Republican family values, episode #7,429
Ya don't dip your pen in the company ink.
In light of the rather embarassing statement by a commenter recently that no matter how many perverts, criminals, and serial liars this administration contains, the Clinton administration was far worse, I present this stroll down (lack of) memory lane, again from TPM's Veracifier.
You may or may not have caught this story on the news, but it's just plain disheartening. Not because of the obvious lying, but because it's so damned commonplace in this administration.
At Nortre Dame the trumpet section of the marching band does something very cool prior to home games before marching to the stadium.
On another tape, Pete Kott, the former Republican speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, crowed as he described beating back a tax bill opposed by oil companies. "I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie," Kott said. "Exxon's happy. BP's happy. I'll sell my soul to the devil."
All vets are welcome, except those who oppose Bush's wars.
James Dasinger, right, and Jason Lemieux, both members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, watch the 11th annual Long Beach Veterans Day Parade on Saturday. The group was not allowed to participate in the parade. Dasinger is an Air Force veteran and Lemieux is a Marine veteran.Another article on this story notes that Lemieux has served three tours of duty in Iraq.
The groups on Saturday morning approached 9th District City Councilman Val Lerch, chairman of the parade committee, in a final effort to participate. Lerch, however, said the parade line-up was set for this year.
"They stood peacefully and honored our veterans," said Lerch, whose 9th District includes the parade route. "And I thank them very much for that."
"They voted unanimously to exclude a group, believing it had a political agenda," said Lerch, whose 9th District includes the parade route. "And I agree with the board's actions. For 11 years, this has been a parade to honor and support this nation."
The city did offer to set up a designated area near the parade, he said, where groups can stand and hold up signs.
"They can stand on the corner with signs all they want," said Lerch, a veteran who served 24 years with the U.S. Coast Guard. "They're not honoring those people by protesting."
However, City Attorney Bob Shannon on Wednesday said the parade committee is a private, non-profit organization, and therefore reserves the right to choose its participants.Which doesn't make it any less a disgrace they decided to exclude any vets from a Veteran's Day parade.
Just a headsup that Sen. Barack Obama is to be the guest for the hour on Meet the Press tomorrow. Let' see how stupid Russert can be and how he spends half the show trying to inflate conflict between Obama and Clinton.
...according to George Carlin, a man justly famous for his astute observations of reality.
Giulliani pressed hard to get Kerick an appointment as head of the entire Homeland Security Agency.
The United States spends far more on health care per person than any other nation. Yet we have lower life expectancy than most other rich countries. Furthermore, every other advanced country provides all its citizens with health insurance; only in America is a large fraction of the population uninsured or underinsured.
You might think that these facts would make the case for major reform of America’s health care system — reform that would involve, among other things, learning from other countries’ experience — irrefutable. Instead, however, apologists for the status quo offer a barrage of excuses for our system’s miserable performance.
So I thought it would be useful to offer a catalog of the most commonly heard apologies for American health care, and the reasons they won’t wash.
...
Excuse No. 1: No insurance, no problem.
...
Excuse No. 2: It’s the cheeseburgers.
...
Excuse No. 3: 2007 is better than 1950.
...
Excuse No. 4: Socialized medicine! Socialized medicine!
...
Rudy Giuliani’s fake numbers on prostate cancer — which, by the way, he still refuses to admit were wrong — were the latest entry in a long, dishonorable tradition of peddling scare stories about the evils of “government run” health care.
The reality is that the best foreign health care systems, especially those of France and Germany, do as well or better than the U.S. system on every dimension, while costing far less money.
But the best way to counter scare talk about socialized medicine, aside from swatting down falsehoods — would journalists please stop saying that Rudy’s claims, which are just wrong, are “in dispute”? — may be to point out that every American 65 and older is covered by a government health insurance program called Medicare. And Americans like that program very much, thank you.
So, now you know how to answer the false claims you’ll hear about health care. And believe me, you’re going to hear them again, and again, and again.
I've been blessedly neutral when it comes to this years slate of Democratic presidential candidates. It's really no surprise considering the unique, if not historic, flavor of the 2008 election.
"If you are looking for heroes, don't look to me, don't look to Elizabeth. We have support, we have health care, we have the American people behind us. Look to them; they are the ones that we speak for. They are the ones that we stand up for. And Elizabeth and I decided in the quiet of a hospital room, after 12 hours of tests and after getting very bad news, what we were going to spend our lives doing. For all those that have no voice. We are not going to quietly go away. Instead we are going to go out and fight for what it is we believe in. It is time for our party, the Democratic Party, to show a little backbone, to have a little guts. Stand up for working men and women. If we are not their voice, they will never have a voice.”
Who are the Civil Justice League and why do they love Sen. Mike Jacobs?
You've heard the phony complaints for years about how business and doctors simply can't survive as long as they keep being sued every time some one gets hurt or killed using their products or services. It's a miracle they've managed to not only survive, but prosper all these years with things exactly as they always have been.
But now we're told they simply can't go on without laws that place even larger hurdles in front of people who wish to sue corporations for liability and compensation. And just in case they can't stop the case from being filed to being with, and the facts are so bad that they can't prevail in court, they insist that damage awards be capped so even when they are found guilty of gross negligence and a jury awards punitive damages in an amount that will actually punish the company, they won't have to face TOO much punishment, at least not enough to really hurt.
You or I? We can be sued until we've got nothing left but a smile if we cause negligent injury. But we're told these fine companies and their owners need protection from awards that are large enough to... well... actually have an effect.
A possible Justice Leaguer on an outreach mission? "Remember kids, if you die from eating poison candy, you're not worth more than $250,000 max, no matter what, OK?"
Traditionally, Democrats have always seen these efforts as what I believe they are, attempts to infringe on an average persons right to sue for redress when they've been wronged by a company. Republicans have always sought to insulate and protect companies from the threat of being held liable and if unavoidable, then preventing the damage awards from being large enough to get their attention.
That's still the way it is, fortunately. But there is one exception.
If you think corporate interests need protection from such lawsuits, you have a new superhero. Democratic Senator Mike Jacobs.
While on the Civil Justice League website, I happened across their Legislative Scorecard for the Illinois Senate, the type that many lobby organizations issue to score legislators on how perfectly they march in lockstep on their pet issue.
As expected, the Democratic Senators had far lower scores on this matter, mostly in the low teens. Republicans were much higher, scoring often in the 80s.
But then I saw something that, while not surprising, was disappointing to say the least. While the lowest score among Dem senators was a perfect zero, the highest scoring Democrat in the entire Illinois state senate was none other than Sen. Mike Jacobs, who not only earned the highest score from this outfit, but managed to more then double the second highest Democratic score. Impressive.
Jacobs earned himself a whopping 67, while the second highest Dem pulled in a mere 33, and the third highest, a 25.
As a matter of fact, if you remove Jacobs' score, the average for all of the 36 other Democratic Senators was a mere 14.27, meaning that Jacobs scored over four times the average of his fellow Dem senators.
Sen. Jacobs score was so high in defending corporations from lawsuits that fully 9 of the 22 Republican Senators scored the same or lower than Jacobs.
I find this blatant Republican stance by Jacobs rather curious in light of the vociferous and loud condemnation hurled at his opponent Paul Rumler here not long ago.
Over and over strident comments were sent wailing and complaining that Rumler wasn't a real Democrat, that he was no good because he represented Republican issues and values. He couldn't be trusted to represent the average person, they said, over and over.
Rumler didn't support the average guy, they said, he wasn't a true Democrat, and was only out to support issues favorable to business interests.
Why? Because Rumler had worked for the Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the minimum wage increase. Jacobs supported this measure, and so claimed the mantle of defender of the little guy. Rumler=Republican, Jacobs, a true Democrat.
Yet these are the same people who slavishly support a guy who votes more Republican that nearly half the Republicans, and on a Republican issue? Who's so outside his own party that he scores over twice as high as the closest Democrat?
If you agree that protecting corporate interests from lawsuits and placing further impediments to ordinary people being able to sue when they feel they've been wronged is what society needs, then Jacobs is your man, no doubt there.
If you think voting against party line is heroic, despite championing a stance which directly benefits big business at the expense of average people, then you likely think the world of Jacobs on this issue.
But if you feel that the deck is already quite nicely stacked in favor of big business already, thank you very much, then you have to wonder just who can claim to be representing the average person and upholding Democratic ideals of fairness and justice for the "little guy". If it's not the Democrat, then who will?
One wonders if this defense of poor suffering business interests has any correlation to campaign contributions from corporate lobbyists. It would be easy enough to find out. If anyone cares to take a look, feel free to report your findings. I may take a look later.
Note to the humor impaired: The above photos are meant as satire and are not photos of, nor do they represent, actual Civil Justice League members.
Due to a rather severe and sudden illness in the family (me), I won't be able to address comments, at least until I can manage to stay out of the bathroom for more than 5 minutes at a time. Please bear with me as I experience the thrill ride of fever, chills, nausea, and other fun stuff not fit to mention.