Ice Station Tango

This Blog is on Hiatus

2009-07-04T00:36:00.008-05:00

Sadly, I do not have time to pull off all the things I want to do with my life and write this blog. I've missed only a handful of days over the last three and a half years and I need an extended break to work on some other projects that I've been neglecting. I hope to resume late this year or early next year.

I will continue to post music and musings rather frequently at The Walrus Speaks. I will post periodically at Les Enragés.org, The Unconventional Conventionist and at Tommy Christopher's Daily Dose.

I want to thank everyone who has read, written for, or commented on this blog over the last three and a half years. You guys rock. Thanks for everything. See you around.

Get Out The Cans!

2009-07-03T11:46:00.005-05:00

Station Nation, the Million Can March is in full swing. Bring a bag of nonperishable food by your local pantry or send them a donation. When you're done with that, jump on over to this post on Les Enragés.org and let the RevPhat know what you gave and where you gave it.

I live in the Baltimore area, so I went on the website of our local St. Vincent DePaul. They run a Beans and Bread program that feeds approximately 300 people per day. I sent them a $10 donation. Not sure what that breaks down to in cans, but hopefully it'll help someone out.

This is a picture of the place.

Kennedy-Dodd Health Care Plan Cheaper, Covers More People

2009-07-01T20:07:00.007-05:00

So we're going to go with the cheaper, more effective health care plan? That's just crazy enough to work.

Fester at Newshoggers explains why the Congressional Budget Office's new score of this version of the bill is going to be very helpful politically:

The real value of this CBO score with the complete HELP framework including the public option and the employer mandate is that it is a cudgel against the 'centrist' Democrats who don't want the public option overtly because it is 'too expensive' and potentially because it is a threat to major local employers and campaign contributors of regionally dominant health insurance providers. The public option is the best means of cost control and doing without it means a weaker bill for significantly more cost.

According to an AP report--and I do not trust the AP one little bit--this plan will fine people who do not get coverage.

Limbaugh: Obama Eyes Third Term, Made Jacko Die

2009-07-01T17:49:00.004-05:00

I’ve never been that interested in Rush Limbaugh as a source of my political angst. People with actual power were always way better at getting me fired up. With the last vestige of the Bush administration, the android Dick Cheney, slowly fading from public view, I can’t help but notice that Limbaugh has been really trying lately....

Waxman Recovering

2009-07-01T17:03:00.004-05:00

Several news outlets are reporting that Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman has been hospitalized. The most recent reports say that Waxman is feeling better. He's one of the few in Congress who has helped keep America standing over the last eight years. Since getting subpoena power in 2006, Waxman has investigated every kind of corruption virtually nonstop. With no one willing to bring consequential prosecutions against truly powerful Americans, all of this good work is simply for the record, but without Waxman and a few others in Congress we would not even have that.

Get well soon, Congressman.

Get Your Marx On

2009-07-01T12:52:00.005-05:00

Marxism 2009, a festival of living and breathing people who want better conditions for the world's working class, starts tomorrow in London and runs through Monday.

The website Resistance MP3 has recordings of American historian Howard Zinn, Black Panther Party's David Hilliard, prominent historian, novelist, journalist and filmmaker Tariq Ali, Former Guantanamo prisoner Moazzam Begg and dozens of other speakers from Marxism 2008 and all previous Marxisms going back to 2002. I do not consider myself a pure Marxist, but over the last several years I have listened to dozens of events podcast from the festival and a lot of the ideas are quite worthwhile. One of these years I'll even attend the thing in person.

Also, the Communist Manifesto is really worth rereading. The recent global economic collapse has Karl Marx looking like a prophet.

John Cornyn Rewrites the History of 2009

2009-06-30T18:48:00.004-05:00

Republican Senator John Cornyn, who chairs the NRSC, had this to say in the wake of Al Franken's victory today (ht: Kurtz):

The implications of this Senate race are particularly significant because the Democrats will now have 60 votes in the Senate. With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over. With just 59 votes, Senate Democrats in recent months have passed trillion-dollar spending bills, driven up America's debt, made every American taxpayer a shareholder in the auto industry and now want Washington to takeover America's health care system. It's troubling to think about what they might now accomplish with 60 votes.

Just five months ago when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama and his horde of 58 Democratic Senators climbed out of the mouth of hell and came into a land called America. In this utopia that was January 2009 America, the auto industry was thriving, there was no national debt and no one had ever seen a budget defecit. The land was at peace and everyone who needed health care was quickly attended to without fear of massive personal debt.

Look what they've done.

And now they have a comedy writer with them. The horror.

Global Defense Spending Reaches Record High

2009-06-30T16:52:00.000-05:00

In case you weren't depressed today, know this: worldwide defense spending hit $1.46 trillion in 2008, a new record. Since 1999, total spending is up 45 percent.

Check out how American defense spending compares to the rest of the top ten:

1. USA $607bn
2. China $84.9bn
3. France $65.74bn
4. UK $65.35bn
5. Russia $58.6bn
6. Germany $46.87bn
7. Japan $46.38bn
8. Italy $40.69bn
9. Saudi Arabia $38.2bn
10. India $30.0bn

We outspend the other nine countries on that list by $130 billion.

Insurgency Expert David Kilcullen on the Colbert Report

2009-06-29T10:49:00.000-05:00

Stephen Colbert recently spoke to military adviser David Kilcullen about Iraq.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

2009-06-28T23:42:00.002-05:00

Sometimes the image says it all (h/t Dependable Renegade):

Picture from REUTERS/Ed Reinke.

The Health Care Debate Is Going to Put Me in the Hospital

2009-06-28T13:03:00.000-05:00

By the time a health care reform bill finally makes it to President Obama's desk in October, I'm going to need a therapist. I'm feeling uneasy. I have no confidence in the Democratic Party to accomplish anything. The fact that all interested parties have basically given up on the possibility of a single payer system is enough to make the process seem like another round of special interest roulette where the American people get screwed, Congress gets their campaigns financed and a handful of multinational corporations get all of our money and most of the rest of us die poor and in excruciating pain.

The status quo, which health care corporations are dumping tons of money into saving, is not just ineffective in that so many of us are uninsured, but it is also generates a great deal of fraud, unfairness and immorality. Swimming Freestyle blogger Jay McDonough writes, "A recent investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations found, in the last five years, WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled coverage for more than 20,000 people to avoid paying more than $300M in claims." We don't just need reform, we need the cops.

Even one of the beneficiaries of the stupefying wealth of the industry, former vice president for corporate communications at health insurance giant Cigna, Wendell Potter, motivated by his disgust at the wealth he, his company and his industry gained at the expense of his fellow Americans' health, gave devastating testimony (video) about the industry's behavior before the Senate Commerce Committee.

Here's a bit of Potter's testimony (h/t Jamie Court):

I know from personal experience that members of Congress and the public have good reason to question the honesty and trustworthiness of the insurance industry. Insurers make promises they have no intention of keeping, they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and they make it nearly impossible to understand -- or even to obtain -- information we need. As you hold hearings and discuss legislative proposals over the coming weeks, I encourage you to look very closely at the role for-profit insurance companies play in making our health care system both the most expensive and one of the most dysfunctional in the world.

(full transcript here)

Despite the obvious fact that this country is crying out for coverage, too many of our legislators are trying as hard as they can to ignore the writing on the wall. The lengths to which some of our representatives are willing to go in order to preserve this unnecessary middle-man, this corporate interloper standing between us and our doctors smack of desperation.

One of the most transparent ruses being floated by members of Congress who are in bed with the health care industry is the "trigger," meaning that if the insurance industry doesn't cut costs by some preordained amount after a certain number of years, a public option will go into effect. This is simply a way for the insurance companies to buy time in hopes of getting a more friendly political playing field between now and the time the trigger goes into place, which is likely to be never because the language will be so vaguely written that the companies will be able to sue their way out of complying anyway.

In what must be a brilliant strategy by Barack Obama, John Kerry--who, as we recall from many prior misadventures, has the reverse Midas touch--is now proposing legislation that would trigger a public option in.... get this... ten years! Clearly Obama is making Kerry the face man for the trigger option so that it will die the sad, fiery death of the Kerry/Edwards campaign.

Between now and October there's a very good chance that the Democrats will have managed to seat Al Franken in the Senate. That's important because there's growing consensus that with 60 Senators the White House will be able to craft the best possible reform package in conference after the House and the Senate pass some version of a reform bill.

Even so, for the reasons stated above, waiting until the last minute to watch the White House and progressives in Congress try to pull out the big win gives reform advocates the willies. And my health care provider does not cover the willies. Well, my health care provider doesn't exist, but if it did exist, I highly doubt it would cover the willies or even a case of full blown heebie jeebies.

When Global Warming Isn't a Hoax, Blame Georgia Representative Paul Broun

2009-06-27T20:10:00.005-05:00

Get a load of this crap:

The latest government report on the matter is reviewed here. The global warming denier movement, however, is alive and kicking. Helping to fuel that nonsense is irresponsible reporting by none other than CBS which ran this report on a "suppressed" report at the EPA that "questions global warming". Holy shit!!! Except, Gavin at Real Climate explains that the people responsible for the report are not climate scientists and their assessments are based on old debunked denier talking points.

LA Times Jefferson Bible Story Resurfaces On Digg

2009-06-27T12:07:00.004-05:00

Last July the LA Times published a primer on Thomas Jefferson's religious beliefs, focused on his own version of the New Testament, known as the Jefferson Bible. I love how these old stories often wind up on Digg months and years after they're written.

The founders' religious beliefs have become a huge matter for debate between religious conservatives and secular progressives. In some ways this battle over the favor of these dead men is one way to keep the struggle between theocratic and secular forces going, no matter what the history actually says.

The Prolific Bush Justice Department Prosecuted 600 Elected Officials, 85 Percent Were Democrats

2009-06-26T22:54:00.002-05:00

From David Swanson's Blog:

The Bush-Cheney-Rove Justice Department prosecuted 600 elected officials plus 2,500 collateral cases (children, elderly parents, children of defense lawyers, etc), and 85 percent of the officials were Democrats. And -- this is something the filmmaker came to understand after producing this film -- most of the rest were moderate Republicans, not Federalist Society Republicans.

The prosecutions were concentrated in presidential election swing states, as were the U.S. attorney firings.

The cases overwhelmingly -- almost all of them -- went to the small number of judges who had been appointed by George W. Bush.

All the cases that resulted in short prison terms included probation periods until after the next election.

Top fundraisers and staff of presidential candidates Clinton, Edwards, and Obama were indicted. [...]

[I]gnore the bit where he says we shouldn't prosecute the people who did this. If we do not, we can kiss any sort of democracy goodbye.

They'll Be Finding Bush Administration Scandals Long After We're All Dead

2009-06-25T19:06:00.004-05:00

The Hill's Murray Waas has uncovered another major Bush administration scandal. Just in case the other hundred and twenty-seven of them weren't enough for you.

This one involves the investigation of former Republican Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona. In the fall of 2006, the Justice Department granted a U.S. attorney permission to wiretap Renzi's phone. The next day an inaccurate characterization of the investigation was leaked to the press, in what, according to "Career federal law enforcement officials who worked directly on a probe" was a ploy by senior Bush administration political appointees to tip off Renzi about the wiretap thereby helping him to get re-elected. The inaccurate leak suggested that the investigation of Renzi was far less serious than it actually had been.

Renzi was eventually indicted and will go on trial September 22, on charges that include public corruption, extortion, insurance fraud and racketeering.

Neil Rogers Nominated for Radio Hall of Fame

2009-06-25T13:30:00.003-05:00

Just three days after being bought out of his contract by Miami radio station WQAM and retiring, South Florida radio legend Neil Rogers has been nominated for the radio hall of fame. Cast your vote in four categories here.

Doctor Rescued From Antarctic In 1999 Dies

2009-06-25T11:12:00.001-05:00

One reason I dropped the pretense that this blog is being written from the South Pole (I write from Baltimore and I cry when it drops below 30 degrees) is because there are actually people living and working in the extreme Antarctic environment. These people are truly hardcore. I wouldn't last six minutes down there.

Today, I saw the story of Jerri Nielsen FitzGerald, a doctor at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, who, in 1999, found a lump in her breast. Since she was the only doctor at the station and the weather was too extreme for an evacuation, she performed a biopsy on herself with the help of staff. She was finally flown out that October when the temperature at the pole was 58 degrees below zero. Sadly, FitzGerald's cancer returned in 2005. She died Tuesday at the age of 57.

This is where she worked:

Just to Clear Up Any Lingering Confusion

2009-06-24T22:17:00.004-05:00

One of the cable news channels accidentally indicated that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is a Democrat.

He's not.

CORRECTION: Earlier in this post I indicated that this was an accident. It was not. It was part of an obvious pattern to smear and slander the Democratic Party. My mistake.

UPDATE: Sam Stein reminds us about when Mark Foley was a Democrat. Also, a couple minutes of Googling uncovers some other recent "accidents". In 2007, they identified Republican NYC Councilman James Oddo as a Democrat after a foreign prankster embarrassed him. In 2006, as they showed polling on the Rhode Island Senate race, they reversed the party affiliation of Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, who was way ahead, and Republican Lincoln Chafee. In the heat of the 2008 Republican primary when he was not Fox's candidate of choice, even John McCain was wrongly identified.

South Florida Liberal Talk Host Neil Rogers Retires

2009-06-23T20:10:00.006-05:00

Neil Rogers retired from his show on Miami's WQAM on Monday. This came as a bit of a shock to his fans who were expecting Rogers to retire at the end of his current contract with the station that was set to expire in 2013. Rogers has been at war with QAM's management for many years. Lately things have been getting more heated between station manager Joe Bell and Rogers, culminating in the firing of the show's long time producer and substitute host Jorge Rodriguez.

I'll miss the show quite a bit. Not only was he the best talk host in radio, he was a much needed liberal voice in a market deeply vulnerable to propaganda. To say he handed Florida to Obama in 2008 is overstating it, but Rogers was the first person in the media to predict Barack Obama would become president. His influential voice ferociously advocating for Obama and against the grave-robbing neocons for more than 18 months on what was consistently the most highly rated talk show in Miami helped the cause big time.

Neil's legacy extends far beyond that. In the days after Shock and Awe--long before the Downing Street memo was well know, long before we knew there would be no WMD found in Iraq, long before the American body count hit a thousand--Neil was denouncing the invasion and calling it another Vietnam. When hostile callers mocked him with polls that said over seventy-percent of the American people supported the war, Rogers bellowed, "I wouldn't care if I was the only schmuck in America that thought it was wrong! It's freaking wrong!" He spent much of the rest of the Bush administration passionately reading great anti-war and anti-Bush op-eds on the air from the likes of Cenk Uygur, Greg Palast, Doug Thompson and many others. He also posted the stories on his website.

In the seventies Rogers came out on the air. For the next three decades Rogers never swerved from his identity as an openly gay man, and most of his audience learned to be comfortable with his orientation at a time when most of the country was still openly hostile to homosexuality.

The fact that the people running WQAM pushed him into retirement speaks volumes about what radio in Miami and radio in America has become. When Rogers did not pick up his microphone on Tuesday, it was our loss, not his.

Meghan McCain v. Paul Begala: Pwnership or Kneejerk Nuking? You Decide

2009-06-22T21:46:00.003-05:00

I like Paul Begala a lot. During the election his analysis was relatively solid. When he stood up to the Bob Novaks or Bill O'Reillys of the world, he would almost always clearly made the fools across the table from him look like fools. But using the same WWE-style rhetoric on Meghan McCain, no matter how annoying her play of the I'm-young-and-know-so-little card, seems like a mistake by Begala. I would much rather hear him take on a more patient tone and use a strategy designed to let McCain explore what it is she's trying to say. She's not intellectually dishonest, not yet anyway, and that deserves... something. It just feels like Begala missed a chance at a bigger moment here.

Tommy Christopher and Betty Cracker also posted about the exchange.

I'm Going To Title This Post The Same Way I Titled The Post I Did About This Informantion in 2006--Did You Get the Memo about the TPS Reports?

2009-06-22T20:08:00.005-05:00

A memo detailing a January 2003 meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is drawing attention in Great Britain, where they might give a shit about launching illegal wars that have genocidal consequences. This will not be a big deal here, where we don't. Also, I blogged about this bullshit in 2006, when Keith Olbermann and the British Press brought it up in the first place.

This memo is known as the Manning Memo. The meeting in question took place two months before Shock and Awe. In the is meeting Bush and Blair were discussing ways to engage Iraq if the UN wouldn't pass a resolution legalizing the invasion. Bush suggested that the US would "fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". If Saddam fired at the planes this would provide all the legal pretext Bush would need to invade. Then Bush would find a way to lock up them Duke Boys.

During the meeting Bush made it clear that even without a second UN resolution, the US was going in. Bush even said that he knew the start date of the war. Blair said he was "solidly with the president".

Robert Reich Lays Out Plan to Save Health Care Reform

2009-06-21T19:50:00.004-05:00

Blogging on TPM, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich laid out the things President Obama needs to do to save health care reform, which has taken on water in Congress despite having stacked approval ratings. It's a solid message from someone the president listens to, but it's not anything that bloggers haven't been sceaming out their spleens about for quite some time now.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman warns the moderate Democrats are a danger to health care reform. Again, we know. But it is good to hear people the media and the president listen to raise the alarm on this issue.

They Hired Who!?

2009-06-20T22:58:00.000-05:00

I'm beginning to think that I dreamed the entire 2008 election. Panicky Democratic Senators are bowing down before their Republican counterparts like it's fucking 2002. Every time I turn on Sunday television I see Newt Gingrich. What part of the word mandate do people in DC not understand? Bush won the 2004 election (I'm playing along) by 2.4% of the popular vote and the first words out of his mouth were, "Suck it bitches, MANDATE!" Obama kicked McCain's ass and every time he opens his mouth some scumbag from the last administration gets up, acts like he or she has a shred of credibility, then trashes whatever change Obama proposed. Instead of laughing their asses off, the media hires these people and listens to them. If the Roman Empire had Fox News they wouldn't have needed Huns.

Even the Washington Post is Republican Party-lining it like it's the eve of Shock and Awe. On Thursday, they fired Dan Froomkin. One day later, who do they hire? Droolie McCombsucker--Paul Wolfowitz. How the fuck is this possible? This jackass was one of the architects of the Iraq War. How did that work out? How does that line pop on a resume? And does anyone recall Wolfowitz being forced out of his deliciously evil job at the World Bank in the ugliest manner possible? Christ, Washington Post, why didn't you just hire Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales too and be done with it?

Stephen, get me the Dead-to-me-board, we're blowing past Notice on this one.

John Hodgman and President Obama at Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner

2009-06-20T16:04:00.000-05:00

John Hodgman follows the president at the Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner.

Here's a look at President Obama's performance:

Senator Baucus, Get Your Campaign Money From Some Other Industry and Give the People a Public Option for Health Care

2009-06-20T13:54:00.002-05:00

Baucus gets more money from the health and insurance industry than any other member of Congress. He should resign for putting his campaign ahead of the American people on the most important issue the country faces.

Call his office and let him hear you: (202) 224-2651.