It Was 235 Years Ago Today Dept: I suppose that the teaggers will claim this, too. Well, they can't have it. My father read it to me and I read it to my kids...
What I'm ListeningTo is a new feature on the Citizen K. sidebar: It features an album that lately has been prominent in the CK playlist. Click on the picture of the cover to go to the artist's web site or to read a review...
Just A Song: "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
Over at Back of Town, guest blogger Sam Jasper says that Treme gets it exactly right...
Photographer Dan Burkholder and The Color of Lossin New Orleans. Yes, these are photographs...
Trombone Shorty talks about Treme, his new album, and supafunk rock. He blows a mean horn, too (Thanks, Editilla):
Whatever the new health care law is, it ain't socialized medicine (alas). Saul Friedman explains exactly why that's the case...
El Yuma takes a class to NOLA Super Sunday and finds time to shoot great parade pictures. If you thought those were good, these are even better -- and there's video, too (thanks, Foxessa!)...
William Shakespeare: The greatest playwright in the history of the western world, or provincial clown?...
What do Guy Clark, Nancy Sinatra, Elvis, and Tony Joe White have in common?
I've watched this video about 137 times since I discovered it last Friday. The video is grainy, but the performance...Ladies and gentleman, Jorma Kaukonen and David Bromberg play "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning":
Today's guest blogger is Barbara O'Brien. Barbara blogs about health care reform at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, and AlterNet. She has been a panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC.
Many politicians and pundits warned us that the health care reform (HCR) legislation that just became law will destroy America. Government bureaucrats will take over health care decisions, we were told. The old and infirm would be hauled away by death panels. Everything about the way we receive our medical care will change, and change drastically, they said.
Medicare recipients have been frightened by stories that their benefits will be cut. Middle-age people are worried they will lose their jobs when the law’s dreaded regulations, or taxes, or maybe regulations with taxes, would destroy their employers’ businesses.
The truth is, very little will change for most people. If you were insured by employee benefits before HCR, you will be insured by exactly the same policy in exactly the same way after HCR. You will have access to the same doctors on the same terms. “Government bureaucrats” will no more be involved in your health care than they were before.
And the same is true of Medicare, which of course is a government program, although many of the people who opposed the HCR bill don’t seem to know that.
Here are the “cataclysmic” changes to health care that are now in effect, or which will go into effect within the next six months for people who are already in group insurance plans:
The law says you can’t lose your insurance coverage because you get sick. Before, in many states, if you were stricken with a severe illness such as mesothelioma cancer that would be expensive to treat, your insurer could use just about any excuse to cancel your coverage. That is over.
HCR has ended lifetime limits on coverage. As long as you are receiving medical care, your insurer pays the bills.
Your children can be covered on your existing policy until they are 26 years old.
In six months, insurers cannot refuse to insure people under the age of 19 because of “pre-existing conditions.” This provision will go into effect for everyone in 2014.
And if you are on Medicare, you will be asked to struggle with the following:You get a free annual checkup.
The co-pays and deductibles on many preventive care services are eliminated.If you are in the Medicare D “doughnut hole,” you will get a $250 rebate check in a few weeks. The hole itself will be closed gradually and will be gone by 2020.
But what about all those terrible regulations and taxes that are about to drive businesses out of business? Um, there really isn’t much to report. Oh, wait, here’s one — a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps will go into effect July 1. That’s about it.
However, beginning this year a tax credit will be available for some small businesses to help provide insurance coverage for employees.
Soon the politicians and pundits will start trying to frighten you about the provisions that will go into effect after this year. I assure you they are about as scary as the provisions that go into effect this year, but I will discuss them in a follow-up post...
A combination of teabag groups, Founding Partners, and Coalition Partners has proposed a Contract From America (signed by the American People, which -- the last time I checked -- includes me). A study of the contract's sponsors (the "Founding Partners") shows that, however the 'baggers see themselves, corporate interests and the Republican party establishment (with a dash of wingnut weirdness tossed into the mix) are co-opting them. Ironically, what the 'baggers need most to avoid being co-opted are experienced community organizers who know how to keep the interests of the organization front and center.
Here's a summary of nine of the Contract's "Founding Partners":
The Freedom Works board includes former Republican majority leader Dick Armey and Bush pere cabinet member James Burnely.
Liberty Central board chair Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, is a former associate of Armey who has worked for the Heritage Foundation and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.
The National Taxpayers Union board includes Republican Kenneth Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate. NTU president Duane Parde founded the corporate consulting firm Phoenix Strategies.
Fair Tax founder and chair Leo Linbeck is a construction executive and former director and chair of the Dallas Federal Reserve. Founder and finance chair Robert McNair owns the NFL Houston Texans and is an investor and utility executive.
The Next Right is "the place for wired activists to build a new Republican Party." It's founders include a McCain presidential campaign operative and a campaign director of the Republican National Committee.
The contract itself is a depressing thing, a Trojan Horse for corporate interests constructed around standard Republican fund raising boilerplate and the rotten timber of teabagger hot button issues. Lurking inside is the God of the Free Market, which is of course what got us into this economic morass. In essence, the contract proposes to solve the problem of corporate rapacity with the hair of the dog.
Reviewing the individual points makes one wonder just how naive and gullible these people are. It's pathetic, for example, that anyone actually expects Republicans to deliver a balanced budget amendment: They could have introduced one at any time between 2002 and 2006 and didn't. They didn't because a balanced budget would prevent them from paying off their corporate benefactors, and that's the last thing they want.
Then there's the requirement to establish in advance the constitutionality of any bill. Just how do they propose to do that and maintain an independent judicial branch? In our system -- the one established by the Founding Fathers (as distinct from the Founding Partners) -- federal judges determine constitutionality. Separating the judiciary from the legislative branch removes it from the political process, a bedrock principle of the Constitution. And yet, the same people who invoke the so-called original intent of the Constitution at every turn now want to eliminate its most fundamental tenet.
The list goes on. Of course, they want to end "runaway government spending" even though they hold sacred the biggest budget buster of all, the Department of Defense. Naturally, the Contract demands that Congress "defund, repeal, and replace" the Health Care Reform law with a reliance on the free market unrestricted by state boundaries. (I was under the impression that state sovereignty trumped all, but I guess not.) How all this will attain the same reforms as the new law when it never did in the past goes unexplained.
Read the rest if you dare. It's a motley collection of stale hot buttons all designed to manipulate right-win populism to return right-wing corporate interests to power. It's sad to think that it might actually work...
Roaches, roaches, roaches. We don't have them in Seattle, and T. doesn't believe me when I tell her that in the south they are uncontrollable. Maybe now she will!...
Banking executives told Congress yesterday that it would be "unfair" to reduce the mortgages of borrowers facing foreclosure. Of course, none of those bankers thought it in the least bit unfair for those very borrowers, who are also taxpayers, to bail out the chicanery and mismanagement of the banking and finance complex. And just what did they mean when they claimed that helping borrowers "could be harmful to consumers, investors and future mortgage market conditions"? I'm reminded of Monty Python: Making it worse? How could it be worse?
Look, I 'm not in any danger of losing my home, so I suppose that I'm one of those people to whom helping a few people out would be unfair. The thing is, though, it wouldn't be unfair: The value of my home has dropped because of the mortgage meltdown and it continues to drop every time there's bad news. But that doesn't matter to Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL):
The market needs to find its own footing free of government intervention and manipulation so we can revive our economy and get on with a full housing market recovery.
Sure, Spence, but what does "its own footing" mean? The footing my house value found when borrowers were protected by the Glass-Steagall Act is a lot different than the one its found in the tender embrace of Gramm-Leach-Blilely, which you sponsored after pocketing nearly $4,000,000 in "contributions" from the finance, insurance, and real estate businesses. See what I mean? A taxpayer might wonder just whose interests you have in mind.
The article goes on to state that, and I quote, "Republicans say the Obama administration should abandon the effort and focus on creating jobs." Of course, the Republicans have done their best to stymie and delay any piece of job legislation that has come before them...
An Oklahoma teabagger wants to establish a state militia to protect the state against the imprecations of the federal government. "Is it scary? It sure is," said Al Gerhart, the middle-aged 'bagger who would never actually have to shoulder a rifle, but when do states stop rolling over for the federal government?" Gerhart has a point: The federal government has already made it possible for 639,000 Oklahomans to obtain health insurance. Who knows what nefarious scheme it's even now plotting to force on the Sooner State. Oklahoma State Senator Randy Brogdon, a Republican candidate for governor whose Constitutional expertise derives from his success as "a business owner for over 30 years in the Air Conditioning industry" argues that the intent of the Second Amendment is to enable efforts like Gerhart's. Doesn't it occur to any of these morons that if a projected state militia actually engaged the United States Army, the results would be a bloody version of the Norman (OK) High Tigers taking on the New Orleans Saints?...
Army doctor Lt. Col. Terry Lakin has refused to accept deployment to Afghanistan on the grounds that his orders to provide care for wounded soldiers come from Barack Obama, who is not his legal Commander-in-Chief. According to Lt. Col. Lakin, Obama was not born in the United States and therefore blah, blah, blah. The Army -- and let's hope it does -- may court-martial Dakin. If you ask me, what he's doing is akin to desertion and it's certainly arrant insubordination. Dakin's arresting officer won a Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam; one can only imagine the contempt in which he holds the Lt. Col.
Am I missing something here? Lt. Col. Dakin can believe that Osama Bin Laden is Secretary of Defense for all I care. As a soldier, isn't he supposed to set this aside? No one has ordered him to strafe civilians or commit other war crimes. Barack Obama received 75,000,000 votes; the Chief Justice of the United States swore him into office as Dakin's Commander-in-Chief. The Army has plenty of legal resources, any of whom would have been glad to tell him that Barack Obama is legally President of the United States and that Dakin, whatever his misguided and nutso personal beliefs, was obliged to follow orders. Period. But, no: He chooses to associate the United States Army with the likes of this...
Newsweek'sHoward Fineman reports from the Southern Christian Republican Leadership Conference. Now, I didn't know this, but apparently southern Republicans believe that President Obama is a socialist and a traitor, and take great pride in being the Party of No. Attendance might have been greater except that some invitations apparently got lost in the mail: Fineman saw only two African-Americans and no Latinos or Asian-Americans. They must all live in an odd zip code or something...
We've known better when Tea Bagger activists claimed they weren't racist. We've seen it too often. "I'm not racist," they protest looking you straight in the eye. And in the next breath, "Ain't that monkey ever gonna get me ma drink?"...
He wasn't fired, he just wasn't renewed. And it wasn't over his criticism of the Army Corps of Engineers, it was...well, frankly, we don't have to tell you why. Now, please drop this so that we can get back to serious research and academic freedom (thanks, Editilla)...
News Flash:MSM discovers that many Republicans believe that the sky is green...
Earmark appropriations fall 27% under the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Axis of Evil. John Boner faults Democrats for not doing enough to halt a practice that Republicans invented...
When it comes to details, character, and atmosphere, "Do You Know What It Means," the initial episode of David Simon's Treme, wins the lottery. But if you want conflict, well, there are a lot of torn-up ticket stubs scattered across the streets and buildings of New Orleans: The tensest moment of the premiere occurs when Davis McAlary (Steve Zahn) helps himself to $400 bottle of wine at the restaurant owned by Janette Desautel (Kim Dickens of Deadwood and Friday Night Lights).
That being said, the music and acting are terrific, each scene is well-developed and smartly composed, and Treme seems to capture a truth about the feel of the city at its best -- an easy camaraderie fused by love for its music. New Orleans native Wendell Pierce's (The Wire) wry, restrained portrayal of a trombonist (Antoine Batiste) constantly short of cab fare reveals the not-so-glamorous truth of the life of a working musician. There's a great scene in which he leaves his "'bone" with a cabbie as collateral, dashes into a backyard barbecue to beg for a gig that night, then cadges an advance so that he can pay off the cabbie. Later, he joins the Treme Brass Band for a funeral parade; as they wait for the pallbearers to emerge from the church, Antoine gossips with other band members about the dead man and, in a wonderful touch, dons the official cap handed him at the last second.
Treme's wit is both dry ("What girl wouldn't be seduced by this?") and broad (something about a "cucumber up the archbishop's ass"). The interplay between Antoine and his ex-wife (Khandi Alexander) is so free and easy that you wonder why they're divorced until she reminds us: He's a musician. When the musicians -- and many of them are actual New Orleans musicians -- banter between sets and after gigs, we feel as if we're sitting at the bar with them.
Any show set in New Orleans "three months later" has to consider Katrina, and Treme's treatment of it can be problematic. Again, the imagery and details are impressive: Running the opening credits over various moldy walls is a stroke of genius. Wrecked houses and piles of debris appear as a cab drives past them. An excited and naked McAlary leaps out of bed at the sounds of the first second-line since Katrina. On the other hand, Creighton Bernette (John Goodman) is presented as an expert on the federal flood, but we're never told why. He makes all the right points, but bombastically. Toni Bernette (Melissa Leo) is a lawyer who tracks the missing, but her relationship to the other characters is obscure.
Clarke Peters (The Wire) as Albert Lambreaux, a Mardi Gras Indian trying to pull his life together, fares much better. Exiled to Houston, he wants desperately to return home but faces a daunting task not made easier by adult children who want him to give up. His home all but destroyed, he wearily turns his attention to an abandoned neighborhood bar that might be salvageable. His story resonates more deeply than that of the affluent Bernettes, who returned to the comforts of their Garden District home.
All in all, though, Treme promises to be a fascinating study of a city's response to an unprecedented catastrophe. I've read that one has to give Treme a chance; on the basis of the first episode, I see no reason not to...
Drinks Before Dinner points out that it took more than a brain-dead individual decision to omit any mention of slavery from the governor's proclamation celebrating Confederate History Month...
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