Roughly
nine hundred billion USD has been spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. This weekend the US Senate started debated extensive health care reform in the US that would theoretically extend medical coverage to all Americans.
The cost over ten years of said senate healthcare reform package, roughly eight hundred billion dollars.
And predictablythe same voices that squealed "AYE" for every penny sent off to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are now howling that the health care reform package under debate is a "budget buster".
Someone shoulda thought of that before voting in favor of bringing the receieved wisdom of the August American Enterprise Institute to the Sh'ia and the Sunni tribesmen of Baghdad.
Still, the antis scream on about that money being necessary t'was for National Security, they bleat.
Well so is affordable health care who the hell wants to be the best defended man in a long line leading into the Emergency Room anyway?
- posted by Elias @ 11:07 AM

 
Strange as it may seem...
Joanie Vennochi actually thinks there is a condition of moral equivalence between Sarah Palin and Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton.
To quote the old misanthrope, "what rubbish!"
Sarah Palin is a liar and an oafish demagogue, Hilary Clinton is lied about and the favorite topic of demagogues, especially the radio talk show variety, there would seem to be a bi-ig difference there.
Sarah Palin quit on being Governor of Alaska to cash in on conservative echo chamber circuit...Hilary Clinton left the US Senate to shape US Foreign Policy at the topmost level.
The list goes on, but it is akin to crushing a gnat with a jackhammer.
Well what of it?
Neither politician will ever be fairly assessed until we get past the syllabus of victimization so prevalent among today's punditariat.
Of course you could wait til the blue skies overhead crumbled before Joanie Vennochi ever gave up the casual victim-speak snarkage.

Labels: Hilary Clinton - Sarah Palin - Joan Vennochi

- posted by Elias @ 4:55 PM

 
Apropos of nothing but
some unscrupulous entertainment conglomerate could make a fortune selling a interactive video game built around a violent coup d' tat aimed at the current administration. Deeply dispossessed wingnuts would pay Big Bucks for something like this in the holiday season.
Just sayin' thass all.
- posted by Elias @ 8:38 PM

 
The Massachusetts Shuffle
Let me if'm ah kin get this straight:
Tim Cahill has doused himself with high grade kerosene and is looking to get shot out of a cannon and into the governor's office as an independent next year.
This means the Treasurer's office is wide open next year cue Steve Grossman who seems to have developed a definite taste for campaigning. Meanwhile un-named others are looking hard at this one and we haven't yet heard from the GOP on this one either, especially since it is a statewide office they have one before on a promise to keep the dems honest.
State Auditor Joe DeNucci has finally decided to jam on his old fishing cap and make for the nearest quiet dockside. The duffers in Southie seem to have a good thing goin' on down at the end of Drydock Avenue Joe, look into it, them boys recall your glory days at the olde Boston Garden. This is another office the GOP could possibly grab off if they could find someone sane, personable with some fundraising potential...Remember it is all about keeping an eye on the dems not screeching about Obama's birth certificate.
But then is the Massachustts GOP Ah'm tawkin' about.
Meanwhile which of the current senatorial democratic candidates d'ye think will parachute into either race? I'm thinking Pagliuca might be an interesting fit for Auditor or Treasurer (that is if we really want another inconstant Bain Capital alum in office).
Meanwhile IF Martha Coakley clears the board next month and IF she wins in January that means the AG's office will be filled by a vote of the State House of Representatives (Hooooo boy...this'll be good).
As of right now, Speaker DeLeo has signaled his disinterest in the sinecure (wise move on his part, the Attorney Generalship of the Commonwealth is a fast and reliable way to make career ending enemies)which means any number of House members could be in play right out to Sean Garballey or Charlie Murphy (do either of them have law degrees? Does it really matter in the enclosed Pellucidar-esque world of Beacon Hill??).
Of course, that precludes that the fix isn't already in for Secretary of State Billy Galvin (does he have a law degree? Has he ever served a writ, again this is Pellucidar who cares???). Which Means that IF Martha Coakley storms the redoubt and IF Martha Coakley wins in January and IF Billy Galvin is sent to the AG's office by the lege THEN the Secretary of State's office becomes vacant which can then only be filled in the interim by a vote of the State House of Representatives, who exactly is angling for this gig I cannot say. last I heard Cam Kerry was interested in the job but one doubts he has boots on the ground up on Beacon Hill. Still, if it was gonna be him, it'd dang near prove to the nation that all long last the Tall Guy was the new Boss of Bosses in the Commonwealth.
Oh and by the way, we have a closely matched Gubernatorial contest next year too, just in case all this other mishaugas gets fatiguing.
My point is, in the next six months two of the five statewide constitutional offices could change hands and possibly the rest shortly thereafter.
So much for tenure of office eh?
- posted by Elias @ 11:10 AM

 
Scot Lehigh takes opens up on Congressman Capuano
compares him to Robert Penn Warren's populist/authoritarian "Willy Stark" character from "All the King's Men".
Honestly, where was all this concern about fake populism when Scot's hero Mitt Romney was demagoguing it up on the campaign trail in 2006? Back when the Viceroy went into the South End and swore up and down he just luv-ved gays will all his heart? When Willard blustered about the cost and safety of the Big Dig and left it all for the AG to sort out?
Of all the neocon rubbish Scot has generated down thru the years, today's column stands out as a triumph of lowbrow hatchet work. He tried to do the same thing to Joe Kennedy this summer and now he proposes to cut up Capuano...sick demented and typical.
At the very least Mike Capuano is speaking up on behalf of the poor and middle class, the traditional losers in any recession....two groups about which Scot and Mitt could not care less.
- posted by Elias @ 6:52 AM

 
Note to Mary Matalin
(after having watched her on Larry King tonight fruitlessly defendng Sarah Palin), For Ghod's Sake woman, Give Up the Botox! Your poor face has all the plasticity of a block of New Hampshire granite. The only emotions you can convey these days is a sort of weird smug unctuousness, Stop the Madness!!!!

Labels: Mary Matalin - Larry King

- posted by Elias @ 9:02 PM

 
Lou Dobbs for President?
Time Magazine among others wonders if the fomer CNN yakker is considering a run for the White House.
The early line is, Lou would run as an independent and avoid the GOP primaries entirely.
Well, it is all speculation, personally, Humble Elias thinks Dobbs wouldn't get much traction out in the electorate with his ubiquitous political views buttressed by his ghastly xenophobia.
But the punditariat will fall for it hook line and sinker, they luu-uv center right independent candidacies and or third party uprisings of any kind. They are nice impotent fodder for slow news days during election years, and the fact that Dobbs is a former pundit himself is just the crowning touch.
So take this (whether Dobbs runs for office or not) as a good representative example of the sheer decadent narcissism that routine infects the topmost layers of the punditariat.
- posted by Elias @ 11:08 AM