A snow job from our Senators

Both literally and figuratively, the United States Senate (and by that I do unfortunately mean the Democrats) has been and will soon be covered in a thick blanket of snow not all that unlike the load of snow they are using to cover-up just how bad of a job they have done on the health care reform bill.

Senate Dems seek to seal health care overhaul

Here are some of the highlights, low-lights rather, of the snow job.

“I think the American people are entitled to a vote.”

This broad statement by White House adviser David Axelrod sure does sound familiar. It is exactly what former White House adviser Karl Rove declared again and again about Supreme Court judges, bans on gay marriage and much more between 2001 and 2008. Isn’t it sad that Obama already has to send people out with that line? That is bad sign number one.

The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it.

This is simply a line from the MSNBC article linked above. But there is one glaring problem. And it is a problem that has appeared over and over as I listen to Democrats tout their bill as all but heaven sent.

The problem is the idea that the bill would “extend coverage” to Americans without insurance. The idea of extended coverage is all well and good. But the idea that Congress is extending coverage to anyone but a select few is laughable. Extended coverage is not mandating that people hand over their hard earned money to private corporations that will, without a doubt, exploit any loophole that Congress conviently leaves in the bill. Extending coverage would better define the now hopeless public option or, better yet, universal health care. Anyone who swallows the idea that this bill in any true meaning extends coverage to those precious 30 million Americans deserves to pay taxes on their Cadillac plans.

The United States is the only wealthy industrialized nation that does not have universal coverage. Health insurance in the U.S. is provided primarily by employers, but the ranks of the uninsured have been growing due to job losses in the recent recession.

How is this acceptable to anyone? How?

……………………

I realize that compromise is a key factor of democracy. I wouldn’t want to live in a country that wasn’t based on the idea of compromise as an option.

But Barack Obama spent two years making promises about health care reform and very, very few of those promises are in that bill. Was he naive enough to think that he would actually be able to come through on everything he promised. Did he have the audacity to think that he was important enough, inspiring enough, to lead a wide majority of 535 very different members of Congress toward a single goal? Or was it like Russ Feingold said (the quote is in the previous post) and did Obama get the bill he originally wanted?

It could be any of the three. But it is probably a combination of all three. The point is that the American people, myself included, have been misled and will be done a great disservice if cloture is agreed to on this bill as it stands. We must hold out hope that, unlike the 24 hour cable news channels report, Ben Nelson is not the last holdout. It falls to Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, Roland Burris and people like them to stop a bad bill from becoming reality.

And I sincerely hope that they do.

A Moment of Clarity

In this gargantuan mess that has become the “health care” (and I use that term very loosely indeed) reform debate, Russ Feingold has finally given us all a moment of clarity.

“This bill appears to be legislation that the president wanted in the first place, so I don’t think focusing it on Lieberman really hits the truth,” said Feingold. “I think they [the standards] could have been higher. I certainly think a stronger bill would have been better in every respect.”

Thank you, Senator Feingold. You have quitely clearly stated what many progessives have been trying, and often failing, to say for months.

I knew, during the 2008 campaign, that there was something too good to be true about Barack Obama’s pledges, vows, and promises. Perhaps presidential campaigns drag on far too long. It becomes easy to forget what original raised red flags about a candidate when they have two years to tailor their every word to what a particular person wants to hear at a particular moment. I think that happened in this case.

I don’t have the videos and I don’t have the precise quotes, so feel free to disbelieve me, but during the primaries Barack Obama sounded a lot more like present day Barack Obama than post Democratic Convention Barack Obama.

I voted for him, don’t let me mislead you. I did it because I feel it is my duty as a citizen to vote and I was most certainly not going to vote for McCain/Palin. Such, apparently, is the price of the lesser of two evils.

Eleven months of a brand new president, so full of promises and pledges only twelve months ago, doing little more than handing taxpayer money over to every industry that he could think of and escalating a needless war, all the while insisting that health care reform is essentially a life-and-death fact.

And now? Health insurance companies have come for their due, I mean “reform.” Instead of having the government hand over the money, the government has opted for the slightly sneakier method of forcing, on pain of fines and possibly jail, each and every American to actually take the money out of their pockets and hand it over to the private companies. What’s American about that? Nothing.

But that’s what Obama wanted all along. A lot of people just got taken for a very costly ride. And that isn’t right.

Healthcare reform apparently depends on all but banning abortion

One might think one would be happy about the House being on the verge, literally, of passing their healthcare reform bill. And I had dearly hoped that I would be. In some small ways, I suppose I am. In others, I am outraged.

Mere hours before passing the bill (which as of 8:43 p.m. is not yet passed) an amendment authored by Bart Stupak, and co-sponsored by my congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper, was put to a vote to gain an additional 40 votes from Democrats. No need to worry about Republicans, they’ve already vowed to vote against the final bill.

Stupak’s bill “explicitly bans federal funding of abortions through the new exchanges created by the law“. Translated that is that any woman who has to get insurance through any type of public option or exchange cannot use their health insurance for abortions.

Yes, of course there are allowances for rape, incest and the mother’s health. They aren’t fanatical pro-lifers. They are simply pathetically desperate to pass something called “healthcare reform” with apparently little thought for what must be brought in and what must fall by the wayside.

I have a many problems with Stupak’s amendment, the means by which it was brought about, and the reason it was brought about. Two are worth mentioning.

First, six lobbyists for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops were actually in Nancy Pelosi’s office as a deal was negotiated. Given Obama’s disavowals of all things lobby related, something is simply not right with that picture.

Second, I already see too much covering of bases on the issue. Case in point are the statements by Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).

Ellison: “I don’t believe this language will really change the status quo. Overall we are passing historic, progressive legislation that will provide important advances in women’s health care, the care of newborns and children.”

Castor: “It’s unfortunate…But in the end, when the president signs the bill, it will not be as Draconian.”

Both statements are apparently upsetting to Republicans who apparently hoped that the abortion issue would defeat the bill in the Democratic Party. Republicans even doubt, probably rightly so, that the amendment will remain in that form in the final bill.

None of that is really important. What is important is the fact that the end sometimes does not justify the means. Slippery slopes are ever present and giving the federal government that much control over abortion can lead to a scarce few outcomes, none of which bode well from women’s rights and the right to choose.

Yes, healthcare reform is important. But so was national security and the number of Democrats agreeing with Bush and the Republican controlled Congress that warrantless wiretapping was thusly warranted, for lack of a better word, were few and far between. The issue has changed but the basic logic has not. A thousand bits of bad do not good make.

Depp and Jolie in a movie (maybe), that’ll bring in some box office numbers.

National Ledger – Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in The Tourist?

While everyone in the movie business, particularly associated with The Tourist, is likely crossing fingers and toes that this pans out, I’m not so sure I agree.

I know, I’m probably in the minority but I just don’t like Angelina Jolie as an actress. She’s boring. I’ve seen Beyond Borders, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and Changeling. I know that’s only three of her many movies, but why would I watch more if I find her boring?

What’s interesting is this. In all three movies, I absolutely loved her male co-stars, or two of them. Beyond Borders was one of the best Clive Owen films I’ve seen. Brad Pitt didn’t bother me nearly as much as usual. And even the villain of Changeling, Jeffrey Donovan, was a saving grace.

Which all bodes well, of course, if Johnny Depp does happen to be in The Tourist. The plot sounds interesting and I watch nearly, yes nearly, everything that Depp does.

So, all in all, I am intrigued and interested though not necessarily excited by the prospects.

Is it bad to vote when…

you aren’t sure who a quarter of the people on the ballot are and you couldn’t name actual accomplishments of a third or so of said people?

I prefer to think that it is not. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that the question describes me precisely. And, to be fair to myself, it isn’t like I was voting for President, Governor, Senator or even Congressman. I was voting for mayor of my miniscule borough, a bunch of other borough related things, and state judges. Not that those aren’t important. They are just horribly hard to follow.

First and foremost, am I the only one who thinks that having the populace vote for judges is a half-brained idea? Is there anyone who follows what the Commonwealth Court of Appeals does closely enough to know if and precisely why Judge So-And-So should be given another term? Somehow I imagine the number of people that fall into the category is a bit on the small side. The US Supreme Court, maybe.

And as to my borough, it was a sad day for me. I voted for two Republicans for the first time in my nine years of voting. Why, you ask? Because the Democrat mayor who has been mayor for at least 12 years has done jack squat, save for routing the Neighborhood Watch money to himself. Of course, I don’t think he gets paid for being mayor but then again I also don’t think he has any real duties.

And the other Republican I voted for? Tax collector. I know, not a good thing to pick a Republican for but the Democratic candidate was the Democratic mayor’s wife. It just didn’t sound like a good idea.

Anyway, I did my civic duty for better or worse.

Best New Show? FlashForward

I know that I blogged a few weeks ago that The Good Wife was the must watch new drama of 2009, but that was before I watched just the first two episodes of FlashForward. That’s right, I am making this statement having watched only two episodes. It is that good. So far, anyway. Knowing my luck with ABC dramas, it will continue to be good right up until ABC cancels it on me, as they always do. But I digress.

Why have I only started watching? Because it didn’t seem like my type of show, to be honest. And then I read that Joseph Fiennes and Jack Davenport were in it. As I’ve got a thing for sexy British actors and I had a hour to spare, I decided to give it a try.

Halfway through the pilot, I had yet to be convinced. But, by the last minutes when a very important connection was made, I was hooked.

The concept is, for once, original and almost immediately interesting. What is there that isn’t thought provoking about seeing yourself six months in the future? What if you saw that your dream had come true? The surprise would be spoiled. But what if you saw that your world had fallen apart? Why would you want to know? And then, like Noh, what if you saw nothing at all?

No, thank you, I do not want to know my future. But I do want to watch more of FlashForward. Though I am concerned. The show could get much too weird for my taste, as Lost did. I hope it doesn’t. Of course, I can’t possibly even try to predict where this show is going. So perhaps I will just quit worrying and enjoy the ride.

In figure skating news, Plushenko wants to defend his ‘06 Olympic gold

Plushenko’s back and there’s gonna be trouble

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Wow! I totally didn’t see that coming. Granted, I haven’t watched all that much figure skating since the 2006 Olympics, all my favorites having basically departed in droves, but I thought I was keeping up on things. Apparently not.

I was never a big fan of Evgeny Plushenko, truth be told. I much prefered Alexei Yagudin when the two of them battled for the best in Russia and the world around the 2002 Olympics. When Yagudin quit, Plushenko didn’t do much of anything for me. Plushenko always seemed to wave his arms around wildly before launching into admittedly impressive quad-triple combinations. Not at all like Yagudin’s artistry and precision.

But the Torino judges didn’t agree with me. Or else everyone else in the competition did worse. Yeah, I think that was it. I remember being very disappointed in Evan Lysacek and even Johnny Weir. Hopefully Lysacek will be more centered this time around because I really would much prefer that he win.

Sasha Cohen is also apparently making a return to try to win for the first time. Which is fine. I’m sort of ambivalent about her.

Strange, isn’t it? I followed skating enough to know that both Alexei Yagudin and Michelle Kwan were seriously considering returns for the upcoming Olympics but opted not to while I totally missed Plushenko and Cohen returning. Personally, I’d have much preferred to see Yagudin and Kwan again. But I am, nonetheless, quite excited by the Olympics.

I better start watching the skating cups so I at least know who is who!

In case you’ve noticed a distinct lack of posts…

Never fear. The problem is simple.

I have absolutely nothing that I want to write about at the moment.

I need inspiration.

As soon as I get some, we will be off and rolling.

Aren’t you glad you live in a city?

If you live in a city, of course.

New Scientist has an interesting gallery of 11 maps about just what size our world figuratively is. These are things that perhaps we too often take for granted. Check it out.

Gallery – Where's the remotest place on Earth? – Image 1 – New Scientist.

I smell a Hulu boycott

Hulu, which I discovered last spring when I needed a place to watch House and promptly fell in love with, may start charging users. So says one Chase Carey, the deputy chairman of News Corp. (who owns Hulu). I must say that I might not have been so into Hulu if I had known it was a Rupert Murdoch organization. Then again that is both beside the point and redundant as they don’t charge. Yet.

Mr. Carey told a media summit of some sort that, “I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value…Hulu concurs with (the notion) that it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”

Now I have a question. Isn’t part of Hulu’s pull that its value costs nothing but a few minutes of slightly irritating ad watching per show? Isn’t that what people appreciate about Hulu? Its what I appreciate about Hulu.

I get that the almighty dollar drives everything. So when Mr. Carey says that he “concurs…that it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model” he is carefully trying to avoid telling the truth. And that truth is that Hulu isn’t making enough money for the News Corp. (and NBC Universal) from ads alone and they must, therefore, start charging the people who will undoubtedly be thrilled to hand over a few dollars (that could have been spent on gas or a healthier dinner) to watch yesterday’s episode of Bones.

Did you catch my sarcasm?

Don’t Mr. Carey and company realize just how many other places people can go to get their television shows for free? And I’m not even just talking about the pirate sites. I mean Fancast, the fact that virtually every channel offers full episodes for free, and not to mention Tivo, OnDemand, and DVR.

With all of those options, why would someone pay for Hulu?

Entertainment Weekly asked just such a question. The comments are quite telling.