Saturday Rants

The repression has been in full force this morning. If you want to see a protester die before your very eyes,Nico at www.huffingtonpost.com has posted an Iranian woman shot and dying. Mousavi has announced he is ready for martyrdom. And the Iranian regime claims a suicide bomber has blown himself up at the Khomenini memorial but curiously there is no evidence of this. Christiane Amapour claims the MEK engaged in the attack but the last time we heard this the Iranian regime blew up one of the oldest mosques themselves and blamed the group for it.

While important things are happening around the world, Joseph Farah of www.wnd.com posts the very important investigative report that demonstrates that Barack Obama had at the age of 11 a relationship with the SDS and Bill Ayres through a Unitarian church in Hawaii. Some of us remember in the anti-Vietnam war days the Unitarians were hosts to many anti-war activities,including draft counseling. But then again--maybe Farah meant Obama knew Lew Ayres. The last known photo of Barack Obama at 11 showed him body-surfing with his grandfather. Maybe it was his grandfather who had the relationship.

Farah also brags about how he conned $75,000 from unsuspecting donors to purchase billboards asking "Where is your birth certificate?" Why ,I ask ,isn't the RICO act used against this and the legal cases brought on the whole eligibility issue? This is a money making venture--pure and simple. If we even go further, why not crack down on the NRA and others who claim Obama is going to take away their guns? We all know and as gun lobbyists have been telling us for years that this is all about making Wayne La Pierre more money. I even think Bobby Rush is on the NRA payroll to introduce legislation against assault rifles just to gin up the money-making machine. There is even less sentiment for gun-control legislation than at any time since the 1990s. The only ones profiting by this are gun manufacturers, the NRA and ammunition people.

Senator Ensign of Nevada , a member of the Christian group Promise Keepers, didn't keep his promise when he had an affair with the wife of a campaign worker. It seems this has only come forward because the couple had problems with their mortgage and wanted to hit up the Senator for some loot. Senator Ensign is a roommate with Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who is also a Promise Keeper, and who knew about the affair for the past 18 months. It seems Coburn, one of Obama's best friends (go figure), believes his friend should be forgiven. Unfortunately, the episode re-raised the issue of Senator Diaper Dan Vitters and his escapes with the D.C. madam. It seems he may face a serious Democratic challenge and also a primary challenge by porno star Stormy Dawn.

Does anyone care about Letterman's jokes about Sarah Palin? It wasn't in bad taste--it was just the joke didn't work. To understand, you had to be aware of Bristol Palin's sexual habits and Yankee's Alex Rodriquez sexual appetites. And the timing didn't work. Forget about Palin's complaint it was about her daughter named Willow. The Freepers managed to whip up a crowd of 20 demanding Letterman be fired. And Cindy McCain--after sending photos of Navy beefcake exrcising on her beach--twittered that Letterman had gone too far. But, as we do know, the road to the White House ran through Letterman's studio and McCain's snubbing him cost him Indiana.

Has anyone caught the House hearings on health insurance? There is something called rescessions (?), which means that a health insurance company can negate a policy for certain types of illnesses. In the hearings, health insurance companies said they had a logrithm they use to determine this issue--even though the committee couldn't get them to submit the formula. It seems there are some 1,500 to 2,000 illnesses, which trigger insurances being cancelled. From what I heard, these included breast cancer, ovarian cancer and brain cancer. This means that if the patient starts treatment for these illnesses health insurance companies are likely to stop coverage, sticking the person with the full bill. Any wonder why people say all of us are a single illness away from bankruptcy?

The Republicans unveiled their exciting health insurance plan this week. It was the same idea as their stimulus plan--four pages with no numbers. They could not answer what their plans were for insuring the 50+ million uninsured Americans. I am increasingly getting the idea that Republicans no longer have any sense of the general welfare or the public good.

But the Democrats are only marginally acting any better. The whole health reform plan is now looking to be a new TARP program for the health care industry so that it doesn't go the way of GM. Mandatory purchase of health insurance for another 50 million people--that's good business. Senator Baucus, who is bought and paid for by the insurance companies, and Tom Dashcle basically said a public option is off the table. My suggestion to all congresscritters who feel this way is to voluntarily give up their own public option plans and pay for private insurance themselves. If you check with any federal employee, the so-called public option is simply a menu of private choices you can choose from and that choice as well as the large pool of employees force private insurers to be competitive. Hardly a revolutionary concept.

People are beginning to show concerns about the government deficits and this is beginning to slow support for health care reform. The $11 trillion of deficits left over from the Bush Administration and the few trillion from the Obama programs damper any enthusiasm for more dramatic changes in the economic situation and any new government programs. Senator McCain was already screaming about $1 trillion being spent for health reform over the next 10 years--a number easily accomodated by cuts in the Defense budget. Also, if we hadn't invaded Iraq we would have a national health care system--think about about.

But the deficits pose other types of problems--how to keep selling U.S. Treasuries to foreign markets, particularly the Chinese. Someone writing in the Daily Beast wrote that Obama should take the initiative and submit legislation that says that when unemployment dips below 5%,about half where it is now, then the U.S. could not have a deficit more than 3% of GDP, which is said to be acceptable. If the debt level goes above this, then it would take 60 votes in the Senate to override this. It's sort of like a modified Gramm-Rudman, where you either have to cut programs or raise revenues, which we used to call taxes. Since we need deficit spending now to try and mount some economic recovery, it's not realistic to address now and the Republicans will try to run with this even though they know in their heart of hearts it doesn't make any immediate sense. Obama could simply take this off the table by urging such a bill now before other initiatives are dragged under by this public concern.

My last thought in my rantings is this: After seeing the handsome men and beautiful women during this last week demonstrating in Iran, could anyone really believe the United States could fight a war against them?