AMURICA!

FUCK YEAH!

Words.

"...it's hard not to be taken aback by the televised images of people opposed to healthcare reform carrying guns to rallies at which President Obama is speaking.

At least a dozen people openly displaying everything from an AR-15 assault rifle to 9-millimeter Beretta sidearms were in the crowd outside the hall where Obama spoke in Arizona on Monday. The state is one of those that have a so-called open-carry law, which allows people into public places with loaded weapons. Their appearance at recent rallies is supposed to signal their implacable opposition to the "tyranny" of healthcare reform.

...Something has shifted since Obama's election. Along with the now mindlessly normative red state/blue state polarization and autonomic politicization of even the most trivial incident, there's a kind of hysteria that seems to be creeping in from the fringes -- a new tenor to our disagreements and a startling attenuation of reason.

...Somehow all of this anxious animosity has become the background noise crowding out nearly all substantive and realistic discussion of the critical issues surrounding healthcare reform. This is one of the most complex and consequential initiatives of our time, over which even the most serious-minded people of goodwill are bound to have real differences. The stakes are immense, and the discussion, insofar as the reality of partisan politics permits, ought to reflect that.

...You can't make this stuff up -- but lots of people are, and they're being encouraged to do so by those in the Republican Party who think that defeat of the president's healthcare reform initiative at any cost is the GOP's only hope of substantial recovery in the midterms.

They might be careful what they wish for, because if our national political conversation becomes simply a continuation of talk radio by other means, dominated by people who bring guns to political rallies, who believe that the president of the United States is an alien who wants to euthanize the elderly and imprison the overweight, it won't matter which party is in power. The country will be as ungovernable as it is deluded."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: America the delusional

America's Sweetheart.

The Twilight Zone.

A Moment of Clarity.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

[ED.'S NOTE: That sentiment, that face plant into the palm, the heavy body sigh, and those last few words uttered before signing off with Bill Maher = My Thoughts exactly.]

Puppy Love.

With Bow Wow.

He's,

"Love Struck(!)".

What it is right now?

A Moment of Clarity?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Blow the Whistle!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Words.

"Barack Obama took office pledging to be a transformational president. The fate of a government-run public health insurance option will be an early test of his ability to end the way Washington's big-money, special-interest politics suffocates true reform.

Without that option, what Obama now calls "health insurance reform" still would be better than no reform at all. But frankly it's becoming hard to tell. So many genuine reforms have been taken off the table -- fully universal coverage, the ability to negotiate prices with the drug companies -- that expectations are ratcheted down almost daily.

Giving up the public option would send many of Obama's progressive supporters into apoplexy, yet the administration has sent clear signals that this is the path of less resistance it's prepared to take.

"The public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health-care reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it," Obama said Saturday at a town hall in Grand Junction, Colo. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, told CNN that a public option is "not the essential element" of comprehensive reform.

But what is the "essential element"? Where, if anywhere, does Obama draw a line in the sand? For reform to be meaningful, there must be some components that a final package absolutely should include. What on Earth might they be?

...Clearly, the White House feels itself on the defensive. But why?

...If conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats are successful in nixing a public health insurance option and watering down other reforms, progressive voters have a right to ask why they went to such trouble to elect Democratic majorities and a Democratic president. But the Senate can still resort to a parliamentary maneuver that would require only 51 votes, rendering most objections irrelevant. Historical trends indicate that it's unlikely the Democrats will expand their majorities in 2010. Politically, therefore, there's not likely to be a better moment for health reform than right now."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Where's Mr. Transformer?

KELLS!

feat. Keri Hilson.

Number One.

REAL TALK: The "Why We Need Health Care Reform" Edition by Barack Obama

Words. For Your Consideration...

"OUR nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.

...I don’t have to explain to the nearly 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance how important this is. But it’s just as important for Americans who do have health insurance.

...First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.

...Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government.

...Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies.

...Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable.

...Our reform will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of your medical history. Nor will they be allowed to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. And we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. No one in America should go broke because they get sick.

...This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

...But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

...In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain. But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing. If we maintain the status quo, we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Premiums will continue to skyrocket. Our deficit will continue to grow. And insurance companies will continue to profit by discriminating against sick people.

That is not a future I want for my children, or for yours. And that is not a future I want for the United States of America."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Why We Need Health Care Reform

Meanwhile in Inglewood...

Baby Be Mine.

For all time. Through the Good & the Bad. The Thick & the Thin...

New flava in ya ear!

Fabolous feat. Jay-Z.

Money Goes, Honey Stay (When The Money Goes Remix).

Big Ups Mr. Weaver!

And thanks to both you and President Obama for keeping it real, speaking on the issues, and making my day! That's what's up!

"You don't know, what you do!"

A Moment of Clarity.



Words.

"...Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is “literally at war with the American people”; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning “death panels” to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he “harbors a deep resentment of America,” that he feels a “deep-seated hatred of white people,” that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties”: All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.

...Just yesterday, the radio host Sean Hannity openly contemplated violence—and primly tut-tutted that if it occurs, the president will have only himself to blame.

Hyperbolic accusation and fantasy murder may well serve a talk-radio industry facing a collapse in advertising revenues—down 30–40 percent over the past two years, reports NewMajority.com’s Tim Mak.

As revenues dwindle, hosts feel compelled to intensify the talk-radio experience, hoping to win larger audience share with more extreme talk. It’s like the early days of the pornography industry: At first a naked woman is thrilling enough, but soon a jaded audience is demanding more and more, wilder and wilder.

For the radio hosts, it’s all mostly a cynical marketing exercise. But the audience? Not all of them know better."

NEWMAJORITY: The Reckless Right Courts Violence

Hope, Dreams.

Reaching. For the Stars.

Words.

"...President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex.

This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing.

...So much, then, for Mr. Obama’s dream of moving beyond divisive politics. The truth is that the factors that made politics so ugly in the Clinton years — the paranoia of a significant minority of Americans and the cynical willingness of leading Republicans to cater to that paranoia — are as strong as ever. In fact, the situation may be even worse than it was in the 1990s because the collapse of the Bush administration has left the G.O.P. with no real leaders other than Rush Limbaugh.

The question now is how Mr. Obama will deal with the death of his postpartisan dream.

...It would certainly help if he gave clearer and more concise explanations of his health care plan. To be fair, he’s gotten much better at that over the past couple of weeks.

What’s still missing, however, is a sense of passion and outrage — passion for the goal of ensuring that every American gets the health care he or she needs, outrage at the lies and fear-mongering that are being used to block that goal.

So can Mr. Obama, who can be so eloquent when delivering a message of uplift, rise to the challenge of unreasoning, unappeasable opposition? Only time will tell."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Republican Death Trip

Coming Attractions.

Warriors.

Come out and Play.

With Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West in,

Run this Town.

A Preview.

"GUESS WHO, GUESS WHO, GUESS WHO, GUESS WHO, GUESS WHO'S BACK!"

New flava in ya ear!

Nelly.

Feat. Pharrell.

Let it Go (Lil Mama).

For Your Consideration.

New flava in ya ear!

Chris Brown.

A Changed Man.



Big ups to the folks over at

Idolator for putting this on my radar. That's what's up!

Just a thought.

Words. For Your Consideration...

"In recent weeks, left and right have employed the Vidal tactic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused town-hall protesters of "carrying swastikas," leaving the impression they were proud Nazis -- when, in fact, a few protesters carried signs accusing Barack Obama of having Nazi aims (bad enough). Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) declared the protesters guilty of "Brownshirt tactics." Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) compared America under Obama to Germany in the 1930s. Rush Limbaugh talked of "similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany."

The accusation is a staple of American T-shirt and bumper-sticker political culture, found too often at liberal antiwar protests and conservative tea parties. Anyone with a black felt pen and the ability to draw a Hitler moustache on a poster can make this witty, trenchant political statement.

...This rhetorical strategy is intended to convey intensity of conviction, as in, "I am very, very, very serious, you Nazi jerk." Actually, it is a lazy shortcut to secure an emotional response. Worse than that, it is an argument that puts an end to all argument. What discourse is possible with the spawn of Hitler? And when someone is unjustly accused of Nazi tactics or sympathies, what response can we expect other than Buckley's outrage? Let the head knocking begin."

THE WASHINGTON POST: At the Town Halls, Trivializing Evil

EARLIER:

Ball of Confusion

The Bold & the Beautiful.

"Ain't another Woman that could take your Spotlight!"

America's Sweetheart.

"Turn Around..."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Glenn Beck's Operation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Coming Attractions.

From 1998?...

New flava in ya ear!

Jadakiss feat. Swizz Beatz, Styles P, Sheek Louch, Drag-On (ED'S NOTE: WORD?!@), Eve & Murda Mook.

Who's Real (Remix)

A Preview.

What lies beneath...(the Wall of Sound)

A Moment of Clarity.

Words.

"Cable news channels have devoted hours of airtime this week to the rancorous debates about healthcare reform at town halls across the country, supplementing the coverage with alarmist commercials about rationing and government-run care.

It's too bad the television cameras haven't been trained instead on the Forum in Inglewood, where the Remote Area Medical Foundation opened a temporary clinic this week. The scene makes a compelling case for a healthcare overhaul, putting a human face on the dry statistics about uninsured and underinsured Americans. People started lining up Monday for a chance to be treated Tuesday by volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses and other healthcare providers. About 1,500 people were seen that first day; after hundreds more camped out overnight, the clinic ran at full capacity again on Wednesday. It's scheduled to stay eight days before heading to its next stop, a reservation in Utah.

The turnout in Inglewood was huge despite the lack of publicity about the clinic, indicating how great the need is for more primary care.

...unless the system is reformed to bring basic healthcare services to all Americans, far too many will continue to depend on the kindness of strangers."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: The sick status quo

EARLIER:

Ball of Confusion

"Ain't another Woman that could take your Spotlight!"

The World We Live In.

America's Sweetheart.

Trust a Try.

"We're Halfway There?"

Words. For Your Consideration...

"... I think my fellow progressives ought to give Max Baucus and other members of the Senate Finance Committee a little breathing room as they labor to produce a health-care bill that can garner enough votes to pass the Senate.

Progressive politics is, in my view, a movement, not a monument. We cannot achieve perfection in this life, and if that is our goal we will always be frustrated. The right has far more modest goals: At every turn, its members seek to advance their power and protect privilege. I've never seen the Republican right oppose a tax cut for the rich because it wasn't generous enough; I've never seen them oppose a set of loopholes for corporate lobbyists because one industry or another wasn't included. The left, on the other hand, too often prefers a glorious defeat to an incremental victory.

... aside from race, health care is the most difficult domestic issue of the past century. FDR couldn't pass it. Nor could Truman, nor Nixon nor Carter nor Clinton. Lesser presidents like George W. Bush didn't even try.

The Founders gave us a standard: "a more perfect Union." It's an odd phrase; we don't generally speak of something becoming "more perfect." I believe it means that we have a duty, every generation, to make progress. For a dozen generations we have done that, in our imperfect way. Let's hope those writing the new health-reform bill can give us something that represents historic progress -- and that those of us most passionately committed to fundamental reform can celebrate progress, not lament a lack of perfection."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Progress Over Perfection

Freedom 09.

A Moment of Clarity.

It's been a cruel, cruel Summer. Icons have left us, uncertainty is ever present, and shit continues to hit the fan. And this scares us, this haunts us, hangs over us like a dark cloud, til the sun peers through, if only for a minute, to let us know that everything is gonna be alright. But still, it's not enough, as is evidenced by this world we currently reside in, this collection of states we call the U.S.A. Stimulus, Recovery, Cash, Clunkers, Healthcare. Hope, Change, Money, Division. "We're Mad as Hell and We're Not Gonna Take it Anymore!" "What's Going On?" "Let Me Talk!" "LET ME FINISH!" "Sit Down!" "SHUT UP!" Socialism, Communism, Ageism, Death Panels, Outrage, Supply, & Demand. Questions, Answers, uncertainty, revolution(?), evolution(?), televised,

STOP!

"It's enough to make a brotha go crazy!"

And it nearly is.

My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. For thee I weep. Because of thee I scratch my head. Because of thee I sit in disbelief, stressed, worrying about things bigger than me, stopping all the world now to think of thee, pray for thee, and wonder what happened to this collective "we".

But not last night. For a minute all was alright. The sun peered through the clouds. I put the magazine down, and I smiled for thee, I wept for thee, with a smile so big the whole world could see. Because of this change presented below, this ovewhelming dosage of generosity. One nation together under a groove. No hang ups, no gripes, and nothing to prove. My country, my country, land of liberty...You got me, you moved me, of thee I sing.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Bold & the Beautiful.

A Moment of Clarity.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Reform Madness - White Minority
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

Oh Word?

PITCHFORK: Michael Jackson Remix Collection Due

For Your Consideration.

Don't Stop.

In stores November 17th!

PITCHFORK: Annie's Don't Stop Finally Coming Out

This can't be life.

Ball of Confusion.

A Moment of Clarity.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Healther Skelter - Obama Death Panel Debate
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

EARLIER:

"Ain't another Woman that could take your Spotlight!"

The World We Live In.

America's Sweetheart.

How the Other Half Lives.

"HERE & NOW!"

VANITY FAIR: Ruth’s World

America's Sweetheart.

"My words are 'Poison'?"

Words.

"The United States, like most countries, has long had a lunatic fringe who channel in the flotsam of delusion, half-facts and conspiracy theories. But now, with the light-speed and reach of the Web, “entire virtual crank communities,” as the conservative writer David Frum called them, have sprung up. They are fed, in the case of Sarah Palin, by people who should know better.

For a democracy, which depends on an informed citizenry to balance a permanent lobbying class, this is poison. And it’s one reason why town hall forums on health care, which should be sharp debates about something that affects all of us, have turned into town mauls.

The lies and shouts have had the effect that all crank speech has on free speech — stifling any real exchange.

...But is it any wonder that some are moved to violent threats, given the level of misinformation being injected into the system? If you really believed that Obama was going to kill your baby and euthanize your parents, well — why not act in self defense?

...Here’s what Palin said on her Facebook page Friday, in her first online comments since quitting as Alaska governor.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

This is pure fantasy, fact-free almost in its entirety.

...Palin, she should follow her own advice to the media of a few weeks ago — lay off the kids and “quit makin’ things up.”"

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Outposts: Palin’s Poison

Boom Boom POW!

New flava in ya ear!

Twista feat. Liffy Stokes.

Wanna See Em Buss.

Steady as She Goes?

"Steady, Steady..."

Words. For Your Consideration...

"Apparently not bothered by facts, some congressional Republicans are already claiming that President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package has failed and are even advocating that some of the remaining scheduled steps in the legislation be canceled.

In medicine, that would be malpractice. In politics, it's demagoguery. In reality, we need to stay the course.

...the images of car dealerships and crushed vehicles that have been blanketing newspaper pages and TV screens do not depict real stimulus. What they show is the prelude to stimulus -- old cars being scrapped and new cars being sold out of inventory. The stimulus to employment comes only when automakers respond to the higher sales and depleted inventories by boosting production. Everything takes time, and you won't see the new cars manufactured on TV.

So it is with most of the stimulus measures in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The effects are there, but they will take a while to be felt, and they don't usually lend themselves to photo-ops. One good example is fiscal relief for state and local governments. It is not just in California that state and local governments are cutting back on all sorts of public services. Just over 20 percent of the $174 billion in federal funds appropriated for the states has been spent, and that cash infusion is limiting -- though not eliminating -- the cutbacks. The other 80 percent is on the way. But we won't see photos of public servants not being fired.

Critics claim that the stimulus program is running way behind schedule. Is it? Well, no. While the administration certainly made an overly optimistic economic forecast in February, the stimulus bill, at about 5 percent of gross domestic product spread over more than two years, was never going to cure the patient quickly, or on its own. Rather, it was designed to cushion the fall -- as it has.

...These are still early days for a bill Congress passed only six months ago, but the stimulus has already had a notable impact. The average estimate of three private forecasting firms is that the stimulus added about 2 1/2 percentage points to the annualized GDP growth rate in the second quarter. (If that sounds too high, remember it means adding only about 0.6 percent to the level of GDP.) The consensus of the three firms is that the impact on third-quarter growth will be a bit larger. As they say on the farm, that ain't hay.

...We are now in the third quarter, when the importance of the stimulus is likely to be even greater. In fact, its estimated growth impact (about 3 percentage points) actually exceeds the consensus forecast for third-quarter growth -- meaning that, according to current expert opinion, the stimulus will account for more than 100 percent of GDP growth this quarter.

Cartoonists may scoff at lights at the ends of tunnels, but our economy does, finally, seem to be growing again. The Recovery Act is by no means the only reason. Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve have certainly done a great deal, and the economy's self-curative powers also have helped. But what six months ago looked like an economy plunging into an abyss is now an economy on the mend. And the stimulus deserves some of the credit."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Stay the Stimulus Course

The World We Live In.

An Update/Care Info/A Moment of Clarity.



Words.

"Hundreds of people were already lining up to receive free healthcare checks at the the Forum in Inglewood.

Volunteer doctors, dentists and optometrists will conduct free health clinic for uninsured and under-insured individuals.

The eight-day healthcare event will run from 5:30 a.m to 6 p.m. and is sponsored by Remote Area Medical, a charity that in the past has staged clinics in rural sections of the United States.

People started arriving before 3. Many said they didn't have health insurance and saw this as an opportunity to be checked out. Organizers placed them in stadium seats outside the Forum, and some said they waited for hours to get medical treatment."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: L.A. NOW: Hundreds lining up for free healthcare checks at Inglewood Forum

"Ain't another Woman that could take your Spotlight!"

A Moment of Clarity.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Crazy for You.

Keep On. Keep, Keepin' On.

Words.

"Unsuccessful in her contract negotiations with the hugely popular reality TV show, Abdul appears to have walked away from a multimillion-dollar salary, a gig that brought her out of obscurity and, in her 40s, a renewed wave of fame and popularity. Is it part ploy for Abdul to resign and part posturing for the show's executives to take her exit so blithely? Sure. Is all of this kabuki theater? Maybe. Will Paula jump out of a cake in February, once the judging begins in earnest? Quite possibly. But already the Hollywood wags are reminding us that "no one is indispensable," that the country's most popular show, even with its slipping ratings, will remain a hit, even without Abdul. (Reports that Victoria Beckham, keen to extend her Posh Spice brand in the states, will do at least a one-off appearance as a judge, seem to confirm this.)

Contestants may miss her loopy mothering and relentless cheerleading. But the real tragedy is that she has abandoned that dysfunctional, squabbling dinner table known as the panel of "American Idol" judges. Forget the increasingly polished and professional singers competing on the stage. The real reality TV is the group dynamics at that table and even, sometimes, under that table. Who can replace Abdul there?

...As a judge, Abdul was overemployed: She generally contributed absolutely nothing to the verdict of the talent that stood before her, as she was incapable of being mean, saying no or issuing a thumbs-down. But she didn't need to. Cowell took care of that with laser-like accuracy. As entertainment, Abdul was the star of that second layer of reality TV, the one at the dinner table. She was maddeningly magnetic, a character you were glued to even as sometimes you watched her unraveling. That's good TV. Fans know it. Whether Fox comes to agree remains to be seen."

THE WASHINGTON POST: 'Idol' Loses Its Loopiness

Bones, Ribs, Coolers, and Beer.

FILE UNDER: Old school funk for the true funk soldiers/This is how we do it!

As the days get long, and we see a rise in temperatures, how many bitches want to touch this n****a name Snoo- ah hem, I mean we should take the time to relax the mind, let the conscious be free, and indulge in the tunes best fit for chilling, dranking, and in the words of Magic Johnson, "having a good time..."


Ain't that right Lil Miss Sunshine?

For Your Consideration.

In stores October 6th!

PITCHFORK: New Release: Nick Oliveri: Death Acoustic

Flight of the Bumblebee.

New flava in ya ear!

Peaches.

Serpentine.

Birth of a Nation.

Words.

"April might be the cruelest month, but August is the dumbest -- at least if you have the misfortune to be watching TV. It's not just that the shows are mostly reruns and nothing much happens in the news (except, OK, the occasional release of journalists from a North Korean prison sentence thanks to the diplomacy of an ex-president).

It's that, with relatively little else happening, the darndest people and causes tend to grab the spotlight.

...You've heard the term "august personage." This refers to an eminent or venerable figure. I am hereby coining a slight and notably downscale variation on this label: the August personality.

Neither eminent nor venerable, August personalities are the unopposed candidates of the public sphere. They gain traction because they're just nonsensical and bizarre enough to fit the "man bites dog" profile and, oh yes, no one else bothered to show up. August personalities tend to have both an ax to grind and a chip on their shoulders. Undaunted by the foolishness of their 15 minutes, they are thrilled to be in the national media, no matter how low the vacation ratings go.

At any other time of the year, they'd be relegated to the outer limits of cable access and the Internet. But it being August and all, August personalities wind up on prime time. With all the shrinks out of town, the country goes a little bit crazy.

...This year's August personality? Orly Taitz, the woman spearheading the campaign behind the apparently unvanquishable issue of President Obama's country of birth. A dentist/lawyer/real estate agent turned "eligibility activist" from Laguna Niguel, Taitz looks like a cross between Dr. Laura and Carol Channing and sounds like a 16-year-old Zsa Zsa Gabor fighting with her mom about her curfew. Her movement's mission, of course, is to show that the president was not born in Hawaii, as has been exhaustively proved by officials from that state, but in Kenya and is therefore ineligible to serve as commander in chief.

...Taitz's true breakout moment came on Monday, when she appeared on MSNBC. Revealing a debilitating strain of defensiveness straight out of the gate, Taitz responded to anchor David Shuster's first question -- about the Obama birth announcement printed in two Honolulu newspapers -- by asking how much time she'd have to respond because she had "had a bad experience on CNN." She went on to tell Shuster that "you need to display some decency and integrity as a journalist" and that people are "sick of the lies coming from the mainstream media," which she referred to as "Obama brownshirts."

The interview unraveled into a shouting match between Taitz, Shuster and co-host Tamron Hall and within minutes was ricocheting around the blogosphere, amid a lot of cackling about Taitz's mental state.

Is she certifiable? Only a 190-year-old Connecticut man would know for sure. What is certain is that every August (come home, shrinks!), the public's wackadoo threshold reliably goes up. And though we can only hope that next year's August personality won't be quite as xenophobic as Taitz, you have to admit she's pretty entertaining, in a summer-disaster-movie kind of way.

But let it be said, she's not as enjoyable as a good book and an iced tea on the deck. That would be August minus the personality. Dare to dream, people."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: When it comes to rational people, August isn't so hot

Neighborhood Watch.

A Moment of Clarity.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Hollywood Swingin'.

Blue Collah/Straight Pimpin'/No Bombast/Just Swaggah...

DJ Class.

I'm the Ish.

The Fox and the Hound.

FOX: "Surely, you jest!"
HOUND: "Au contraire!"

Words.

"...It was strange to see the reclusive Kim so eager and the raffish Clinton so disciplined. Yet the grinning North Korean and stony-faced American were no doubt both savoring their moment of mutual relevance.

The price set by Kim for releasing the two captured American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, was a few hours basking in the presence of the ex-president who most wanted to visit North Korea. Bill Clinton was willing to bow but not scrape.

Hillary sparked an international spat when she said that, as a mother, she understood that the North Koreans were simply unpopular and unruly children misbehaving to get attention.

Now, less than two weeks later, those bad-seed children had managed to command the full attention of her husband.

Maybe it was some clever North Korean revenge plot, giving the limelight to Daddy to punish Mommy. Just as Hillary muscled her way back into the spotlight, moving past her broken elbow and grabbing the focus from her bevy of peacock envoys, she was blown off the radar screen again by an even more powerful envoy: the one she lives with.

It was a moment unique in the annals of diplomacy. Bill was being hailed as a dazzling statesman who might have changed the stormy weather between the U.S. and North Korea, just as Hillary was beginning an 11-day trip to Africa designed to highlight the subjects she most cares about: do-gooder development and women’s issues.

The one in charge of world affairs disappeared from the news all day on Tuesday. The one out of office dominated the news. His plane is rolling down the runway in Pyongyang with the two pardoned women on board? Zowie!

...Conservatives were screeching, naturally, that the Clinton trip would provide propaganda cover to the North Koreans to continue their nuclear shell game.

...But the former Bush bullies have no credibility on diplomacy. They spent eight years wrecking it, and the score for them on North Korea is 0-6; zero meetings with Kim and enough plutonium for six nuclear bombs.

Bill Clinton will bring back valuable information about Kim’s mental and physical health. If we’d had that sort of information about the snubbed Saddam, we would have known that he was in his own spiral of doom, trying to bluff his neighbors, with no need for our shock and awe.

Hillary and President Obama look bigger when they share the stage with other talented players. And Barack and Bill may have finally started to put South Carolina behind them — without the need for a beer summit photo-op."

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Let the Big Dog Run

Oh Word?

Words.

"The Obama administration characterized Bill Clinton's unexpected visit to Pyongyang to secure the release of two American reporters, held unjustifiably by North Korea for nearly five months, as a private, humanitarian mission. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has insisted that the fate of the women who strayed into the North (whether accidentally or deliberately is still not clear), should be separated from the unresolved issue of the North's nuclear weapons program.

But North Korea has seen it very differently. Former president Clinton was met at Pyongyang's airport by notables led by Kim Kye Gwan, the North's long-time chief nuclear negotiator, an unmistakable symbol of linkage. In Pyongyang's view, the two reporters are pawns in the larger game of enhancing the regime's legitimacy and gaining direct access to important U.S. figures. The reporters' arrest, show trial and subsequent imprisonment (twelve years hard labor) was hostage taking, essentially an act of state terrorism. So the Clinton trip is a significant propaganda victory for North Korea, whether or not he carried an official message from President Obama. Despite decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages, it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate, but to send a former president to do so.

...With three American hikers freshly in Tehran's captivity, will Clinton be packing his bags again for another act of obeisance? And, looking ahead, what American hostages will not be sufficiently important to merit the presidential treatment? What about Roxana Saberi and other Americans previously held in Tehran? What was it about them that made them unworthy of a presidential visit? These are the consequences of poorly thought-out gesture politics, however well-intentioned or compassionately motivated. Indeed, the release of the two reporters -- welcome news -- doesn't mitigate the future risks entailed.

...The point to be made on the Clinton visit is that the knee-jerk impulse for negotiations above all inevitably brings more costs than its advocates foresee. Negotiating from a position of strength, where the benefits to American interests will exceed the costs, is one thing. Negotiating merely for the sake of it, in the face of palpable recent failures, is something else indeed."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Clinton's Unwise Trip to North Korea

TV FunHouse.

New flava in ya ear!

Major Lazer.

Pon De Floor.



"Do do do bop BA-DOW!"

War on War.

A Moment of Clarity.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - War on Birth Control
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Tasers

Coming Attractions.

Night Rider.

New flava in ya ear!

Bat for Lashes.

Sleep Alone.

Health. Care. First. AID.

Words.

"As the political debate about how to pay for and pass health reform grows louder and more contentious, we shouldn't lose sight of the reason we're even having this conversation: We have a huge, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve the lives of all Americans, insured and uninsured alike.

Health insurance is fundamentally about peace of mind. If you have good insurance, you don't have to worry about an accident or sudden illness. You know that whatever happens, you and your family will be taken care of.

We can't eliminate all disease. But through health reform, we can give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance so that if they do get sick, they have the best chance possible of getting better without bankrupting their families.

The current health-care system gives insurance companies all the power. They get to pick and choose who gets a policy. They can deny coverage because of a preexisting condition. They can offer coverage only at exorbitant rates -- or offer coverage so thin that it's no coverage at all. Americans are left to worry about whether they'll get laid off and lose their insurance or wake up from surgery with a $10,000 bill because they didn't read the fine print on their policy.

By giving Americans choices, health reform will switch the roles. Americans will get peace of mind and insurance companies will start getting nervous. They will know that if they don't deliver a great value, their customers will flee. So they will start offering better coverage.

...Without reform, we will miss out on these benefits. And our health-care system will still be a fiscal time bomb. Recent estimates indicate that by 2040, health-care costs will eat up 34 percent of our gross domestic product. By comparison, the entire federal budget today is just 20 percent of our GDP. By acting now, we have the chance to slow health-care costs in a way that doesn't slash benefits or reduce care. Instead, we can make investments in prevention, wellness and health information technology that will allow the health-care system to deliver incredible results at prices we can all afford. Imagine a system in which your doctor spends as much time trying to keep you healthy as treating you when you're sick, in which you and your doctor have all the information you need to choose the treatments that work best for you, in which you never have to fill out the same paperwork twice. Health reform is the first step in that direction."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Lifting A Burden Of Worry

"GOOD TIMES(?)!"

"THESE. ARE. THE. GOOD. TIMES!"


Words. For Your Consideration...


" President Obama's biergartenbiergarten moment at the White House on Thursday may have started out as a political stunt, but in the end it could become a model for the future of race relations in America.

I'm not talking about the "teachable moment" nonsense. Nor am I particularly impressed by the idea that people of different backgrounds should get together to talk about their backgrounds. What's new here, and what I think might just stick, is the idea that people in conflict should sit down and throw back a few beers.

I'm not suggesting that Budweiser should sponsor a Middle East summit, but in the case of intra-national squabbles, which are essentially family squabbles -- Henry Louis Gates Jr. and James Crowley actually share distant Irish ancestors -- casual get-togethers might be more productive than formal "dialogue."

...Maybe it's because their paychecks depend on it, but there's still an entire cast and crew of academic and activist "race experts" who insist that if Americans of different backgrounds sit down together, it should be to air their historical grievances, not just to drink a beer. I don't agree. Is there anyone left who has not yet heard of slavery or Jim Crow or prejudice or discrimination? At this point in our history, progress is no longer about "educating" anyone except school kids about the past.

Nor will racial harmony be forged by race leaders and representatives speaking on behalf of millions of their fellow whatevers. In any racial "dialogue," the black man (or the white woman) automatically becomes a representative for the whole kit and caboodle. He is obliged to read from a script that he didn't necessarily write. By definition, to speak of race is to speak in generalizations. The individual is subsumed by the collective.

But isn't that the source of racial incidents in the first place? Isn't the very nature of prejudice the act of superimposing generally negative characteristics that one attributes to a group onto all members of that group? Isn't racism itself the act of stripping away someone's individuality?

Romantic as they were, the days in which collective action led to racial progress are long gone. The next step requires intimacy and individuals. We know that younger Americans are far more tolerant of each others' differences than their elders. We think that it's because they were raised in much more diverse environments. That tells us that it is everyday, routine contact with individuals of various backgrounds that helps erode the generalizations that serve as rationales for discrimination.

...a little more of what the president had in mind could go a long way to changing hearts and minds. "This is not a university seminar," Obama said. "It is not a summit. It's an attempt to have some personal interaction when an issue has become so hyped and so symbolic."

Interracial beerfests aren't going to solve our national dilemma like magic. But acknowledging that understanding between individuals trumps formal racial dialogue has to be a huge step forward."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Tackling race, one beer at a time

CAUGHT UP!

"ONE NIGHT ONLY!"

Words.

"California had a prison crisis long before this year's budget crisis. A system designed for fewer than 100,000 inmates is crammed with about 170,000. The overcrowding has made prison conditions so miserable, especially when it comes to medical care, that federal judges have ruled that the state is violating inmates' constitutional rights. As a result, the prison health system is under the oversight of a federal receiver, and a three-judge panel might soon order steep cuts in the inmate population.

...California has taken much sentencing discretion away from judges, forcing them to set terms based on a schedule of crimes and enhancements. Most inmates serve their full terms, and all are placed on parole for three years. This system fails to classify convicts based on the danger they pose to the public. The prisons are stuffed with nonviolent offenders, and parole officers' caseloads are enormous, making it very hard to focus attention on truly high-risk individuals. This is the only state to combine determinate sentencing with such a rigorous parole system, and it's not coincidental that it has the nation's highest recidivism rate.


The folly of these and other state corrections policies has been clear for more than a decade. Experts have filed studies and reports by the dozen identifying solutions to the overcrowding crisis, yet they've been ignored by politicians worried that fixing the prisons might be seen by voters as coddling criminals. If there's one good outcome from California's budget woes, it's that they might force lawmakers to institute reforms that should have happened years ago.

...Housing inmates isn't cheap, and it's inconsistent to pass laws that cram the prisons while turning down measures to pay for them."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Tough on corrections

The Air "Up There".

Words.

"Universal health insurance is on the American policy agenda for the fifth time since World War II. In the 1960s, the U.S. chose public coverage for only the elderly and the very poor, while Canada opted for a universal program for hospitals and physicians' services. As a policy analyst, I know there are lessons to be learned from studying the effect of different approaches in similar jurisdictions. But, as a Canadian with lots of American friends and relatives, I am saddened that Americans seem incapable of learning them.

Our countries are joined at the hip. We peacefully share a continent, a British heritage of representative government and now ownership of GM. And, until 50 years ago, we had similar health systems, healthcare costs and vital statistics.

The U.S.' and Canada's different health insurance decisions make up the world's largest health policy experiment. And the results?

On coverage, all Canadians have insurance for hospital and physician services. There are no deductibles or co-pays. Most provinces also provide coverage for programs for home care, long-term care, pharmaceuticals and durable medical equipment, although there are co-pays.

...Lesson No. 1: A single-payer system would eliminate most U.S. coverage problems.

... Lessons No. 2 and 3: Single-payer systems reduce duplicative administrative costs and can negotiate lower prices.

...Lesson No. 4: Single-payer plans can deliver the goods because their funding goes to services, not overhead.

...Lesson No. 5: Canadian healthcare delivery problems have nothing to do with our single-payer system and can be fixed by re-engineering for quality.

U.S. health policy would be miles ahead if policymakers could learn these lessons. But they seem less interested in Canada's, or any other nation's, experience than ever. Why?

American democracy runs on money. Pharmaceutical and insurance companies have the fuel. Analysts see hundreds of billions of premiums wasted on overhead that could fund care for the uninsured. But industry executives and shareholders see bonuses and dividends.

Compounding the confusion is traditional American ignorance of what happens north of the border, which makes it easy to mislead people. Boilerplate anti-government rhetoric does the same. The U.S. media, legislators and even presidents have claimed that our "socialized" system doesn't let us choose our own doctors. In fact, Canadians have free choice of physicians. It's Americans these days who are restricted to "in-plan" doctors.

Unfortunately, many Americans won't get to hear the straight goods because vested interests are promoting a caricature of the Canadian experience."

LOS ANGELES TIMES: A Canadian doctor diagnoses U.S. healthcare

High Price.

An "Oh Word?" Moment of Clarity.


ARNOLD: "I hope this works!"
CROWD: "So do we!"

Words.

"California's budget debacle holds a lesson for America, but one we will probably ignore. It's easy to attribute the state's protracted budget stalemate, now temporarily resolved with about $26 billion of spending cuts and accounting gimmicks, to the deep recession and California's peculiar politics. Up to a point, that's true. Representing an eighth of the U.S. economy, California has been harder hit than most states. Unemployment, now 11.6 percent (national average: 9.5 percent), could top 13 percent in 2010, says economist Eduardo Martinez of Moody's Economy.com. Meanwhile, the requirement that any tax increase muster a two-thirds vote in the legislature promotes paralysis. Democrats prefer tax hikes to spending cuts, and Republicans can block higher taxes.

All this produced the recent drama: plunging tax revenue and the state's resulting huge budget deficits; endless negotiations between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders; the deadlock that led the state to issue scrip (in effect, IOUs) to pay bills; and a final agreement on a 2009-10 budget. But there is also a bigger story with national implications. California has reached a tipping point. Its government made more promises than its economy can easily support. For years, state leaders papered over the contradiction with loans and modest changes. By overwhelming these expedients, the recession triggered an inevitable reckoning.

Here's the national lesson. There's a collision between high and rising demands for government services and the capacity of the economy to produce the income and tax revenue to pay for those demands. That's true of California, where poor immigrants and their children have increased pressures for more government services. It's also true of the nation, where an aging population raises Social Security and Medicare spending. California is leading the transformation of politics into a form of collective torture: pay more (higher taxes), get less (lower services).

...The presumption was that a dynamic economy would pay for expansive government. But California's relative economic performance has actually deteriorated. In the 1980s, the state's economy grew much faster than the national economy; annual growth averaged 5.1 percent vs. 3.1 percent nationally. In the present decade, the gap is smaller -- 2.9 percent versus 2.3 percent -- and much of the state's advantage reflects the unsustainable housing boom, of which California was the epicenter.

...So California is stretched between a precarious economy and a strong popular desire for government. The state's wrenching experience suggests that, as a nation, we should begin to pare back government's future commitments to avoid a similar fate. But California's experience also suggests we'll remain in denial, prisoners of wishful thinking, until the fateful reckoning arrives in the unimagined future."

THE WASHINGTON POST: California's Reckoning -- and Ours

Everything to Everyone!

Drama.

Words.

"Go ahead, shoot me. I like the status quo on health care in the United States. I've got health insurance and I don't give a damn about the 47 million suckers who don't. Obama and Congress must be stopped. No bill! I'm better off the way things are.

I'm with that woman who wrote the president complaining about "socialized medicine" and added: "Now keep your hands off my Medicare." That's the spirit!

Why should I be entitled to the same insurance that members of Congress get? Blue Dogs need a lot of medical attention to treat their blueness. I'm just a regular guy and definitely deserve less.

...I prefer the status quo, where the for-profit insurance companies suck at the teat of the federal government. Corporate welfare's what we've got, and it's a damn good system. Through a wonderful program called Medicare Advantage, the insurance companies receive hundreds of billions of dollars in fees to administer a program that the government is already running. Don't touch that baby. You'd be messing with the handiwork of some fine lobbyists.

...So tell your congressmen and senators when they're home for the summer recess that it's too soon to address this issue. We've only been debating it for 97 years, since Theodore Roosevelt put national health insurance in the Bull Moose Party platform of 1912. We've only had 745 congressional hearings on the subject (I made that number up, but it's got to be close). That's not enough! Let's study this problem more before we do anything about it.

Did I say "problem"? Who said there was a problem? Not me. I like the status quo."

NEWSWEEK: What’s Not to Like?

[I be saying] NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

While you be saying YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!