Catching up: Louisiana, Houston, bedbugs and tomatoes from hell

Well, I’m back and I can tell you that nearly a week away from this constant Angle-Reid battle would have been a breath of fresh air had it not been for the oppressive, demoralizing heat and humidity of Texas and Louisiana. They were pitching their August worst.

Checking the status of seats available on the flight I would be taking out of Lafayette, Louisiana to Memphis, to Salt Lake City to Reno, the availability of empty seats for a pass rider was starting to look grim. The flights were all showing ‘over-sold’ with long stand-by lists - I started to panic. I couldn’t imagine spending one more miserable sweaty day there.

You would have to pay me a LOT of money, as in a boatload, to leave the high, dry western states.

Then there was the bedbug thing.

With all the news reports about bedbugs infesting the hotels around the country, I was paranoid about my room in Houston. Twice I was up in the middle of the night, pulling up the corners of the bottom sheet, peering intently around the mattress cording. I would fall back to sleep - sorta - thinking that I felt ‘something’ on an ankle.

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Quick Hits: Obama's faith, mosque, Angle and black shirts

Reading today’s paper, I’m hugely encouraged that fewer Americans can accurately say that Obama is, indeed, a christian - NOT a muslim. This tidbit reaffirms a nagging belief I hold that we can’t assume that evidence-based facts will sway American opinion. According to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll on what the American electorate believes about Obama’s religious preferences, only 30% say he’s a christian. The the growing majority are terminally confused.

Yup. This is how you want to run a robust and thriving Democracy.

I’d feel much better if the majority said “I don’t give a rat’s ass what religion he is. It isn’t relevant to anything.” Personally, I’d feel better if the man was an atheist. Then at least he’d be less inclined to slog through the unproven, the irrational, and sheer wishful thinking on the way to critical decisions, or waste time on silly arguments.

Case in point: the friggin’ mosque in New York City.

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Thoughts from a morning walk 2: Angle website

Yikes, I went to the top of Thomas Creek and back down, in just under an hour, too. Whew! But, it does clear the mind, so I was prepared to think about today’s Reno Gazette-Journal Fact Checker.

I’ve been closely following the brou-ha-ha over the there-missing-there,again Sharron Angle website, and the cached original that was re-upped by the Reid camp. Today, the RG-J Fact Checker took a look at the revised official Angle website and compared it to the ‘original’ that Angle’s staff took down on the night of her primary victory. This action was apparently so that her national GOP handlers could ‘help’ her better parse the wording of her so-called ‘positions’ on a number of hot button issues.

I applaud the Fact Checker, and think this is a valuable, necessary service in this day and age.

However….

Fact Checker is treading a careful line here, suggesting that there are no substantive differences between the original and the revised website in so far as her basic positions on the issues are concerned. That’s sort of true, but not the point.

You can take that position so long as you’re only parsing the words - the when you start looking at intent (particularly the intent to deceive ) then you’re on different ground.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you, the average busy voter, hadn’t even seen the original website - filled with some pretty darn extreme positions. Then you saw the revamped, politically correct website, filled with much more moderated statements on those same positions.

Example:

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Read Robert Reich on healthcare reform

I simply adore Robert Reich - well, Mr. Maven comes in ahead of him hands down in other ways, but still… Reich is able to call ‘em as he sees ‘em.

That’s a quality all too rare in this day and age of political correctness and ideological posturing.

FYI: Read my post on just what a reconciliation vote is.

Read on:

 It’s Time To Enact Health Care With 51 Senate Votes

Sunday, February 21, 2010

This week the President is hosting a bipartisan gab-fest at the White House to try to tease out some Republican votes for health care. It’s a total waste of time. If Obama thinks he’s going to get a single Republican vote at this stage of the game, he’s fooling himself (or the American people). Many months ago, you may recall, the White House and Dem leaders in the Senate threatened to pass health care with 51 votes – using a process called “reconciliation” that allows tax and spending bills to be enacted without filibuster – unless Republicans came on board. It’s time to pull the trigger.

Why haven’t the President and Senate Dems pulled the reconciliation trigger before now? I haven’t spoken directly with the President or with Harry Reid but I’ve spent the last several weeks sounding out contacts on the Hill and in the White House to find an answer. Here are the theories. None of them justifies waiting any longer.

1.    Reconciliation is too extreme a measure to use on a piece of legislation so important. I hear this a lot but it’s bunk.

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Help save healthcare reform from Joe Lieberman

This just in from Firedog Lake:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is bending over backwards to give Joe Lieberman what he wants on the health care bill.

Public option - GONE. Medicare expansion - GONE. Joe says he’s looking around for other things he might want to take out of the health care bill, because “Democrats haven’t given up enough yet.”
But if there’s one thing Reid fears more than Lieberman, it’s losing his own seat.
He’s up for reelection next year, and with a 38% approval rating, the Senate Majority Leader is trailing “generic Republican opponent” by ten points.
We need to immediately raise at least $120,000 to run a TV ad in Reid’s home state of Nevada to save health care reform from Joe Lieberman and the insurance industry. Click here to donate now.

Friday Fish Wrap: December 11, 2009

Watching this depressing health care reform dance take place in the Senate this week has removed any  hope that, as a country, we can pull together and do the right thing anymore. I’m not so naive to think that political agendas and jockeying for position haven’t always been with us, but in times of crisis the one thing American’s could count on was our leaders ability to put the petty bickering aside until things could heal or sort themselves out.

Not so anymore, and both sides are to blame.

The Dems have their hands just as deeply in many of the same corporate pockets as the Repubs. That’s were the real problem sits. But, then there is the frighteningly bitter and irrational hatred for all things ‘government’ that has become the GOP - the party of ‘no’ - that really puts the poisonous icing on the cake.

Take a look at the ever changing health care reform bills and the pathetic attempts to rein in abuses by the financial services industry.

Any gutted, picked over carcass of legislation that finally reaches Obama’s desk for signing will be, as Tom Friedman calls it “suboptimal”. We produce suboptimal, because that’s all you can get agreement on and not leave dead lying about the hallways of power anymore.

It’s become just that toxic.

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"Keep moving toward the finish line..." on health care reform

That’s what Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid said and he’s spot on regarding the repeated attempts by Ben Nelson to insert highly restrictive abortion language into what appears to be an emerging health care reform bill that just might - might - make sense after all.

Reid’s right. This isn’t an abortion bill, and it would be criminal to derail health care reform over this issue.

Meanwhile, and I hope I’m not speaking too soon, it seems like the Senate is trudging ahead - nipping and tucking - toward a real bill.

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Join Senator Harry Reid NOW ... Don't delay!

Okay, now it’s ‘put up or shut up’ time. Get off your ass if you want the public option to be a viable part of the health insurance reform bill as it leaves the Senate.

Give Senate Majority Leader Reid the ammunition that he needs to make it so! Reid needs the support of each and every one of you that believe the public option to be the only way to level the playing field for American’s when it comes to health insurance.

He needs your voices, and signatures, to throw in the faces of the naysayers. Do it now!

Read below and TAKE ACTION!:

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Monday Musings: October 19, 2009

Well, you might have noticed, if you’re a regular reader, that I was missing in action for a few days. A ‘stomach bug’ started it out with 24 hours of ‘ick’, then there was all the painting and dozen details for finishing up the one bathroom remodel that is now complete. So sue me. I’m a perfectionista. Yea! It’s done. Now for the other one. (Look at the pictures under Lifestyle and Food).

The bottom line: I can’t always get ‘stuff’ done and blog. Oh, well. When I hit the big time, I’ll hire minions to watch my six.

Re: Sue Lowdan, the Republican wannabe contender for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s job. Oh, please, can we get real?

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Reid brings in $57 million in 'green' jobs for Nevada

I’ve been waiting for the end of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository for a long time now, and apparently the time is now thanks to Senator Harry Reid. Yucca Mountain was a money pit and boondoggle of the first magnitude, taking lot while giving Nevada nothing in the way of sustainable job growth in return.

I hate to harp on this sort of thing, but Senator Reid is bringing home the bacon while cutting out the pork (ha!) for Nevadans, despite the biggest national economic disaster in recent history. For this reason alone, I can’t understand why his numbers are so far down around the state.

Aren’t folks paying attention, or are they just that caught up in party politics?

Here’s a guy who isn’t totally beholden to special interests, is as ethical as politicians come, treats rural and urban/north and south with equal concern, and there are still those out there who would replace him with some well meaning but very wet behind the ears junior senator.

And, they would take the chance of replacing Reid while Nevada’s economy running on fumes?

WTF?

Take a look at what Senator Reid has delivered to Nevada in projects as part of the Energy and Water Appropriations conference report. The goal here is to make Nevada a national leader in renewable energy jobs and projects :

Energy Projects - $19.25 million

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Well done, Max. You gave away the store and got zip.

Yes, indeedy, the Senate version of the big, the bad health care reform bill is due out Wednesday … which may mean today for some of you readers.

As my hero, Foghorn Leghorn woulda said about Max Baucus: “… the boys’ about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.”

This is the bill that Democrats in the Senate just had to give away everything including their knickers in order to get the all important bipartisan support, meaning three Republicans that were brought up to the front of the class to help.

Mike Enzi of Wyoming ( why, oh why did he ever leave Wyoming? ), Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine all participated in this sham … and gave zip in return, according to early returns by those in the know. I actually had hopes for Snowe. Dashed.

Nada. Nothing. Up yours.

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