It is 3 am do you know where your president is? Hillary Clintons latest ad(you can see it here)
Plays the fear card, the problem is the Republicans locked up the irrational fear crowd a long time ago. In fact for a many of us one of the big problems with republican politics is the idea that everyone should be afraid all the time. Running around scared leads to bad decisions like invading a a country that is no threat to anyone while at the same time ignoring real problems. The politics of fear is something that the republicans own and I say let them keep it.
The USDA is refusing to ban “downer” cows from the food supply:
Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer told Congress yesterday that he would not endorse an outright ban on “downer” cows entering the food supply or back stiffer penalties for regulatory violations by meat-processing plants in the wake of the largest beef recall in the nation’s history.
Appearing at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Schafer said the department is investigating why it missed the inhumane treatment of cattle at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif., including workers administering electric shocks and high-intensity water sprays to downer cows — those too sick or weak to stand without assistance.
This seems kind of strange, unless the numbers of downer cows are much larger than people in the business are willing to admit, why would it matter if a few cows are kept out of the food supply. Given the risk to the food supply it seems like a no-brainer to ban downer cows. Either the industry is incredibly petty and is willing to risk the nations health for a few extra dollars, or the problem is far more pervasive than the industry is willing to admit. In which case they know that if downer cows are taken out of the food supply they will lose a substantial sum of money.  In either case it seems like the USDA needs to crack down on the meat packing industry before they cause a national health crisis.
Kevin Drum sumarizes last night democratic debate as follows
Seriously, though, can someone please put a sock in Tim Russert? I didn’t even see the entire exchange, but his badgering of Obama on the Louis Farrakhan issue was pretty wretched. It was maybe legitimate to bring it up in the first place, but to keep at it well after Obama had made his position crystal clear was beyond the pale.
Nor did Hillary cover herself with glory on this question, with her inane “denounce” vs. “reject” comeback. Obama’s response — Fine, if it will make you happy, then I denounce and reject Farrakhan — was dexterous and smooth.
It seems like Hillary was trying to pile on, this is the same Hillary who has been complaining that the media treats her poorly. But when she has an opportunity to bully someone she is happy to do it, and happy to use the media when they benefit her. This attempt to have it both ways blunts her message or maybe even makes her look like a hypocrite. The sooner the Clinton campaign packs it in the better it will be for Democrats.
As the desperation of the the Clinton campaign intensifies the rhetoric gets more off the wall. Last night on Countdown with Kieth Olberman they had several sound bites from Hillary Clinton. In one of them she was being somewhat sarcastic and condescending towards Obama supporters, basically saying that Obama expects the skys to open up with goodwill and of course Hillary beiing old and wise knows better. In another soundbite she was chastising the Obama campaign for critiisizing her “mandated” health care plan and trying to claim that she was a victim of the “mean” Obama” crowd. All this against a backdrop of a photo that most people believe was distributed by the Clinton campaign showing Obama in tribal clothes. The photo seems to be an attempt to argue Obama is a Muslim.  Â
For me these sound bites and actions show much of the problem with the Clinton campaign. First, she is trying to argue that she is the exerpienced and properly cynical candidate, next she is trying to argue that she is the victim, which seems to contradict the idea that she is an experienced leader. Finally, she seems to be the one who is practicing the “dirty tricks”. Not once did she try to defend her health care plan and its use of mandates(which is defensible) and she seems to be on the wrong side of most other big issues. It is hard for her to argue that she is the person to get the US out of Iraq when she voted for the war and still seems to support it. It is hard for her to claim good judgement on foreign policy when she voted for the Kyl-lieberman amendment, so instead she keeps trying to get votes based on the idea that she is somehow more deserving that her opponent.
Hopefully if Hillary Clinton loses in Texas she will realize it is time to give up and let the Democratic party move foreward with a candidate that has a vision for America and not just a victim complex.
Looks like the millions or possibly billions of dollars spent on anti-depressants are probably wasted:
Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.
The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.
When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved – but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.
The only exception is in the most severely depressed patients, according to the authors – Prof Irving Kirsch from the department of psychology at Hull University and colleagues in the US and Canada. But that is probably because the placebo stopped working so well, they say, rather than the drugs having worked better.
Seems like the US health care system fails to focus on results and instead focuses on the best way to spend money and not solve the problem.
The entire article can be seen here
This is from a book written by Tucker Carlson Via Ezra Klien
During his first run for office, McCain learned that one of his opponents had tracked down his first wife, looking for dirt. According to a political consultant who worked for him at the time, McCain cornered the man at the next candidate’s forum. “I want you to know,” McCain said, “that campaign aside, politics aside, if you ever do something like that again — anything against a member of my family — I will personally beat the shit out of you.”
McCain is not a good guy or a straight talker, he seems like a lieing thug wannabe. The sad thing, he was the best of the republican field. Â
Mr McCain seems to be making the situation worse. I have always thought that if Bill Clinton had just admitted the Lewinski affair the entire thing would have been over in a matter of days. Maybe John McCain needs to admit whatever happened and move on.
Just hours after the Times’s story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. “No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC,” the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.
But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. “I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue,” McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. “He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint.”
The more time McCain spends trying to parse words, the worse this is going to get.
The entire story can be found here
I got this via mathew yglesias. Without the sex angle this story may not have got the play it deserves. In fact the enire thing is somewhat hard to follow. As near as I can tell John McCain went to bat for Paxson communcations after they threw a little money and perhaps a couple of other things his way.
After a brief period of Democratic dominance, McCain returned to become chairman of the committee in 2003 and 2004. During that period, he took crucial legislative action that saved Paxson Communications from a bill that would have, in the words of CEO Lowell “Bud†Paxson, finally ruined his company.
Even more ironically, McCain took this action for Paxson in spite of his long-standing position that television broadcasters had inappropriately used the transition to digital television (DTV) to benefit themselves financially at the expense of the American public.
McCain initially supported legislation that would have forced Paxson and handful of broadcasters – but not the great bulk of television stations – off the air by December 31, 2006. Bud Paxson himself personally testified about this bill with “fear and trepidation†at a hearing on September 8, 2004.
Two weeks later, McCain had reversed himself. He now supported legislation that would grant two-year reprieve for Paxson – and instead force all broadcasters to stop transmitting analog television by December 31, 2008. Paxson and his lobbyists, including Iseman, were working at this time for just such a change.
This seems like influence peddling on the part of John McCain, whether he was recieving payments in the form of cash or maybe little “special time” with a certain lobbiest. He changed his position after these people were “nice” to him. In fact Mr McCain was apparetely is very popular with certain groups:
According to information compiled by the Center for Public Integrity’s “Well Connected†Project on Telecommunications and Media, John McCain is the single largest recipient of campaign contribution by Ion Media Networks and its predecessor, Paxson Communications. McCain received $36,000 from the company and employees from 1997 to mid-year 20006. McCain’s donations edged out former Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., who received $27,000, and former Rep. W.J. “Billy†Tauzin, R-La., who received $22,500.
McCain old out for $36,000 and maybe tryst? Without the tryst part people probably would not have cared. Â Now, I have a feeling people are going to start caring about everything McCain has done over his 25+ years in Washington, and it seems like at least some of it may be offensive to the average voter.
While the Hillary Clinton campaign has made the Ohio and Texas contests on March 4 into their new firewall, they have only recently discovered the arcane rules of delegate selection in Texas, which could potentially mean that even a substantial popular win translates into only a slight edge in delegates.
The Washington Post reports that Hillary strategists learned in a closed-door meeting this month about the Texas contest, which splits delegates among the state Senate districts and also between the primary and a caucus held that night. It’s ultimately a commentary on their lack of planning for a race lasting after Super Tuesday — when they thought they’d have the race locked up — that they have only just now learned of delegate rules that were of long-standing public knowledge.
At this point you have to wonder how someone who has presided over one of the worst presidential campaigns in history, a campaign that did not even seem to understand voting rules in Texas, can still believe that she is ready to be president. Hillary Clinton should consider getting out of the race before she does further damage to her reputation.
How much of an asshole is this guy? Bernanke and Paulson are testifying before Congress, the former having just slashed 125 basis points off the Fed rate faster than any central banker in history…every week brings out the discovery of another body (UBS being the latest). As if they didn’t have enough to worry about:
And who are the nitwits handling other peoples’ money for a living, traveling or paying to hear Greenspan’s take on anything? They should all be fired first thing tomorrow!
(Reuters) – Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research)(PBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research), said Thursday that computers containing “important information” of oil and gas field research off the Brazilian coast were stolen. “There was a theft of equipment that contained important information for the company,” Petrobras confirmed by phone. “The event is under investigation.” The company said it has copies of the stolen data but did not specify the nature of the data.
…The subsalt cluster has aroused strong interest from the oil industry after Petrobras said, in late 2007, it had recoverable reserves at between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of light crude in the Tupi field and in-place reserves of up to 20 billion barrels. [ID:nN23604539]
(CNN) The objects were being transported by U.S. oilfield service company Halliburton Co. (HAL), the Web site said. The hardware contained confidential information on research that led to recent discoveries of massive new oil and gas fields in ultra-deep waters off the Brazilian coast, Terra said, without giving sources.
This seems like a classic he said, he said sort of thing, but police are usually pretty good about getting ID’s:
On a 911 call early Jan. 1, Seth Harris told Columbus police that Quinn was with a group at La Fogata Grill and that they were insulting gays outside the restaurant.
“There’s a group of football players, Brady Quinn from the Browns … and he’s trying to cause a fight,” Harris told the operator. “His friends are yelling at all of the gay people that are around here.”
Harris said he had a verbal exchange with Quinn.
In a statement released Wednesday through the Browns, Quinn said he had dinner on New Year’s Eve with his girlfriend and other couples but that nothing else happened.
“At no time that night was I involved in a verbal or physical altercation, nor did I have any interaction with the police,” Quinn said in the statement. “I want to be clear that I did not engage in any of the alleged conduct, nor did I make inappropriate comments to anyone.
“Any allegations to the contrary are either untrue or the result of misidentification.”
However, Columbus police said when they arrived Quinn was arguing with 32-year-old Jason Thompson.
It is too bad that football is not a year round sport, both because it would keep the players out of trouble and give us something to watch on TV
I wanted to link to this as it seems like a very smart comment about health care:
Health insurance is not like automobile insurance. You can mandate automobile insurance, and if people can’t afford it, they can take the bus. You can’t just “mandate’ health insurance. Either health care is a right that society provides, or it is not. It’s interesting how the system now works. As the system stands, drug addicts, diabetics who don’t comply with their regimens, and smokers who give themselves COPD can get care, as long as they either can afford to pay for insurance (pay for their sins by buying insurance and shifting the cost of their care to the rest of us) or are dirt poor. In fact, the poorer they are, the better the care. And the worse people take care of themselves, the better the care they get. You can get a heart transplant more easily than you can get a colonoscopy.
I just wanted to put this up as it is a great explanantion of the problems with the US health care system:
Relentless medical inflation has been attributed to many factors— the aging population, the proliferation of new technologies,poor diet and lack of exercise, the tendency of supply (physicians,hospitals, tests, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and noveltreatments) to generate its own demand, excessive litigationand defensive medicine, and tax-favored insurance coverage.
Here is a second opinion. Changing demographics and medicaltechnology pose a cost challenge for every nation’s system,but ours is the outlier. The extreme failure of the United Statesto contain medical costs results primarily from our unique,pervasive commercialization. The dominance of for-profit insuranceand pharmaceutical companies, a new wave of investor-owned specialtyhospitals, and profit-maximizing behavior even by nonprofitplayers raise costs and distort resource allocation. Profits,billing, marketing, and the gratuitous costs of private bureaucraciessiphon off $400 billion to $500 billion of the $2.1 trillionspent, but the more serious and less appreciated syndrome isthe set of perverse incentives produced by commercial dominanceof the system.
Markets are said to optimize efficiencies. But despite widespreadbelief that competition is the key to cost containment, medicine— with its third-party payers and its partly social mission— does not lend itself to market discipline. Why not?
The private insurance system’s main techniques for holding downcosts are practicing risk selection, limiting the services covered,constraining payments to providers, and shifting costs to patients.But given the system’s fragmentation and perverse incentives,much cost-effective care is squeezed out, resources are increasinglyallocated in response to profit opportunities rather than medicalneed, many attainable efficiencies are not achieved, unnecessarymedical care is provided for profit, administrative expensesare high, and enormous sums are squandered in efforts to gamethe system. The result is a blend of overtreatment and undertreatment— and escalating costs. Researchers calculate that betweenone fifth and one third of medical outlays do nothing to improvehealth.
Seems like most of the resources at at the Hillary Clinton campaign have gone into getting David Shuster fired and while that might be an admirable goal she seems to have forgotten to campaign. At least given todays results in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state and the US virgin Islands, where Obama won the caucuses and primary by large margins a little campaigning on the part of Hillary Clinton might have at least kept them close.Â
At the same time  Obama seems to be sharpening his message, at least the speech I heard today on CNN where he explained why he does not favor mandated health care(if you are too broke to pay for insurance, passing a law that says you have to have it is not going to help) and how he intends to help students pay for their college education($4000 dollar credit for every student,  paid back with community service). While people might disagree with the ideas coming out of the Obama camp, they are still discussing things that are much more relavent than the fate of David Shuster.  Â
Hillary is right, Shuster is an idiot, but getting him fired is not going to make anyones life better. On the other hand making college available to everyone and giving people access to health care, now that might improve the lives of many Americans.  The fact that the Clinton campaign doesn’t understand this, and no one in the campaign is trying to explain it to their candidate, is why the campaign seems to be going down the toilet.
Agricultural subsidies are supposed to help the “family farm” guess what that is not how it works.
Last year, The New York Times reported that more than half of the food aid purchased in recent years has gone to just four companies and their subsidiaries: Cargill, Bunge, Cal Western Packaging and Archer Daniels Midland. None of the four would comment on their relationship with Food for Peace, but to contract with a program that spent $1.87 billion last year must have its benefits
George Bush of all people is trying to make the aid program more efficient by allowing aid goups to purchaes the food closer to where the famine is occuring thus lowering transportation costs and getting the food to the effected area in a timely manner.
The article goes on to quote a congressman from one of the welfare recipient states:
Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the highest ranking Republican on the House Agriculture Committee, issued a statement this week questioning the logic of allowing America’s food aid to leave U.S. shores as cash.
“The purchases from U.S. farms benefit our economy,” he said, “as the expenditures circulate through the U.S. economy rather than the European economy or that of other major food exporting nations … I believe making this type of policy change carries the great risk of undercutting congressional support for food aid programs and thereby the ability to provide aid to those in need.”
In other words the only reason we care about people starving is that a few comapanies can make a buck off of it in the US. It seems that members of both parties loath welfare queens when they drive Cadillacs but when they drive tractors the same people stand in line to kiss their ass.
In an interview with a local news station in Maine, Bill Clinton admitted that he’d erred by over-zealously defending Hillary in the run-up to the South Carolina primary. Asked by a reporter if he regretted his perceived attacks on Obama, he replied…
Defending Hillary would have been an attempt to explain her support for the Iraq war, or explaining why she voted for Kyl-Leiberman or trying to defend any of the bad policies she has supported while in the senate. What Bill Clinton did was attack. Â Now he regrets it, because it makes it harder for his wife to play the victim card which at this point is the only card she has left to play. I have always been a fan of Bill Clinton and at this point I wish he would go away, I can only imagine how his non-fans are starting to see him.
The other thing inside my head that I didn’t expect was that as the results came in, I found myself sort of rooting for Hillary. Why? Buyer’s remorse? Rooting for the underdog? Guilt for having “betrayed” her by voting for Obama? A feeling that although I preferred Obama, I really didn’t want to see Hillary humiliated? I think the last one is it, though I really don’t know. The human mind is a devious little lump of protoplasm, isn’t it?
I think that might be what is keeping Hillary Clinton in the race, no Democrat wants to see her humiliated, and by rejecting her as the nominee, Democrats are in some ways agreeing with the Rush Limbaughs of the world. The best thing for Obama to do is make it clear that Hillary Clinton would have a place in his administration or hint that she would make a good vice president. This way the better candidate can win the nomination without without humiliating Hillary.
Also, writes the LA Times: “According to a bulletin recently posted on Time magazine’s blog, The Page, some senior staff for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign have begun working without pay to save money for the New York senator’s cash-crunched political effort. Those reportedly working without salary include campaign manager and longtime Clinton confidante Patti Solis Doyle.”
the Clinton campaign seems like it is circling the drain, this was a heavily favored candidate, who at this point cannot even raise enough money to pay staffers. It is not just that Hillary Clinton lacks funds what she is really missing is a record of accomplishment, or even a record of being on the right side of an issue. She had 7 years in the senate to accomplsh something or stand up for something. Instead she spent those 7 years enabling George Bush to start unneeded wars and run up huge deficits. Even if she had been a lone voice of reason given her high profile she could have been a big voice, but instead she took what she thought was the safe path.
The only reason I can see to support Hillary Clinton is that she has been the GOP punching bag for almost 20 years, but I think a safe senate seat is enough of a payback for that and the presidency should go to someone who deserves it.
Over 150 nations have signed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. It pains me that our great nation has not. But in the autumn of 2006, there was a chance to take a step in the right direction: Senate Amendment No. 4882, an amendment to a Pentagon appropriations bill that would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas.
Senator Obama of Illinois voted IN FAVOR of the ban.
Senator Clinton of New York voted AGAINST the ban.
I don’t see how anyone who claims to be a liberal or a progressive can support Hillary Clinton for president. In some ways it would be better to give Bush another four years than allow someone who while claiming to be a democrat supports and enables every mistake the Bush administration has made. Her judgement while in the senate has been abysmal, she is not ready to be president and she never will be.
Looks like McCain has sewn up the Republican nomination, it also looks like he might make Huckabee his running mate. If conservative blogs are to be believed in most ways McCain and Huckabee are more liberal than either Obama or Clinton. Of course if McCain wins say goodbye to Roe v. Wade and hello to a milatary draft.
On the Democratic side it seems like the winner by a slim margin was Obama. By keeping it close in the number of delagates awarded he is creating a situation where the nominatin will be decided by super delagates, which are basically all the elected officials in the democratic party. My sense is that most of the elected officials would rather run with Obama at the top of the ticket rather than Clinton. Then again I also thought the Patriots would trounce the Giants so my pronostication skills are somewhat lacking.
The time that passes is a frustratingly slow grind. No big plans or recipes, nor are there the usual assortments of imported drink, all replaced by laundry folding, floor cleaning and anything else I can direct my nervous energy towards until 6 o’clock finally rolls around. I don’t want to hear about the game or even think about it. My neighbor shares that he was able to wager on a -6 Pats/+18 Giants teaser…that makes it worse because then I start to think about how it’s come to this last day, and the perceived risk of that wager is so low…the WEEI crew has turned Patriots fan-dome into a neo-evangelical experience, with a victory today only the surest of sure things that there ever was or ever will be. You are damned for all eternity if the cocky swagger doesn’t appeal to you (unless you’re a player or a coach on the team of course), with doubt being the sin of eternity, never to be washed off, and never forgiven.
