Red House

Another burning blues song from Hendrix.

Former military colleagues of Eric Massa are delighted by his performance before the American public ,saying "Now, you know what we had to put up with." Apparently, General Wes Clark brought him along as a protege and only yesterday was raving about him on his website as one of the strong supporters of repealing DADT and telling readers to support him. The link has since disppeared from Gen. Clark's website. The military types said he was always a flake.

The Grand Exorcist of the Vatican says that the devil is there and that the reports about violence and pedophilia are true. The 85-year old exorcist says there is black smoke in the rooms inhabited by the Devil and that there are Bishops who do not believe.

Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition, must have sensed the same thing in Georgia. After hinting he was going to run for congress to replace Rep. Linder, who is retiring, he suddenly announced this morning he would not run. The Devil here might be Kevin Spacey playing Jake Abramoff, Reed's former business partner.

The AP has a poll ,which will really thrill Republicans. Only 4% of the American people do not want to change our health care system. Yes, that's right, only 4% want to maintain the status quo. When it comes to voting the healthcare bill, 43% are for reconciliation, while 41% want Congress to scrap everything and start again. On other polls, which breaks out the actual provisions of the plan, large majorities back the provisions, and also back the public option, but oppose mandates. These run counter to the endless GOP talking points that a majority oppose health reform. By last week, nearly every talking head and Republican politician said 70% opposed. No one has yet come forth to show where this magical number came from.

Katheleen Sebelius challenged the insurance companies at their meeting at the Ritz-Carlton saying that even if healthcare reform fails,their current business model works against their interests and those of the American people. She called on the companies to stop the ad campaigns and the lobbying and to cut the premiums. It was a gutsy speech to a bunch of leeches. They have already approved several millions to run ads rationalizing their large rate hikes. They acknowledge they have a public relations problem. I guess so.

Nancy Pelosi said--and politicians in her position risk alot by spinning this--that she has the votes to pass healthcare. She says she is waiting for the CBO to score the modified Senate bill and once she has the scoring by end of business today she will get to work.

Karl Rove's book Courage and Convictions is all the talk among the media in the Beltway. Richard Viguerie, conservative master of the mass mailings, said that he never associated the two words in the title with Karl and that he never viewed Karl as a conservative , just a paid political operative. In all the e-mails and conservative underworld, I have heard nothing, not whispers--just crickets.

Glenn Greenwald's blog piece on Chief Justice Roberts' arrogance and the regal position of all our judges is worth reading.

A strange poll. This is from PPP, which are pretty reliable, has Marco Rubio leading Meek, the Democrat in Florida, 44 to 39. Pollster. com have Democrats back in the lead in Congress 45-43%, reversing their trend of the past few weeks.

The Chinese have issued a statement saying they will continue to back America's debt. The Chinese military, who were annoyed by our arms sales to Taiwan and the meeting with the Dalai Lama, wanted Beijing to retaliate against the Americans by refusing to buy any more treasuries.

Get ready for the big money dump from the stimulus plan. Roughly $200 billion mostly earmarked for infrastructure projects and alternative energy initiatives is about to be unleashed on the economy. There are about 25,500 projects, which should create another 900,000 jobs through the remainder of 2010. Weirdly, the largest number of jobs--250,000--will be created in the Southeast.

Republicans argue that targeted tax breaks for industries that must needed it could have created tens of millions of jobs. What they neglect to tell anyone is that the large private sector neglected to create a single job over ten years and only 26% of them paid any taxes whatsoever.

Maybe it's just Spring. But I feel things are turning around.

Lastly, Number 3 Willie Davis, the fleet-footed centerfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, has died at the age of 69. Davis, the team's all-time hit leader, was in his time the fastest runner in baseball and a stolen base threat. Buzzy Bavasi said of Willie," He could have been in the Hall of Fame. He had million dollar legs but a ten cent head." Don Newcombe, Dodger great, convinced the club in the 1990s to get medical assistance for him because he had been struggling. Davis, who had been prone to violence and paranoia, finally became a Buddhist and seemed to have overcome his demons.