;)
The Commentariat -- Nov. 19, 2013
... CW P.S.: Don't blame me for David Gregory, Marco Rubio, et al.
... You can share your own rendition of President Lincoln's address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Today is the 150th anniversary of the address. ...
... Update: Akhilleus is right. Charles Laughton gets the inflections just right:
Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Senate Republicans on Monday denied President Obama his third nominee in recent weeks to the nation's most powerful and prestigious appeals court and insisted they would not back down, inflaming a bitter debate over a president's right to shape the judiciary.... Republicans have raised few objections to any of the candidates' qualifications or political leanings. Rather, Republicans are trying to prevent Mr. Obama from filling any slots on the court, fearing that he will alter its conservative tilt. Democrats accused Republicans of exercising a nakedly political double standard for confirming presidential nominees.... Judge [Robert] Wilkins became the fourth of Mr. Obama's choices for the powerful court blocked by Republicans this year." ...
I am deeply disappointed that Senate Republicans have once again refused to do their job and give well-qualified nominees to the federal bench the yes-or-no votes they deserve. The D.C. Circuit, considered the Nation's second-highest court, has three vacancies. These are judgeships created by Congress. Chief Justice John Roberts and the Judicial Conference of the United States believe that these vacancies should be filled, not removed. And my constitutional duty as President is to nominate highly qualified individuals to fill these vacancies. -- President Obama, in a statement
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "White House officials said Monday that the administration was considering allowing people to sign up for health care coverage directly with insurance companies as a way to work around the struggling HealthCare.gov website." ...
... Sharon LaFraniere & Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "The pace of enrollment in health plans through the troubled federal insurance marketplace has nearly doubled since the end of October as software engineers have resolved some 200 of the more than 600 initial defects that had rendered the site all but unusable, according to people familiar with the repair effort. As of mid-November, the number of enrollees, which the Obama administration defines as people who have selected a marketplace plan, was more than 50,000 -- up from 27,000 in the entire month of October, but still a fraction of the number the administration once hoped for. Despite the progress, specialists are worried about whether they can meet the administration's goal of enabling four in five users to enroll through the online federal exchange, HealthCare.gov, by the end of the month." ...
... Noam Levy of the Los Angeles Times: "Despite the disastrous rollout of the federal government's healthcare website, enrollment is surging in many states as tens of thousands of consumers sign up for insurance plans made available by President Obama's health law. A number of states that use their own systems, including California, are on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November, according to state officials." ...
... Jamelle Bouie in the Daily Beast: "... what's frustrating about the current conversation over Obamacare is the extent to which there's been collective amnesia regarding the GOP's categorical opposition to the law. Pundits who see the problems with Healthcare.gov as an indictment of 'big government liberalism' ... neglect to grapple with the concrete consequences of the GOP's monomaniacal crusade against the Affordable Care Act.... In this alternate world where conservatives care about governing, Obamacare has its issues, but -- with working state exchanges and a full Medicaid expansion -- it's more stable and popular than it is now." ...
... Juliet Eilperin & Sandhya Somashekhar of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration brought in a private consulting team to independently assess how the federal online health-care enrollment system was developing, according to a newly disclosed document, and in late March received a clear warning that its Oct. 1 launch was fraught with risks. The analysis by McKinsey & Co. foreshadowed many of the problems that have dogged HealthCare.gov since its rollout, including the fact that the call-in centers would not work properly if the online system was malfunctioning and that insufficient testing would make it difficult to fix problems after the launch. The report was provided to The Washington Post by the House Energy and Commerce Committee." ...
Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic on six things the media don't get about the ACA: "... lots of people losing coverage are losing policies they never liked much, that they would have dropped soon anyway, and that would have left them facing potential financial ruin if they got sick. Even those with truly good policies had no guarantees that in one year, let alone two or three, they'd still be able to pay for them." CW: Most of this is review material for Reality Chex readers, but Cohn provides some charts that quantify his assertions. ...
... ** Jonathan Chait of New York: "The most common fallacy of journalism, and one of the most common fallacies of the human brain in general, is the assumption that whatever is happening at the moment will continue to happen forever." Read the whole post. ...
... Paul Waldman of the American Prospect: "You think some news stories about people in the individual market having to pay more for a new insurance plan tug at lawmakers' heartstrings? Wait until you see the stories about the 5-year-old girl with leukemia who'll get kicked off her coverage if Republicans in Congress have their way. Right now we're talking about a few people who are supposedly the 'losers' in the ACA, but the most they've lost is some money they'll have to pay for a more comprehensive plan. If you repeal the law, the country would be overflowing with people whose losses are genuinely catastrophic." ...
... AND today's Munch Award goes to Todd Purdum of Vanity Fair, writing in Politico: "... the fiasco of the launch of Obama's sweeping health care overhaul has put the reputation of Big Government progressivism at risk for at least this generation. And its future now rests on the president's ability to reverse that debacle and to demonstrate that his approach to covering millions of uninsured Americans is not only an enlightened -- but workable -- policy."
Adam Liptak & Jeremy Peters of the New York Times: "Congressional critics of the National Security Agency program that collects the telephone records of millions of Americans stepped up their efforts as the Supreme Court on Monday turned away an unusual challenge to the scope of the surveillance."
Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post: "Education Secretary Arne Duncan tried Monday to quell the outrage sparked by his recent comments that injected race and class into the debate about the new Common Core academic standards taking root in classrooms across the country. Duncan said Friday that he was fascinated by the fact that some opposition to the standards was coming from 'white suburban moms' who fear that 'their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were.' [CW: Also, ungrammatical.] The comment lit up social media sites, prompting pointed responses from bloggers, an open letter from a school superintendent, digital images of Duncan's official federal portrait with the word 'bigot' emblazoned across it and one congressman's* call for Duncan's firing. Duncan, whose office declined interview requests Monday, posted a statement late in the day on his agency's Web site."
* The congressman calling for Duncan's firing is Steve Stockman (RTP-Texas). Stockman is "the nuttiest freshman in Congress." He has repeated threatened to file articles of impeachment against President Obama & has called for special prosecutors to investigate Obama for whatever. So, big whup.
Via the Cleveland Plain Dealer.... Olivera Perkins of the Plain Dealer: "This isn't a merchandise display. It's a food drive - not for the community, but for needy workers [in a Canton, Ohio, WalMart].... While Walmart officials and many employees see the food drive bins as a symbol of generosity, others see it differently. 'That captures Walmart right there,' said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University's labor school. 'Walmart is setting up bins because its employees don't make enough to feed themselves and their families.'" ...
... "The Walton Family is by far the richest family in the world." CW: I hope some of you got a chance to read Edward McClelland's piece on Washingtonomics v. Lincolnomics, linked in yesterday's Commentariat. The article discusses Sam Walton's Washingtonian business model, which is sickening. ...
... "What WalMart Can Learn from Henry Ford." Robert Reich, in Salon: "Walmart just reported shrinking sales for a third straight quarter.... What Walmart's CEO doesn’t get is that a large portion of Walmart's customers are lower-wage workers who are working at places like ... Walmart. And Walmart, not incidentally, refuses to raise its median wage (including its army of part-timers) of $8.80 an hour.... If Walmart were to boost its wages, other employers of low-wage workers would have to follow suit in order to attract the employees they need.... Walmart is so huge that a wage boost at Walmart would ripple through the entire economy, putting more money in the pockets of low-wage workers. This would help boost the entire economy -- including Walmart's own sales. (This is also an argument for a substantial hike in the minimum wage.)" ...
... Josh Eidelson of Salon makes the case that Boeing's impending exit from Seattle is the work of the Tea Party. CW: I don't disagree with any of Eidelson's analysis, but here again you can blame Washingtonomics.
Expand Social Security!
Lori Montgomery, reliable GOP ally at the Washington Post, has a long feature on anti-poverty crusader Paul Ryan: "Since February, Ryan (R-Wis.) has been quietly visiting inner-city neighborhoods with another old [Jack] Kemp ally, Bob Woodson, the 76-year-old civil rights activist and anti-poverty crusader, to talk to ex-convicts and recovering addicts about the means of their salvation. Ryan's staff, meanwhile, has been trolling center-right think tanks and intellectuals for ideas to replace the 'bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs' that Ryan blames for 'wrecking families and communities' since Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964. Next year, for the 50th anniversary of that crusade, Ryan hopes to roll out an anti-poverty plan to rival his budgetary Roadmap for America's Future in scope and ambition.... His idea of a war on poverty so far relies heavily on promoting volunteerism and encouraging work through existing federal programs, including the tax code. That's a skewed version of Kempism, which recognizes that 'millions of Americans look to government as a lifeline,' said Bruce Bartlett, a historian who worked for Kemp and has become an acerbic critic of the modern GOP."
Robed Barbarians. New York Times Editors: "In nearly all of the 32 states that permit capital punishment, a jury makes the final decision on whether a defendant will live or die. Not so in Alabama, where elected judges may override a jury verdict of life in prison and unilaterally impose a death sentence. Since 1982, Alabama judges have overridden 95 such verdicts, sentencing defendants to death even though the jury voted for life -- many times by a vote of 12 to 0.... On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to this law, which appears to violate a 2002 ruling that capital defendants 'are entitled to a jury determination of any fact' necessary to sentence them to death. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 12-page opinion, joined partly by Justice Stephen Breyer, dissenting from the court's decision not to hear the current case.... The death penalty should have no legitimate mooring at all in modern American society, and it certainly should not be imposed by a judge who is worried about keeping his job."
Andrew Tangel of the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. Department of Justice and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are close to finalizing an agreement over a $13-billion settlement stemming from faulty mortgage investments that fueled the financial crisis of 2008, a person close to the negotiations said late Monday. The final deal, which has been in the works for weeks, could be announced as soon as Tuesday...."
Kim Barker of ProPublica: "The dark money giant Crossroads GPS, launched by Republican strategist Karl Rove, told the IRS it raised almost $180 million in 2012, including one donation of $22.5 million, another of $18 million and another of $10 million. Fifty donations were for $1 million or more. Because the group is a social welfare nonprofit, none of the donors have to be made public.... 'There is no way in the world that $20 million-plus contributions, $10 million-plus contributions, that are funding campaign ads should be kept secret from the American people,' said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21...." CW: Even Justice Scalia would agree with Wertheimer on that. Thanks to contributor Diane for the link.
AP: "Google is paying $17 million to 37 states and the District of Columbia to make amends for the Internet search leader's snooping on millions of people using Safari Web browsers in 2011 and 2012. The settlement announced Monday stems from a technological loophole that enabled Google's DoubleClick advertising network to shadow unwitting Safari users, even though the browser's maker, Apple Inc., prohibited the tracking without obtaining a person's permission."
Senate Race
Frank Bruni: "If Liz Cheney, whose bid for the Senate has always had a stench of extreme opportunism, wants to discuss traditions and values, I'm all for it. Let's start here: Isn't there a tradition of close-knit family members' taking care not to wound one another? Is there not value in that?" ...
... Gene Robinson: "... the tension between the Cheney sisters reflects the larger struggle within the Republican Party to keep pace with a changing America." ...
... Ditto. Matea Gold & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Former vice president Richard B. Cheney and his wife, Lynne, on Monday jumped into a bitter public clash between their two daughters over gay marriage, an anguished personal fight that reflects a broader debate within the Republican Party over allowing same-sex couples to marry." ...
... Charles Pierce: "I could care less if Liz and Mary fight over the human-blood punch at Thanksgiving this year. What I care about is the fact that Liz Cheney has all of her father's geopolitical bloodlust and none of his obvious charm, and that she belongs in the United States Senate as much as does a gaboon viper. What makes me happy is that the Republican voters of Wyoming appear to have caught on to the cut-rate Borgia family act that Liz is trying to pull out there, and she is apparently being ratfked by the opposition. Republicans are eating their own! In this particular instance, I'm sending the barbecue sauce." Thanks to Diane for the link.
Local News
Rene Stutzman of the Orlando Sentinel: Conservative & gun-rights hero "George Zimmerman was arrested Monday after he cocked and pointed a shotgun at his girlfriend, shattered a glass-top table then pushed her out of the house and barricaded himself inside after she ordered him to move out, according to the Seminole County Sheriff's Office. He surrendered peacefully a few minutes later and was hauled off to jail, where he was being held without bail on domestic violence and aggravated assault charges.... In addition to the aggravated assault with a weapon, a felony, he's accused of domestic violence battery and criminal mischief -- for breaking the table and damaging other property belonging to Scheibe." Includes audio of Zimmerman's 911 call. Amusing. ...
... Update: "After spending the night in the Seminole County Jail, accused of pointing a shotgun at his girlfriend, George Zimmerman is due in court this afternoon." Includes audio of (former) girlfriend Samantha Scheibe's 911 call.
Canadian News
News Ledes
New York Times: "Afghan officials said Tuesday that President Hamid Karzai would clear the way for a long-term security pact with the United States after receiving assurances that President Obama would issue a contrite letter acknowledging American military mistakes in Afghanistan and vowing not to repeat them."
New York Times: "Unable to find a country willing to dispose of Syria's chemical weapons, the United States is considering plans to place the chemical components of the weapons on an barge where they would be dissolved or incinerated, according to senior American officials."
Washington Post: "The day before he stabbed his father at the family's home, the son of Virginia state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds (D) underwent a psychiatric evaluation but was not admitted to a hospital because no bed was available. Deeds was listed in fair condition late Tuesday after his son, Austin, stabbed him in the face and chest, then shot himself in what investigators described as an apparent attempted murder and suicide. The incident thrust the senator back into the spotlight after several years of quiet. Deeds vaulted to the statewide political stage in 2009 as the Democratic nominee for governor, only to lose to Republican Robert F. McDonnell (R)."
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Reader Comments (18)
Okey dokey! Gotta question here. Who of you evah thought that Obama's ACA would be a great progressive health plan? Seems to me that he was kow-towing to the insurance giants--just as he did to the banksters. And was convinced that this was the best he could get through our fuckin' crazy-ass Congriss!~ If, indeed, he actually believes in Universal Health Care, which is quite a bit too progressive for either Obama or the Clintons. Maybe Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Sheldon Whitehouse or Alan Grayson.
But, as we all know, Scott Brown--the WisconSIN guvinator believes only a govinor should run for Prezident. Actually, I would love to see him run against any of the possible Dem nominees, 'cuz I do not think at this point that even the WisCONsin crazies would vote for him. He is so beyond being labeled as a certified NUT CASE!
@Kate An easy error! Scott BROWN, Scott WALKER, Rick SCOTT...they all seem to blend into one fill-in-the-blank descriptive that applies to all. But, obviously, you meant WALKER as in the googly-eyed homogolous [sic] (per Charlie Pierce) in this case.
Scott Brown is still somewhere in transit between Massachusetts and New Hampshire where he plans to kick off his Presidential-er-NH-State-Senator-or-Portsmouth-Animal-Control-Officer campaign.
The ghost of FDR looms large before the ship of universal healthcare. It's fearsome presence (as many of our daddys can attest) is augmented by a powerful PR machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
The machine, descended in part from such as John Birchers, will put a public hit on any move toward "big Government," (unless they are the party in power, in which case they will give away the store and transfer a mortgage obligation to the opposition). The sons of the Confederacy still want to burn the capitol, so don't expect restraint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman's_March_to_the_Sea
Every piece of legislation is a token in this drama. This is a jackpot chip. See "gambling."
So, no, the ACA is not "progressive." At best, it is destabilizing of the status quo, and can force a 2nd stage move toward single payer. At worst, it will become another form of conscription, feeding into a mammoth corporate cabal, presented to the public by an avatar named US Government (TM).
The missing ingredient is a giant BS filter to aid a terrified public in finding their motivation, a working opposition network, and a few champions to inspire them.
http://act.boldprogressives.org/survey/survey_warren_1year/?akid=16320.958073.RGoqSY&rd=1&source=e3-TY-3mo-v2-fight&t=1
Point (example):
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/19902-health-care-in-the-us-as-seen-from-down-under
Counterpoint (example):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/pascalemmanuelgobry/2013/09/30/why-the-republicans-are-right-to-shut-down-the-government-over-obamacare/
Color, courtesy of the research dept:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qpLVTbVHnU
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_(1971)_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973
It's way past time for Harry Reid to go nuclear. There is absolutely no excuse for the Repubs' behavior, unless you count they haven't gotten over the fact that they lost the 2012 election. That's a reason, not an excuse. The DC court needs those judges, and Harry should make it happen.
It's long past time for the death penalty to go away. It's handed down capriciously by corrupt judges who would rather kill someone than appear weak, and by corrupt prosecutors who would rather kill someone than ruin their chances for career advancement.
One thing we can say with a high degree of certainty: Because of the way we hand out death sentences we have executed some innocent people, and as long as we continue to hand them out we will continue to execute the innocent. This stands the whole notion of justice on its head.
Instead of saying we would rather ten guilty people go free than jail a single innocent, we are saying we would rather execute the guilty (but only some of the guilty, mind you) than let an innocent person go on living, even behind bars.
If the experts are to be believed, and psychopathy is "characterized by enduring dis-social or antisocial behavior, a diminished capacity for empathy or remorse, and poor behavioral controls or fearless dominance" then capital punishment, especially as it's administered here in the United States, represents institutionalized psychopathy and needs to be stopped immediately. Unfortunately, the people we need to put an end to this psychopathic behavior are the very people who exhibit it.
The McCelland piece from yesterday's commendariat is definitely worth reading. The Gini ratio alone makes for interesting speculation especially if you look up the listing of all the countries.
I found the comparison of Walton and Ford to Washington and Lincoln intriguing but also humorous in the fact that Walton was always portrayed as the kind old gentleman who just wanted, dag dammit, to give the little people lots of cheap stuff and Ford was portrayed as a prickly pear, bigoted, selfish yet brilliant in how he managed a car company that he started from scratch. I don't know that much about Walton, but I do know quite a bit about Ford who treated his workers like family, but a family that he wanted to control. When he was ready for death's door and was asked whether the Ford Motor Co. would ever have a public stock offering, he quipped, "I'll take my factory down brick by brick before I'll ever let any of those Jew speculators get stock in the company."
The fallacy of believing the reality of the moment will last forever, that Chait describes is certainly applicable to the ACA. However, I'm with Barbarossa on the denial of Obama's judicial appointments. As we have seen repeatedly and painfully, judicial appointments live on and on and on. I'm hopeful that the latest reporting maintaining there isn't enough Senate votes to institute majority voting on judicial appointments is propaganda.
Blocking judicial appointments and laws undermining voting rights will result in far greater and longer term harm than any other issues that currently have our attention.
Rob Ford. The SNL skit writes itself.
On the lighter side. Side splitting Pierce piece on the Cheneys this am.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/cheney-sisters-fighting-111913
Yes, Duncan flunked the grammar test and he may be wrong about the ultimate value of the so-called Common (are they really?) Core standards movement, but he did stumble into some of the issues American educators are understandably often hesitant to mention: class, race, by implication, poverty, and by further implication, our readiness to accept any imposed standards and have our children, and thereby ourselves, be judged by them. No wonder he got into trouble.
What Duncan does not mention is that in order to be effective, whatever standards schools adopt and however student progress toward them is assessed, to be effective the entire school community, from parents to teachers to the students themselves, have to buy into them. The standards themselves have to become common core values, and getting American communities to that desired place, within states let alone across them, has proved to be difficult, in fact so far impossible.
Much to be said here (says the old teacher who can't help himself), but this AM, I'll limit myself to one more thing: We're not pigeons and we don't live in Skinner boxes, but achieving an education takes work, and motivation requires that work have some kind of discernible reward. I'd suggest that for many communities, the rewards some have traditionally associated with education are noticeable mostly by their absence. We have come to pooh-pooh the intrinsic values of learning, the belief that we're better people for having some skills and knowing something. We certainly do not value educating for citizenship. In many ways our politics discourage active citizenship. We don't want activism; we want compliance.
Instead of these values, the culture suggests, heck shouts, that education's only value is monetary. We tie education's value to a potential "high-paying job," but especially in the era of Krugman's permanent slump, even for students from the middle economic rung, those jobs just aren't there, that promise too obviously empty. Who can blame students who would rather be doing something fun (as defined by their peers) for not being convinced?
But at least (and old line uttered by a tired teacher) schools still manage to keep most kids off the streets, regardless of where they live.
My favorite reading of the Gettysburg Address, performed nearly fourscore years ago by the British actor Charles Laughton as the eponymous lead in Ruggles of Red Gap. Laughton plays a gentleman's gentleman who has been sold as payment in a poker game to a rough hewn American from way out west. As he learns about America he comes to understand and appreciate the concepts of liberty and independence.
And unlike too many momentous and ponderous readings as if Clio herself were offering stage directions, Laughton's quiet understatement seems more in line, in my imagination, with the original delivery.
What'd Lincoln say at Gettysburg?
Getting soaked in Norquist's tub is no fun without the bubbles. And kids of all ages still clamor for them every time.
http://prospect.org/article/krugman-boots-one
And for those who play with thoughts of torture, a gentle reminder of
it's dark and storied genius. First up, the tub.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpJg4_gbmCM
Know your enemy, lest your enemy come to dig beneath your foundation. Death penalty=institutional corruption. Forced education=an affront to essential human dignity. The freedom to associate=essential to human well being.
@Mag-
Thanks for the correction. Yes indeed, I did mean Scott Walker--who is the guvernator of Wisconsin--and who believes HE should head the Kool Aid ticket for Prezident. I get so confused with these Scott characters, they are all goggly-eyed homologous--or whatever.
And now reading that George Zimmerman has been arrested (again) for domestic abuse--pointing a gun at his pregnant girlfriend's head, I think I will give it up and go into winter hibernation. I can't stand one more picture of his Neanderthal thug-mug shot.
Glad I am still conscious though, since otherwise would have missed the Cheney drama. Go, go Heather Poe! Step on Lizzie's little toe! And push her down to sore de-feet. (Sorry--couldn't help meself!)
The Gettysburg Address and Obama's latest scandal (spoiler alert: not going to Gettysburg for the shindig).
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/19/1256769/-Gettysburg-Address-outrage-provides-handy-checklist-of-stupidest-people-in-America?showAll=yes
First, a belated apology to all who were offended or in any way put off by my torture rant last week. It was unseemly and highly inappropriate and those who expressed as much were right to do so.
But in no way was I being playful or cavalier. That rant was born of the outrage I feel every day towards the haves who inflict their own brand of torture on the have nots, who would blithely deny them proper education, affordable housing, jobs, a living wage, healthcare, and the right to participate in the democratic process. I burn for justice for these people. My heart aches for a reckoning, a balancing of the ledger. The pain willfully imposed by the hypocrites and frauds who have made themselves rich and powerful on the backs of other human beings is beyond the pale and cries out for equalization. These appalling excuses for human beings--most of whom make the worst Dickens villains seem like candy-stripers--who claim for themselves control and wealth while strapping on the iron boots of oppression and walking on the faces of those not as lucky, as rich, as connected, as white, set a new standard for torture. The kind that endures for decades, lifetimes, generations. Who are these people that they should escape punishment for their crimes against humanity? Who are they that they should wrap themselves in the banners of false patriotim, religion and "free market" subterfuge in order to demean, deny and debilitate others?
No. There was no playfulness in my outburst, but there was also not much clear thinking either.
I realize that the idea of true justice is abstract and a hope for it is Quixotic at best but one can still hope. So this is an explanation, not an excuse. I think the best of us have moments of unguarded rage when our best intentions are obscured by darker passions. It's possible that even Mother Teresa, every decade or so, prayed for a well aimed lightning bolt from on high to fricassee some fat-cats blackholing her Calcutta. Okay, maybe not. But most of the rest of us are not so pure of heart. Certainly not me. But the suggestion that we best beware that we not become the thing we hate was well put.
Every now and then we all stray from the path of righteousness. I'm lucky to have fellow travelers to pull me back from the brink.
And I need no reminders of the slippery slope posed by torture. Anyone who has read my previous posts on that subject can so attest.
But I'm grateful for reminders that that is the case. Apologies and thanks to all.
TickKate,
With luck, if right-wing world has not outlawed it for the infidels (those who believe that laws trump the desires of the gun lobby, at least where the NRA doesn't write the laws), the killer (see? I didn't call him a murderer; I'm behaving myself) Zimmerman will be taken off the streets before he shoots another unarmed innocent who is trying to "attack" him.
The NRA's poster boy for responsible gun ownership is his own version of Russian Roulette. But unlike the version referred to by Barbarossa, his clip is nearly full, with one in the chamber (because ol' Georgie strikes me as a "one in the chamber" kinda guy, doncha think?) except the muzzle is pointed at someone else's head, not Zimmerman's clouded noggin.
Tick, tick, tick...
In Lincoln's day "the people" meant white males, although the address implied black males, too "a new birth of freedom." Nowadays, "the people" includes all races and genders, but there are Neo-Confederates out there trying to turn back the clock. We may not win against the forces of evil, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do our best to be "...dedicated here to the unfinished work..." Someday, maybe "...government of the people, by the people, for the people..." will be just that, and not big money and corporations.
I've finally stopped fuming about Chris Wallace's comparing Obama's rollout of ACA to Bushie's handling of Hurricane Katrina, thanks to Jon Stewart last night. He also "helped me out" in my continuing desire to sucker slap Fluffy Gregory on Sunday for comparing the rollout to Bush and the Iraq War.
Can't say I would not like to have George Zimmerman meet these ignorant trolls in a dark alley (while they are wearing hoodies and chatting on their cellphones), 'cuz that would be a "three-fer!"
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/stewart-skewers-media-comparing-obamacare
For some, all you might ask for, and it's a given:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/06/america-elite-schools-leadership-prep.html
For everyone else, something along the spectrum:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200909/seven-sins-our-system-forced-education
Self-directed learning, in a safe, supportive, flexible environment is essential to early development. Find it where you can, begin where you are. See where it takes you.
The kool-aid packs a nasty hangover, but you can get through it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid