Medicare for all Americans!
Because anything that ticks off Dick Armey can’t be all bad!
Sure, it’ll cost money, but a couple of retired cops have an idea about saving some bucks …
Having fought the war on drugs, we know that ending the drug war is the right thing to do — for all of us, especially taxpayers. While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial. In a July referendum, Oakland, Calif., voted to tax drug sales by a 4-to-1 margin. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimates that ending the drug war would save $44 billion annually, with taxes bringing in an additional $33 billion.
MikeJ
Re Hempfest:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/a-few-words-about-hempfest/Content?oid=2015865
MikeJ
Oh hell, I’ll plug another interesting article if I’m gonna be the only one here. Slacktivist had a great post on The IndigNation. Yes, it starts off with the Rick Perlstein article we’ve all already seen, but keep going., and certainly follow the link to the 1961 Time article on the Ultras.
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2009/08/the-indignation.html
JGabriel
Anne Laurie:
Yay! to pissing off Dick Armey.
Pet News Ad, Upper Left Corner:
Did anyone see that and think, “Oh, so that’s how he met Callista Flockhart?”
.
bob h
The unbelievably stupid Armey complains that he is captive to Medicare, not willing to acknowledge that old people like him are basically ininsurable otherwise. I am confident that we will prevail in this fight because the opposition is so unbelievably stupid, as embodied in this slob.
RedKitten
Morning, all! I just wanted to thank everybody for all of the kind wishes and congratulations regarding Sam’s birth. I’m sure some people would think we’re all a little weird, sharing major life milestones with total strangers, but that’s okay. :) I like weird. And I love this goofy little community we have here.
bago
@MikeJ:
That comment is by Dominic Holden. A friend of mine who used to organize the gathering. I was queried earlier because I did not name the event vis-a-vis the reasons stated above. After Dave Letterman made a joke there was a protest that got more reporters covering the demonstration than actual demonstraters. Here in Seattle none of the network affiliates covered an event involving a quarter million people, except for the weekly paper whose employees used to organize it and the now defunct Seattle PI that is literally 50 feet from the throngs right outside their offices. Nothing on KOMO (abc), nothing ing KING(NBC), and nothing on KIRO(CBS), even though all of their corporate headquarters are LITERALLY six blocks from the event.
30 olds standing in front of a mall gets national attention and days of coverage, while half of the city goes to a protest in the park and there is no coverage except from former organizers and the reporters in the building surrounded by the people.
That is fucked up. Seriously.
JGabriel
RedKitten:
You were pregnant? Gosh, I don’t remember ever seeing anyone mention that …
Glad to hear that you and Sam and the rest of the Kitten family are doing well.
.
Ash Can
@RedKitten: Good morning to you! Here’s hoping you’re managing to get some rest in between all the new-mom stuff. And remember to be good to yourself too.
MikeJ
Agreed, very fucked up. And I’d agree with Dominic that it is self marginalizing. What’s is there to cover for the media? “Hippies like pot” ain’t exactly breaking news.
And I can’t fucking stand the Grateful Dead.
bago
@MikeJ: Hey, there were 3-4 stages playing, and the dancesafe stage don’t do no Marley. (Full disclosure, I played it a few years ago). This year is was some breakcore from Adam, and the usual electro-house from Brian and Osirus. However, it does drive bodies, and it will make it very uncomfortable to question the locals when you run into them at the restaurant.
Montysano
@RedKitten:
As long as there’s not any links to any …… ummm… videos, I’m good.
Congrats!
Keith G
@RedKitten: Glad to hear that you and SamKitten are well. Your tale was such a needed and happy break from a week of astonishingly horrific news.
We may be led by a collection of ossified fools, but help is on the way.
Fulcanelli
@RedKitten: Congrats, again RedKitteh! How’s the lil’ guy? I hope you’ve been able to get some rest.
I did the Mister Mom gig for the first 6 months of my second daughter’s life while my (now ex-) wife worked a day job and I played music for $$$ 2-4 nights a week. Quite the experience. Here’s hoping they don’t have colic in Canada!
MikeJ
We still haven’t seen a long form vault copy of a birth certificate of this so called “Sam”. Probably doesn’t even like green eggs and ham. Not with a goat, not on a boat.
lotus
Hey, RedKitten! How ya feeling? “Sam,” is he? Good solid name for the cutie. We so proud.
Michael
In a truly just world, somebody would kick the absolute snot out of him out on the street, just for being him.
kommrade reproductive vigor
RedKitten, based on memories of my mom in the few days post-partum I’ll save the witty comments until later (don’t want to get hit by an intercontinental ballistic nappie). So congratulations and glad to hear all is well.
He really is a cutie. And a nice head of hair already.
The Saff
@RedKitten: Congrats on the littlest RedKitten! What a handsome little boy based on the picture John posted late last week.
drillfork
I did see a recent article about some California community with very liberal pot laws — the problem was that big-time criminals were loading up the guns, heading there and taking grower’s weed by force. So even if marijuana is legalized everywhere, some limits on the amount one can have (or grow) would be advisable.
But then again, based on what I know about this land of the free and home of the bat-poopy crazy, I’ll say that legalized pot will never happen in my lifetime. It’s orders of magnitude more unlikely than, say, electing a black president.
Congrats and best wishes to RedKitten…
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@drillfork:
If it were legal everywhere, there’d be no incentive to rip off growers. After all, there’s no incentive to rip off tomato growers, is there? (well, one might be tempted to snatch a ripe ‘mater, but one wouldn’t do it at gunpoint)
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Oh, and molto congrats to RedKitten and her growing krewe! And, of course, my sympathies as well (’cause you ain’t gonna be sleepin’ through the night for a long while)
MikeJ
If anyone wants to listen to an 8 minute segment comparing the US and UK health care systems, with a person from Cato (why? ) on BBC, the 4mb mp3 is at:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/today/today_20090816-0831a.mp3
linda
@RedKitten:
Congrats to you and your family! he’s a gorgeous little guy….
asiangrrlMN
@RedKitten: Congrats, again. Hey, if you hadn’t shared about your pregnancy, I think we would have been pretty obstreperous about demanding more info and MORE PICS! Besides, those of us who congregate here are pretty comfortable sharing info on the intertoobz (duh), so it’s all good.
Thank you, everyone for the guffaws this morning. Much needed in the insane world of American politics.
Montysano
@Michael:
Amen. There’s a select handful of rightwingers who drive me into a blind rage, and Dick Armey is near the top of the list.
low-tech cyclist
While the financial benefits of drug legalization are not our main concern, they are substantial.
I’m all for legalization of marijuana (got more reservations about harder drugs), but I’d like to see it done in a manner that doesn’t make some big business’ profits dependent on encouraging people to spend most of their time stoned out of their gourds.
I’d be all for legalizing possession of small to middlin’ amounts, up to, say, about as much as you can grow in a 10′ x 10′ garden plot, but making the possession of larger amounts (and sales of small amounts) a misdemeanor, and keeping sales of large quantities a felony.
So if you wanted to smoke, you could grow some in your backyard or under your grow-light in your closet, and you could share with your friends. But you couldn’t buy and sell dope, so nobody could make a business out of getting people stoned.
It would also remove most of the incentive for growing large quantities of dope, and guarding it with guns and booby-traps, or smuggling it into the country from Mexico or Colombia, since it wouldn’t be that hard for people to grow their own for free.
That’s my ideal for marijuana legalization. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s mine.
Legalize
“In a truly just world, somebody would kick the absolute snot out of [Armey] out on the street, just for being him.”
To be fair, Maddow gave it a good shot yesterday. If not for that meddling David Gregory who probably promised to lob him a talking point for each time Rachel hurt his feelings.
Ash Can
@low-tech cyclist: Substitute the word “drunk” for “stoned” and you have the same argument, with the same leaks in it. Advertising restrictions, anti-drug programs for kids, and increased health-consciousness have all helped keep the big booze producers in check. There’s no reason to believe the same thing couldn’t happen with big pot producers.
cmohrnc
Remember the famous Abraham Lincoln quote: “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time?” UNFORTUNATELY two-thirds of that quote is about the downsides to the potential gullability of the public, or else we’d have never had to put up with fools like Armey, Gingrich, Bush, Cheney, et. al….and apx 46% of the electorate in the past election were perfectly willing for Sarah Palin to become Vice-President. The fact that a flaming foolish jerk like Glenn Beck has any viable media audience at all beyond a self-paid local cable access channel gig at 3am should trouble you greatly about whether the “unbelievably stupid” opposition spouting self-contradictary, provably false nonsense is so ineffective after all.
John S.
@low-tech cyclist:
Sounds like a sane policy to me. While some people simply have no mechanism for self-moderation, I think the majority of us heads are smart enough to treat marijuana with the same respect we would any substance that affects body & mind, whether it be alcohol, sugar, food, etc.
All things in moderation, and nothing to excess. That is the path that the happy and productive tread.
Shygetz
@low-tech cyclist: Why go to such lengths? If you commercialize and regulate it, then marijuana won’t be valuable enough to have to guard large stashes of it. As someone who has lived in tobacco country, I can assure you that you can find all of the tobacco you want in unguarded fields–but no one descends upon their stash because it’s just not worth it when you can just buy the cigarettes. Marijuana would be the same way…regulate it like you would tobacco and/or alcohol, and home growth would become like home brewing or growing tobacco, a niche market at best.
parksideq
@low-tech cyclist: I see your point about legalized corporate drug-pushing, but no one is being killed because they want to smoke weed. People are being killed because they want to sell it. Until marijuana sales move from the black market to the free market, “enterprising” drug lords will still pay the small price of murdering people to profit off weed.
I can’t find the link now (I’m at work and posting from my phone), but do a Google search on Portugal’s legalization of weed. Their crime stats plummetted once the incentive to deal illegally was removed.
Demo Woman
@RedKitten: Did you have a good laugh about all of us pacing while you were doing the hard work?
Think of us all
penblog pals.Demo Woman
@Demo Woman: Where’s the edit button?
A Mom Anon
Did I hear on my teevee correctly that Armey is suing for the right to opt out of Medicare? WTF Hell? How is it tyranny to have health insurance? He’s doing it to sell a lie,which makes it worse than being just an ignorant,cranky old asshat.
parksideq
@low-tech cyclist: Ok, I just found a link to a good Glenn Greenwald article at Salon regarding Portugal’s successful decriminalization: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/
jon
I can get hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt, drive a car that gets ten miles to the gallon, leave the AC on full blast for the dogs while I work, buy from people who hate the US, enjoy the low prices of sweatshop labor, and invest in quick loan businesses. I can get a tattoo on my face, pierce my penis so I can have a stainless-steel dumbbell stretch it, have my earlobes stretched so I could fit toilet paper tubes into them, have all my hair lasered or electrolysized off, split my tongue, sharpen my teeth, have my belly button surgically removed, get breast implants to make me a triple-D without puffing out my chest, wear fishnet hose, find high heels my size, gain 600 pounds, carry a pistol, lose 100 pounds, wear a sword on my back, have the word “Postmisenthopic” tattooed across my belly, get more tattoos and some scars to express my “urban warrior” status, and use as much caffeine and nicotine and alcohol as I can handle as long as I don’t bother anyone. But I can’t smoke marijuana because that would end society as we know it.
It all makes sense.
kay
@A Mom Anon:
I think conservatives are in a sort of ideological box. They rallied old people and the disabled to oppose reform. Old people have government-guaranteed health insurance, Medicare, and disabled people do too. Conservatives don’t “believe” in that.
In other words, they’re completely full of shit on this issue.
Armey is just recognizing the obvious fact that conservatives demonized the public plan by selling seniors who love the public plan on the idea that their guaranteed benefit was at risk. If you’re an ideological conservative, what do you do now?
They didn’t use conservative ideas to oppose the public plan. They used seniors. Seniors rely on a public plan.
It sucks being a liberal, but I’d hate to be a conservative. Christ. Talk about a logical disconnect. No wonder they’re always mad as hell. Nothing they say holds up to even 4th grade level analysis.
The Grand Panjandrum
@RedKitten: Top of the morning to you and your lovely new addition. Best regards! I hope the feet are in better condition than they were a few weeks ago. I’d say you deserve a break (and you do!) but the real work begins now. Cheers!
And I say: Yes! Yes! Yes! to the legalization of ALL drugs. Period. Tax it like cigarettes, beer and liquor.
GUMMINT OUTTA MY MELLOW!
kay
@A Mom Anon:
This from the side of the aisle that pushed through the biggest expansion of Medicare in 40 years. A huge new unfunded entitlement. A direct transfer of taxpayer funds to pharma, with no end in sight.
I see his dilemma. I have zero sympathy, but I see why conservatism/health care isn’t adding up.
They’re incoherent on health care, and they know it. There’s no possible way to square what they just did with seniors and the dogma.
JGabriel
A Mom Anon:
Be cheaper to just give him a plane ticket to a country without socialized health care. Somalia, maybe?
.
kay
@RedKitten:
And, redkitten, I don’t know you, that’s true, but your son is absolutely beautiful. He has a perfect head, and his hands are nice and relaxed in the photo, he’s not all clenched up, so I think he’s agreeable to negotiating the scary world.
I love how newborn’s ears are pinned back and tucked in close, for ease of entry, I think.
thomas
I’m still trying to figure out why RedKitten would bring a child into a world/country dominated by a commie idea like socialized medicine. She probably even use the socialized medicine thing while she was pregos.
ironranger
Armey is a disgusting old misogynist. Nobody pays much attention to old farts like him you can run into across america except their own kind who like to gather at the local coffee shops on weekday mornings. Never see any women sitting on their coffee klatches & they tip lousy if at all. It’s when these dinosaurs have some power that they become menaces.
Steeplejack
@RedKitten:
Welcome back! Hope you and yours are settling into a good routine after all the excitement.
JB
The new list of dancing with the stars is out. One of the competitors will be Tom Delay.
MazeDancer
Tom Delay is going to be a contestant on Dancing With the Stars.
No, this is not a joke. Cast announced today. Here’s the AP. Sorry about the having to cut and paste:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gmOwX93uPf7WW6cSTCpGPOfjf9WwD9A4L3OO0
nodakfarmboy
@Michael: True story: I grew up in a town just a few miles down the road from where Dick Armey was born and raised. My HS chemistry teacher was from the same town (Cando, ND), and of approximately the same age.
One day, one of my fellow students, fresh out of American Government class, pointed this out to him, and asked our chemistry teacher if he knew Mr. Armey. He said he did, and that Armey was a jerk, and that he (the chem teacher) had personally punched Armey in the nose at some point in high school for being an ass.
Long story short: Armey has apparently always been insufferable, and there apparently is justice in the world, because he has had the “snot kicked out of him just for being him.”
ironranger
@MazeDancer:
I can’t stop laughing.
It also makes my head hurt. Politics & news in this country is 95% SNL skits.
Violet
@MazeDancer:
I used to watch that show. I can’t possibly watch Tom DeLay. That man makes me shudder. I’m convinced there is much more evil to him than any of us know.
General Winfield Stuck
Here are the 57 dems in the House that have pledged to not vote for a Health Bill unless it has a Public Option.
via FDL
Member Name PVI District
Member Name PVI District
Corrine Brown D+18 FL-03
Albio Sires D+21 NJ-13
Alcee Hastings D+28 FL-23
Andre Carson D+14 IN-07
Barbara Lee D+37 CA-09
Barney Frank D+14 MA-14
Bennie Thompson D+12 MS-02
Bill Delahunt D+9 MA-10
Bill Pascrell D+12 NJ-08
Bob Filner D+8 CA-51
Carolyn Kilpatrick D+31 MI-13
Carolyn Maloney D+26 NY-14
Chaka Fattah D+38 PA-02
Chellie Pingree D+8 MN-01
Dennis Kucinich D+8 OH-10
Diane Watson D+35 CA-33
Donald Payne D+33 NJ-10
Donna Edwards D+31 MD-04
Earl Blumenauer D+19 OR-03
Ed Towns D+38 NY-10
Eddie Bernice Johnson D+27 TX-30
Elijah Cummings D+25 MD-07
Emanuel Cleaver D+10 MO-05
Eric Massa R+5 NY-29
Pete Stark D+22 CA-13
Grace Napolitano D+18 CA-38
Gwen Moore D+22 WI-04
Hank Johnson D+24 GA-04
Jackie Spier D+23 CA-12
Jerry Nadler D+22 NY-08
Jesse Jackson, Jr. D+36 IL-02
Jim McDermott D+31 WA-07
Jim McGovern D+9 MA-03
John Conyers D+34 MI-14
John Olver D+14 MA-01
John Tierney D+7 MA-06
John Yarmuth D+2 KY-03
Jose Serrano D+41 NY-16
Judy Chu D+15 CA-32
Keith Ellison D_23 MN-05
Laura Richardson D+26 CA-37
Linda Sanchez D+12 CA-39
Lloyd Doggett D+6 TX-25
Lucille Roybal-Alard D+22 CA-34
Luis Gutierrez D+32 IL-04
Lynn Woolsey D+38 CA-06
Marcia Fudge D+32 OH-11
Marcy Kaptur D+10 OH-09
Maurice Hinchey D+6 NY-22
Maxine Waters D+31 CA-35
Mazie Hirono D+14 HI-02
Mel Watts D+16 NC-12
Michael Honda D+15 CA-15
Mike Capuano D+32 MA-08
Nydia Valezquez D+33 NY-12
Peter DeFazio D+2 OR-04
Phil Hare D+3 IL-17
Raul Grijalva D+6 AZ-07
Robert Wexler D+15 FL-19
Rush Holt D+5 NJ-12
Sam Farr D+19 CA-17
Sheila Jackson Lee D+24 TX-18
William Lacy Clay D+27 M0-01
Yvette Clarke D+38 NY-11
Comes to 193 votes to pass a bill, assuming all goopers vote yes. A big if.
General Winfield Stuck
it’s 64 instead of 57
General Winfield Stuck
takes 218 to pass. sorry
bob h
As an alternative to the full public option right away, why not allow the 55-65 cohort to buy into Medicare? This would be politically easy, because the private insurers want to be rid of them, and how many of them are even employed anyway, these days?
As revulsion with the private insurers increases over time, you could then drop the age threshold to the 45-55’s, etc.
Comrade Dread
True, but how does Vagina Coast Guard feel about it? /family guy reference
BDeevDad
OT but it’s an open thread…
Obama’s justice department just called DOMA wrong.
ChrisB
@RedKitten: Congratulations once again. It may not be your highest priority right now but if you haven’t done it already, let me remind you to post a birth announcement in a suitable American newspaper before too much time passes just in case, at least 35 years from now, your child wants to impose a social ist regime on us here in the States.
ChrisB
@Legalize: There was a striking contrast yesterday when Gregory asked Daschle, I think it was, “what Obama had done wrong” to explain declining poll numbers on health care and then later in the show asked Dick Armey “Is a public option competition or is it an unfair fight?” to which Armey not surprisingly answered, “It’s an unfair fight” and then went on to complete the talking point.
Can’t find a much better example than that.
RememberNovember
Legalize marijuana, tax it and keep the drug companies hands off it and have it accessible by Md. Rx. Would also force “dealers” to pay taxes.
Less ppl in jails, turning an honest buck. More for cops to focus on teh harder drug enforcement laws.
RememberNovember
@ironranger:
and 95% of all SNL skits are unfunny and fail to hit “the button”.
ironranger
@RememberNovember:
Exactly.
Mike G
Did I hear on my teevee correctly that Armey is suing for the right to opt out of Medicare? WTF Hell? How is it tyranny to have health insurance?
I look forward to Shlong Navy’s treatise on the tyranny of house insurance, car insurance and Congressional pensions. Right after he explains how ‘libruls’ simultaneously want forced euthanasia but also lavish benefits for illegal immigrants.
Of Bugs and Books
@ Bob H, #54 Amazingly (considering where he stands at this point), your idea was proposed last year by Mr. Max Baucus: “The Baucus plan also contained a provision which would have allowed Americans to purchase Medicare if they were between the ages of 55 and 64 and didn’t have access to the Exchange.” Reported just today (08/17/09) at DKos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/17/767126/-Baucus-proposed-Medicare-style-public-option-last-November