Palin backs Obama’s StimPak despite howls from Limbaugh and GOP Congress Critters united opposition.

I think this almost assures passage of the Stimulus Package despite filibuster threats and makes for interesting theater as Sarah and Rush vie for the hearts and minds of the Republican Party. New RNC Chair, Steele, already praised the House GOP for uniting against fixing the economy. I see a junior varsity version of Hillary vs. Barack when Palin and Steele inevitably lock horns. Good times.

By the way, Oliver, Pam … lighten up.

With filibusters off the table, universal health care should be doable once Gregg accepts appointment to Commerce (and they finally swear in Franken), which will leave the Rump Republicans without their greatest obstruction tool. 60 votes by Spring!  (Surely Gregg will vote against filibustering his own nomination.)

Oh yeah, Tom Daschle’s bid for HHS is running into a snag due to tax problems. I know a lot of folks on the left are ready to hang Daschle out to dry, sick of millionaires not paying their fair share, but I’m a bit dumbfounded how one could be crucifying for not paying taxes on something you received for free. Free is free.

Yes, I guess the argument goes that he should have included the free use of a driver as personal income, but it’s not like anyone sent him a 1099 form, did they. Someone paid this driver’s salary, presumably paid his withholding and FICA, and paid for the car itself and probably wrote the thing off as a business expense or charitable gift or … what? Wait, no? Wasn’t a campaign contribution, right? If no one wrote it off, then Daschle is supposed to pay taxes on something that was already taxed and paid by someone else. I call Shenanigans!

Geez, ya gotta marvel at the confiscatory nature of our tax system when accepting a free ride can cost you thousands, hundreds of thousands.

I think he could have fought this out with the IRS, but paid it instead to avoid any probles with his confirmation — which of course in the Bizzaro World of Versailles on the Potomac had exactly the opposite effect.

But when Tom is confirmed, and in the collegial world of the US Senate where he’s being sponsored by his old nemesis Bob Dole, he’ll be confirmed — which will give the wingnuts something to unite against for all the good it will do them.

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Skippy, Jon Swift, and BlueGal run down the voodoo on Blogroll Amnesty Day.

Feel free to use the above cartoon for your B.A.D. posts or link buttons!

In October 1967, the jokester-activist Abbie Hoffman led a group of anti-war protesters to the Pentagon, where they planned to publicly exorcize its demons. They sang and demonstrated, purportedly doing so till the building would levitate and turn orange, which would bring an end to the Vietnam War. As with other Hoffman events, it was good theater, guaranteed to draw press coverage. Unlike other somber events where political effigies are hung or burned, Hoffman injected absurdist humor to make his very serious points.

We need similar events now.

Wall Street doesn’t get it. They rely on time-worn cliches, calling attempts to limit their bonuses ’socialism’. Yet the bailout funds - as socialist as it gets - they condone without similar concern. That’s absurdism to the extreme.

Capitol Republicans also don’t get it. They still pander to industry lobbyists and choose total partisan obstructionism. There’s an economic wildfire raging across most of the nation and they simply don’t give a damn that 95% of their constituents are getting burned. They serve only to defend the interests of the other 5%.

That’s not absurdist theater and it’s sure not representative democracy. It’s impure and excessive greed.

The people in those positions don’t understand the definition of commonwealth. Or of a national belt-tightening. They’ve yet to be introduced to the reality of ’shared sacrifice.’

Weaned on the tech revolution, the daytrading boom and the cowboy econopolitik of Reaganized Friedmanism, they’re the predictable outcome of Objectivism Gone Wild. It’s all about their net worth, and America be damned.

The concepts of a Spaceship Earth or global warming do not enter their consciousness. They work hard to get rich and deserve to because - in their peabrains - others don’t work as hard or as brilliantly. The only thing bigger than the bottom line is their narcissism. They are khazers and schmendricks for their unflagging convictions about their superior self worth.

And how do we get them to ‘get it’? Well, we might start by descending on Wall Street to ‘de-levitate’ their egos. We could mock them as the bailout babies that they are while they live off the fat of the biggest wefare program in US history.

They’re not going to change, even if they feel threatened. They’ll redouble their efforts at that.

So frankly, I’m baffled how to get through to such sociopathy. Which is why I don’t buy into the ‘too big to fail’ dynamic. If the captains of industry sink their ships by overweighting them with greed and corruption, let ‘em go to, Davy Jones’ locker. But since that’s not an option, it’s time to compel them to wake up to reality.

Throw a pair of shoes at Wall Street and the GOP caucus? Perhaps. But I’d like to see the rise of humorous interventions to cure what ails them. Something that’ll make the rest of us yell “Yippie!”

Looks like the Depression is breaking out all over. Maybe you can lend a buddy a dime.

And remember, it always seems darkest just before it goes completely black.

Oh yeah, I keep hearing that the rich create all the jobs. And if our gubmint gives ‘em even more money, they’ll create even more jobs.

How odd it is, then, to see that the facts just don’t add up that way, now do they?

Their income’s doubled and they’re giving us the greatest number of layoffs since the last Great Depression.

Sure, let’s give them each another $20 billion. At this rate, we’ll all be employed … in China.

Hey, this can’t be a real depression like the last one. After all, there’s not even a Dust Bowl.

Uh-oh.

Over at C&L, John Amato quite reasonably observes,

When hasn’t Rush Limbaugh been the face of the GOP? Why is it so hard for the media to admit this simple fact? Rush speaks for the GOP. He speaks many of the impolitic fusillados that they all believe in, but would never say out loud although during the past eight years we have heard some pretty sick things coming out of the House Republicans…

Legitimacy via democratic process has never been something conservatives concern themselves with when it inconveniently conflicts with their quest for power — power for its own sake because they obviously have no interest in governing, solving problems, making life better for all of us.

When a duly elected member of Congress has to genuflect before Limbaugh lest he alienate his constituency, someone, somewhere ceded way too much influence to the drug-addled gasbag.  However, within a significant element of our society, Limbaugh’s influence comes from something much more intrinsic to the psyche — not elected as so many discredited politicians are, but selected by what many instinctively feel is the natural order of things.

Rush has amassed considerable wealth, sits atop a wide-reaching network and has has the ear of millions who absorb his tortured world-view through osmosis even if his listeners by-and-large swear they don’t agree with “everything” Rush spews from his golden microphone.  He’s a First Amendment bully, but for his crowd might makes right.

He’s an authority figure for a constituency made up primarily of those who pedantically defer to authority, any authority.  Conformists who cling to the thought that they are not alone as long as someone like Limbaugh is there thinking for them, making sense of a world they couldn’t be bothered to understand.

If you are the type who values wealth and power above all else, he’s your guy.  However, if you have found alternate measures of self-fulfillment superior to the obsessive collection of material goods, I don’t need to tell you what a disgusting embarrassment Rush Limbaugh is to the human race.

Check this out.  Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post decided early this week to become a play-by-play pamphleteer of the changing of the guard in Washington DC.  He decided to post his intermittent thoughts live from the first White House Press Briefing of the new administration Monday, under a screen name he created that morning, TheHyperFix, on Twitter.

By Friday, he was sending short text messaged analysis of the RNC Chairman’s election of Michael Steele live from the Hilton Ballroom to 1,500 followers world-wide — “Tweeting” history as it unfolded before his eyes — and catalogued the event in real time.  His following will no doubt increase ten-fold in the very near future.

What a remarkable time we live in.

Ten years ago tomorrow, I will have been gainfully employed by the SearsMart Corporation (actually, it’s officially known as the Sears Holding Corporation). This has been, by orders of magnitude, the longest I have been employed by one company during my working career*. The job is pretty much everything you could hope for if you’re a pushing fifty computer nerd without much desire for doing the management dance, but still would like oodles of ca$h to make pretty little screens so users can perform all the things necessary to keep a business up and running**.

Plus I am able to be creative in my job, have input into the overall system design plan in addition to the ability to design individual pieces of it, and the work environment is pleasant and relatively easy-going (for example, being five / ten / whatever minutes late for your scheduled starting time is no problem, as long as you stay late to make up the time, my fellow peons are for the most part personable and pleasant, and I’ve been wearing jeans and a golf shirt to work for at least eight of those ten years***).

So it is with great sorrow and considerable angst that I have to inform you all that, as of this morning, I have been told that my services are no longer required by my employer.As you may well imagine (if you aren’t living through it yourself right now), there are a number of things that I will need to do that were not on the menu a few hours ago, and a number of things that I probably would be well advised to re-think and rework the calculations on. I’ve already been on the phone with the mortgage holder (who also happens to be my bank) to discuss getting a reduced rate so that I can make the payments even when if I have to spend the next few months on unenjoyment. Apparently, somebody being proactive and anticipating preventative measures has caused somewhat of a problem with their standard procedures. Especially when the bank is right-sizing their staff at the current time, causing some company functions to change departments and some people to have to learn additional new job functions to perform, and Your Humble Narrator to spend lots of time listening to elevator music while on hold waiting for everyone to figure out who’s going to pick up the hot potato. They’re calling me back again when they can track down the proper employee and get them to discuss the situation with me. [Update 5PM Eastern: no call back. Guess I’ll have a bit of time to spend in dealing with the situation. Maybe I’ll head down to their offices in person on Monday and see if that helps them expedite the process. Anybody want a 1300 foot ranch style house with a full, currently unfinished basement, a beautiful deck, and a two car attached garage in northern Pontiac? No reasonable offer refused!]

So off we go down the rabbit hole. I have a number of things that I’d like to discuss with you, dear reader, and it seems like a lot more time to discuss them with you (although I also seem to remember from previous bouts of survival mode living that’s not necessarily true). Stay tuned to this channel for further updates.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some serious drinking to do…

Editors’ Note: this entry has been posted at the Funny Farm earlier today, slightly reworked here, then updated on the original site]

* - this, of course, does not count the twelve plus years of indentured servitude being raised on a farm during my childhood years…

** - also little things(cough) like system maintenance, fixing messes when things screw up, backups / storage maintenance, and all of the paperwork involved therein. For starters.

*** - upcoming family nuptials, and the need for presentable formal clothes to wear to the event, have now risen considerably in my list of priorities.

Paul Krugman makes a strong pitch for pushing through affordable national healthcare now. The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel suggests the Democrats are sneaking a healthcare plan through, already, via the expansion of SCHIP and Medicare.

Of course, all the ’sneaking’ is being done in broad daylight, with full media access to the policy changes, unlike the signing statements, insider legal memos, and secrets classified as confidential for so-called national security reasons, the sort of stuff the Bush administration was famous for. About that kind of ’sneaking’ Strassel remained predictably silent.

But Krugman doesn’t go far enough in defining why and how the Democrats should proceed to make healthcare a centerpiece of the new president’s economic agenda. One of the basics that policy analysts often overlook is the obvious fact that a healthy citizenry is simply more productive, which boosts the GDP. What Republican argument can there be against increased productivity and a concomitant rise in profit?

Preventive health care, especially, is a proven economic boon, not only boosting productivity, but lowering the overall cost of the nation’s healthcare.

The most important of Krugman’s points are:

1) the still not peaking “high unemployment means a sharp rise in the number of Americans without health insurance. ”

2) quasi-universal coverage is not as expensive as many assume (especially compared to the astronomic sums we’ve recently been treated to with the Iraq War, the bank bailouts and the stimulus proposals).

3) aiding families in their acquisition of healthcare coverage is an economic stimulus in itself, as it’s another consumer purchase.

4) rising populism makes the timing fortuitous.

It’s that latter point that should catch the attention of every liberal, because more argumentation that capitalizes on the public’s mood needs to be advanced RIGHT NOW.

If a CEO gets a multimillion dollar bonus on our dime, shouldn’t a working American be able to get a flu shot? A physical? A breast or prostate exam?

Almost everyone knows at least one family whose lives went to hell because of an illness, injury or accident that destroyed them financially. If ours is to be called a great nation or a moral leader, how can we continue to make that claim while abandoning families when the fates have them hurting and in the hour of their greatest need for relief?

Marriages have broken up so the custodial parent can gain healthcare for their children. (Don’t scoff; it was a key factor in my decision to separate and I doubt that I’m some sort of exception in that regard).

Healthcare has been a major political football throughout my life. One of our longest-serving Senators, Ted Kennedy, has had it on his agenda throughout his entire career and has had to settle for incremental changes that have only benefited the old and the young. Yet free employer-provided coverage was a staple of my parent’s generation, so most working people have seen healthcare benefits go backward in the past 40 years.

The failed Clinton healthcare initiative in the Nineties helped doom Hillary’s presidential campaign. Isn’t it time that liberals, whatever pet issues they have as individuals, coalesce in their efforts to gain a huge win for the majority of Americans, so more people can free up our collective energies to focus on those other issues?

Republicans and libertarians have spent thre quarters of a century trying to undo Social Security and it’s high time for another great program to be passed and to become entrenched that can also succeed spectacularly. Social Security did lift most seniors out of poverty, which is why most Americans defend it from the deleterious efforts of the well-off skinflints. Healthcare has a similar potential to boost the fortunes of most Americans by keeping them in tip-top health without breaking their bank accounts.

So what good reason can any liberal suggest for NOT pursuing this great policy change at this time? Take a moment; I’d love to hear any logical reason to the argument for affordable healthcare right now, at this golden moment.

Not that kind of retreat.  They’re still offensive, er … on the offensive. 

The House Republicans are “celebrating” their united, yet failed attempt to halt President Obama’s stimulus plan at a posh Virginia resort.

Welcome to the fabulous Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the Republican leadership is gathering to plan their resurgence and enjoy the luxurious amenities like despicable despots of old.

Nothing says you’re in tune with the Joe Six-pack than the Spa’s Historic Journey Treatment:

This journey is filled with treatments that have been enjoyed since 1766: Swiss Shower, Jefferson Pool Salt Soak, Ginseng Body Wrap and 50-minute Swedish Massage.
130 minutes - $315

I dunno if I even want to know what a “Swiss Shower” is.  Does a quartet of yodelers douse you in Riccola-scented chocolate-flavored edelweiss water?  Think they’ll throw in one of them there Passion Fruit Sugar Scrubs and the Pear Blossom Manicure and Pedicure if you offer a nice tip?

And what the hell is “The Cure” that comes with the $420 “Cascades” experience?  Let’s just hope it will fix John Boehner’s bronzing hue.

Quick update from a twittering hostage inside one of the meetings at this rather nice hotel:

Chuck Colson telling us that the financial
house of cards had to collapse because of the moral failure of
borrowing without responsibility.

Yep, nothing says you’re on the right track than sipping 40 year-old scotch, listening to a Watergate conspirator lecture you on financial responsibility, and getting a lobbyist pay for your 50-minute Swedish massage all in one day.  Good Times. (HT: Roadkill Refugee’s Tweets)

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