their Nader-ite souls they want to be disappointed, as it will confirm their dim view of American society. They'd have screamed at the compromises FDR made to get Social Security through.

It's sure looking more and more like they got this one right, doesn't it?

[cam]

Biggest Non-secret ever held!

Can we go back to the medical insurance situation in the US? The amount and obviousness of untruths abound--like Canada is a Socialist country( read: bad).
Yet there are millions is Americans who believe these nonsenses-- those millions who are a little right of Attila The Hun.
These unwashed appear to believe that a socialist medical system, does not permit the government to "kill Grandma". Stem cell research should not be carried on , because there might be clones of a Bad Guy produced, on purpose, by Big Brother.

The closest I have come to observing much in the way of the Democratic-Progressives countering the Right is the Town Hall meeting of Obama's in Colorado( I think it was). And I have a lot of time to read and watch TV now.

Politics on this Board are the best way I have had for ten years in picking up what intelligent Americans, who are, with the exception of criddic and the odd dodo, Progressives, have to say. Unless I have missed it, the discussion of this topic seems to have ended.



Edited By cam on 1250983891

[Damien]

Ridge Claims That He Was Pressured to Elevate Threat Warning

File this under Duh.

Many people pointed out the obviousness of this during the fall of 2004.

[Greg]

Ridge Claims That He Was Pressured to Elevate Threat Warning
By Garance Franke-Ruta

Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, the first director of the Department of Homeland Security, says that he was pressured by other agency heads to raise the national security-threat level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election -- a move he rejected as having political undertones.

The disclosure comes in promotional materials for Ridge's new book, due out Sept. 1, in which he writes that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft tried to pressure him to raise the threat level.

"After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector," Ridge writes in the book, "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege ... and How We Can Be Safe Again," according to publishers Thomas Dunne Books.

He submitted his resignation within the month.

Another official in George W. Bush's administration, White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, told the Associated Press on Thursday that Ridge "was certainly not pressured," while a spokesman for Rumsfeld rejected Ridge's assertion.

"The story line advanced by his publisher seemingly to sell copies of the book is nonsense," Keith Urbahn said in a statement. "During the fall of 2004, Osama bin Laden and an American member of al-Qaeda released videotapes that said in no uncertain terms that al-Qaeda intended to launch more attacks against Americans. ... Given those facts, it would seem reasonable for senior administration officials to discuss the threat level."

Ridge's publicist, Joe Rinaldi, said Thursday that the former secretary was not doing interviews.

Ridge will also say in the book that his relationship with Rumsfeld had been distant, with the Pentagon chief rarely making himself available for meetings with his domestic security counterpart.

And Ridge will also reveal that he was never invited to a White House National Security Council meeting -- Condoleezza Rice was NSC director during President George W. Bush's first term -- that he was routinely "blindsided" by an information-withholding Federal Bureau of Investigation during Oval Office briefings, and that his efforts to establish regional Homeland Security offices in New Orleans and six other major cities in the years before Hurricane Katrina were thwarted by bureaucracy.

The man who oversaw America's airport screening was himself singled out for screening more than two dozen times, he will say.

Threat-level warnings became a subject of controversy in 2004 after one rise was declared just days after the Democratic National Convention that summer. The move was seen by some at the time as redirecting public attention toward an issue where Bush was stronger (terrorism) and away from questions about the war in Iraq being raised by challenger Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

Some of the intelligence behind the alert was ultimately revealed to be three to four years old, though newly obtained.

"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland of Security," Ridge said at the time.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44...._w.html

[OscarGuy]

Now if only people would flock from the South in general, get out of places like Texas, drop those states down in pop bringing up northern states...

[Greg]

Florida loses population for the first time since World War II
By James Thorner, Times Staff Writer

The growth state is officially shrinking.

Hit by a double-whammy of the housing crash and the recession, Florida has lost population for the first time since the demobilization of hundreds of thousands of soldiers after World War II.

University of Florida demographers will report Friday that the state shed about 50,000 residents between April 2008 and April 2009. That should knock the number of Floridians down a notch from the previously reported 18.3 million.

It's the first time since 1946 that Florida has been a net population loser. Even during the Great Depression, new residents swept into the state in search of work and leisure. But the severe housing contraction, combined with the sputtering of Florida's job creation machine, has eclipsed the state's former gravitational pull.

"You've had families with kids move out when housing prices went up too high," said UF economist David Denslow. "And with construction down, immigrant workers have left.". . .

http://www.tampabay.com/news....447.ece

[Greg]

Here's a video of Frank at the town hall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8

[OscarGuy]

Barney Frank rocks!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/18/frank.heath.care/index.html

[OscarGuy]

Most may not share his opinion about film, but damned if he's not a solid liberal commentator.

I especially love this statement from one of his commentors about another comment (funny!):



While you're at it, look at the teeth of almost everyone in Britain.

The most ill informed comment I have read. This smacks of someone who doesn't even own a passport. What is it with this teeth thing? I live in the UK and know of nobody with bad teeth at all (except a few tramps).

I have no idea where you get this stereotype.. If it's from TV, then firstly... Just to spoil the illusion, we don't all live in castles, we're not all foppish like Hugh Grant, and (here's the kicker) we pay for dental treatment... So read up, because to 90% of the world you come across as an idiot.

On the same note, I see plenty of films depicting American's with bad teeth. In fact, if movies are to be believed, if you live anywhere considered south, you have bad teeth, a very basic grasp of the English language and probably are the product of an illicit liaison.

But I am smart enough to figure out the difference between fact and fiction.

[Big Magilla]

Thanks for sharing, Greg. Ebert's blog entry is excellent as are most of the responses.

I love his retort to one of the few idiotic responses in which he points out that the man is not quoting the Constitution as he thinks, but the Declaration of Independence.

[Greg]

Roger Ebert gives his personal perspective on health care reform:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert....ra.html



Edited By Greg on 1250611008

[OscarGuy]

After Sebelius' remark over the weekend that the public option doesn't have to exist, but that non-profits could act as the competition to the insurance industry to help drive princess down, just tells me the option isn't dead yet. The key to driving down prices is primarily competition. If there is no competition, prices will rise.

But that's beside the point, IMO. I think what will happen is that congress, the non-endangered members, will pass a form of the bill with a public option included. Obama will sign the legislation, and it will go into effect giving Obama two years to allow it to work and show what can be done before his re-election while the endangered Dems vote against so that their Republican opponents can't toss that in their faces and thus deal with the sticky issue of the election just next year. Then, hopefully, by 2011, we should see that all is good with the world and Health Care will no longer be an issue.

Of course, guilt by association may kill a couple of the Dems, but the pubes are still in disarray. They have not done anything but obstruct over the last year which may hurt them as well. But, right now, I don't see how Health Care reform WON'T come out of congress.

I also predict that shortly after it does, a number of the big insurance companies will suddenly change their plans to drive people off of them and thus create a panic in middle America over lost health care making it seem like Obama's critics were right and that he was wrong about people getting to keep their plans and doctors. It will of course be spun so that it's Obama's fault and not the greedy insurance industry, but that's what I think will happen. But when those people have access to affordable health care through the public option and it proves NOT to be much different from their previous care, much of those concerns should disappear. It may take a decade to get where it needs to be, but it will get there.

[Mister Tee]

I wouldn't take the interpretation of anyone in the mainstream media -- especially the AP, which has been carrying GOP water since Ron Fournier took it over -- for gospel. If I hear the plan has actually been dropped, I'll be disappointed. Hearing "some people tonight SEEM to be signalling it's dropped" is worse than worthless, and exactly the sort of bad reporting that's marked all coverage of this debate.

Oh, I disagree. I think the term for what's going on is "trial balloon".

The New York Times reported this much the same way in yesterday's paper. And I'd stay away from news blogs and other outlets to the left of them, because they'll probably be less than charitable in their read of what's going on.

The New York Times, and the rest of the press, also reported that: Hillary had exposed Obama's fatal weakness with white working class voters; Sarah Palin was going to single-handedly swing the election to McCain; Cash for Clunkers would be stopped by the Senate; and Sonia Sotomayor could never be confirmed before Fall. The Times in particular has a "Democrats in disarray" article-template they trot out periodically, of which this is the latest variant.

I do agree that portions of the lefty blogosphere are equally guilty -- Arianna leading the way -- because in their Nader-ite souls they want to be disappointed, as it will confirm their dim view of American society. They'd have screamed at the compromises FDR made to get Social Security through.

As I say, I wait for the final legislation before I pronounce on it. And I'm open to the possibiity ths is gambit to overcome the biggest current obstacle to a bill: getting something, anything through the Senate Finance Committee. Prima donnas like Baucus and Conrad may well need to believe something like ths before they'll let a bill get out of their committee. But, once something's out, whatever it says, it goes into the negotiation process, with other Senate committee bills plus the House bill, all of which contain the public option. We can't know until that wrangling's finished what the final bill will be.



Edited By Mister Tee on 1250519119

[Sonic Youth]

I wouldn't take the interpretation of anyone in the mainstream media -- especially the AP, which has been carrying GOP water since Ron Fournier took it over -- for gospel. If I hear the plan has actually been dropped, I'll be disappointed. Hearing "some people tonight SEEM to be signalling it's dropped" is worse than worthless, and exactly the sort of bad reporting that's marked all coverage of this debate.

Oh, I disagree. I think the term for what's going on is "trial balloon".

The New York Times reported this much the same way in yesterday's paper. And I'd stay away from news blogs and other outlets to the left of them, because they'll probably be less than charitable in their read of what's going on.

[Mister Tee]

Anyway, I know there's alot of noise out there, and some of the rhetoric is quite scary. But I think too often we forget that the election last Fall happened, that we do have a Democratic (if not dependably progressive) majority, and that our worst fears are not likely to be realized in such an environment.

This administration sure seems to have forgotten that, much like congress did two years ago. Obama is ready to concede 'public option':

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

Some 'leader'.

I wouldn't take the interpretation of anyone in the mainstream media -- especially the AP, which has been carrying GOP water since Ron Fournier took it over -- for gospel. If I hear the plan has actually been dropped, I'll be disappointed. Hearing "some people tonight SEEM to be signalling it's dropped" is worse than worthless, and exactly the sort of bad reporting that's marked all coverage of this debate.

Again, see me in the Fall when the final package is assembled. Till then, it's like predicting next year's Oscars -- all wankery at this stage.