Transcendentobserver's Comments (59)

“Stern: It is time for a reality check. You assume that the "(D)" behind senators name obligates an individual senator to lockstep party loyalty. The wavering senators upon whom a filibuster break is dependent represent overwhelming GOP dominated states. As Clinton learned to his dismay in the mid '90's voters in even marginally balanced districts voted Dems out of legislative, executive, and even judicial control of government for nearly a generation. That skilled leadership by Democratic congressional leaders have brought the legislative process to the present point on one of the very issues which destroyed Democratic dominance for a decade (another being gays in the military) is no less than astounding to liberals who observed civic polity over the last generation. Understand please that the senators in GOP dominated states do so at their political peril, and their defeat in the next electoral cycles could easily and likely destroy the fragile super majority Dems now enjoy.”

“Sorry Leopold: You are dead wrong on this. Inasmuch as elaborate and expensive options are included in a health plan negotiated with employer groups and or/professional associations, the premiums for such benefits are deductible from taxes and thereby subsidized by the nation at large. The standard level of health care services for the vast majority of public programs should be the standard benefit standard for public benefit. Such "cadillac" services while certainly justly available to those who desire them, but subsidized through tax deduction, whether or not tied to reform?? Elimination of such subsidies should be fiscal policy in any event!”

“Not entirely true. Unlike the Democratic leadership, Congressional Republicans are led by the lowest common denominators of their sad party. The few responsible senators and congressmen so understandably fear the wrath of the lunatic fringe in challenging such tactics--some facing primary challenges in primaries and caucuses by the wingnuts--that they are forced to display their disdain more subtly. Sen. Hatch from Utah (acknowledged by Pres. Obama as responsible for passage of health care for children and moving speaker at Kennedy' s funeral) is vociferously condemned by the right wing of his party in super conservative Utah, and his senior colleague, Sen. Bennett, is being challenged for an inadequate but reasonable healthcare reform alternative he jointly filed with Sen. Wyden (D) by his right wing opponent for the GOP nomination. He is also taken to task for joining with 4 other Republicans in a standing ovation to Pres. Obama at his healthcare speech to Congress.”

“Ms. Huffington: Some historical evidence suggests that Sen. Kennedy's untimely death may not only soften the mindless rhetoric of the GOP mindset. As acknowledged by LBJ, the passage of Medicare (and paradoxically, Medicaid at the insistence of the AMA) as well as other components of the War on Poverty (which was a JFK initiative) would have been much more difficult or perhaps impossible given the GOP and "Dixiecrat" contemporaneous opposition save for the abiding national remorse over the Kennedy assassination. Significantly, the core assumptions of Medicare have been virtually sacrosanct since its implementation.”

“From all objective evidence, Mr. Harris, Pres. Obama and the vast majority of thinking people of most political stripes in America "get" the Jews. What is not evident, however, is how few American Jews and Israelis of all political persuasions "get" the Palestinians whose historical territorial homeland claims, empirically logical, and human rights substantive claims are subordinate to rationalization based upon theology and mythology.”

“Let's not be quite so effusive in praise. Conviction for criminal conduct requires proof beyond reasonable doubt. Jackson did not do quite so well in civil liability wherein judgment requires proof by preponderance of evidence. Confronted by alleged victims in civil, his victims were well compensated in huge if "sealed" settlements.”

“Point taken! The more progressive physicians [Oxymoron to be sure when the AMA's collective reactionary politics define its public position in opposition to Medicare general coverage!] pressed for Title 19 (Medicaid) to localize in the several states decisions to deliver medical services to the "indigent" where the power of the organization was more determinative both as to participation and compensation, a compromise necessary for enactment in 1965 of the Medicare program. Predictably the localization of the individual states as "deciders" led to the inevitable disparity in healthcare delivery, its compensatory levels and led far more than Medicare to the present economic crisis. Medicare actuarial and administrative costs are easily managed. Medicaid and the ridiculous diffusion of private insurers are the primary cause of the present crisis.”

“Just which existential problems Mr. Shearer on the nation's--nay global--exponential span of existential problems should be ignored or respective associative priorities subordinated to New Orleans which comprises .00167 of the population, yet has since Katrina been by far the largest per capita beneficiary of Federal largesse?”

“Excellent and eloquent statement of principle; however, unfortunately the Brandeis citation was from a dissenting opinion, suggesting obviously that the issues we confront today are core and repetitive and confront a contemporary reality: With a NeoCon floating majority frequently reasserting itself in Supreme Court majority opinions today, chances are that such a reasoned and self evident position would again be a minority opinion.

Thanks a lot Sen. Spector for your recent support of the conservatives on the Court....R­edemption is still possible. Let's pray that such wisdom is not mired in a dissent when the issue is revisited!”

“The seat of the pants' analysis is way wide of the mark. For the record, public v. private actions as the terms relate to confiscation of vessels and crew on the high seas. is not the delineation you describe. The US Constitution grants to Congress authority to "grant letters of marque and reprisal" to private ships and crews; however, such actions are considered acts of war against enemies and part of a nation's strategy in war against declared enemy nations. The incentive to "privateers" under historic international law is the right to share the "prize" i.e. ship and cargo and even ransom the officers (the seamen were often impressed into the enemy's navy--interestingly part of the rationale for the War of 1812). Piracy, on the other hand, has been punished (traditionally by hanging) when the seizure of foreign vessels did not have the sanction of authority in the form of marque and reprisal.”

“This blog reduces hypothetical asset toxicity to a two-dimensional assumption that his undefined "toxic" asset has no or de minimus value; however, the substantial proportion of the toxic assets are in the form of "mortgage backed securities" characteristically bundled with similar first mortgages into a collective unit. Caught in an upward spiral of interest rates driven by ARM incremental interest, the value of the collective equity value declines in juxtaposition to contemporary market value of inflated realty valuations. Inasmuch as a decrease in interest rates, whether mandated by law or regulation or voluntary by agreement between lender and borrower will decrease the monthly debt service through corresponding increased credit to principal and decreased cost to interest. Over time the disparity will decrease and, if history is any guide and given US demographics, will diminish long before the median term of the adjusted indebtedness matures.”

“A bit of timeless advice from the Bard Sir: A rose by any other name still smells as sweetly...­.... The Credit Default Swaps (DFS's) are nothing more than paper which claim to give substance to equity. As such they are nothing more than a series of securities' documents which have been at the core of at least three major financial crises in the past couple of decades--generated of course in the dark recesses of Wall Street brokerages to give speculative appearance of substance to the equity in the underlying documents. In the 80's the phony instruments were termed Guaranteed Investment Contracts (GIC's) and their use gave rise to the Black Box Scandal in the municipal bond market. In the nineties a different form emerged as part of the S & L scandals: Net Worth Certificates (NWC's). Calling them insurance policies would in no way change the reality of their lack of representational substance. Regulation of insurance companies anyway is virtually non existent because such authority as a practical matter is the left to the states, D.C. and the territories--in other words: No there there!”

“An insignificant clause in this otherwise incisive blog while accurate is misleading: ",,,Wall Street is the mechanism for making much of this possible. [capital formation]" Since the passage of the Garn-St. Germain Act in 1981, Wall Street has degenerated into a speculative center depending to an ever increasing degree on speculation on the viability of exo-enterprise generated wealth from entrepreneurial equity by individuals and/or and main street financial institutions. When banks were enabled by Garn-St. Germain to compete in business with their natural clients, and banks so enhanced became national and even international, the financial boom lasted for nearly a generation. However, Wall Street stock brokerages, though now self described "investment banks" where stunted in their plans by a decades' old law on their lending and need to create more sustaining paper wealth which could then be brokered as '"securities". Wall Street solution: Eliminate that law: (Glass-Steagall Act} 2000 : Mission Accomplished. For the last 9 years Wall Street has defined its capital underpinnings in terms of "troubled ;assets" which it created itself in the unregulated recesses of its banking brokerages. The amount of real wealth created by the Wall Street stock brokerages today is relatively small and declining.”

“Well larry278, as evidenced by resulting pushback following the Senate's passage of the 2009 Budget Bill, the justified bipartisan criticism of individual represententatives' embarrassing pork incorporated into the House version forced the White House to backtrack on and pathetically rationalize a key promise made by Pres. Obama just two weeks prior that "not one dime of earmarks" would be in his budget. While $7 billion is a fraction of the total, the apparent promise broken was hardly a ringing endorsement of the House leadership, and the reaction has increased by an order of magnitude problems enactment of the key components of the Obama triumvirate. Leader Reid is left with the political reality of remediating this patently ridiculous conundrum. In the recent cloture cliff hanger petition he proved quietly adept, thank you!”

“Totally agree, but aren't you making the point of the post? To rant about social injustice is certainly legitimate--even mandatory; however, the most effective tool is arguably economic opportunity which seems to be proceeding even in China where, absent the historic nuances of Tibet, the principal categorical discrimination is gender which Sec. Clinton has morally addressed at least as directly and consistently as any other public official. As to specific examples of individual abuses, the examples the US projects to the world even today is hardly exemplary, but it would be difficult to deny that the nation has progressed albeit unconscionably slow, and our recorded history of progress spans less than 5% of China's.”

“Secretary Clinton has done far more to advance the cause human rights in China by precept than this organization's two dimensional existential polemics. Social progress to equality of opportunity and social parity are inbred and change incremental but empirically quantified when projected by regression analysis over time. Equality under law juxtaposed to emergent behavioral patterns in the US are prime evidences of that truism. HRW can do more and have more impact in changing centuries of tradition in China were it to accompany the Secretary's diplomacy as a Greek chorus and applaud her mission of economic interdependency as a tool to social equality rather than a drumbeat of opposition in asserting that this obvious mandate "set back..." the cause of human rights.”

“Haines: Let's get it right you say? Let's take the Citi-Wells Fargo "bidding" war over Wachovia for a case study: The Bernanke-Paulson troupe negotiate a "sale" to CitiBank of Wachovia for a couple of billion bucks. "No" say Wells-Fargo; "Wachovia is worth 15 Billion + in equity, and WF will pay that for it. Wachovia's shareholders' equity ya' know is hard earned and we'll compensate them in the merger."
Jeez say Bernanke & Paulson: "We didn't know that. By all means buy it WF." Deal done?

Not quite: Paulson calls his underlings at IRS and gets a special ruling which allows WF to "write off" 27 billion bucks of Wachovia losses against future earnings. ..... Now the deal's done! ....... WF just made a profit on the deal of 12 billion at tax payers future expense. Equity wiped out you say, Mr Haines??..­... It was just nearly doubled.”

“She is devoid of principle.­you say. Oh well then with that attribute why are we concerned? She is certainly the representative model the Democrats need in the Senate and is just the voice to support the President's change pledge.”

“Must certainly be so! If a constitutional infringement occurred in administrating the oath of office, it was in the tagline added: "So help me God". The wording though not the placement of the adverb in question was in the body of the Constitution; however, the addition of a clause invoking Divine assistance is nowhere to be found, and arguably in violation of the 1st Amendment, subsequently added , which prohibits any religious test as a qualification for office.”

“"....faith­fully defend the office....­" or "...defend the office faithfully­..." Distinction without a difference!!!!! Jeez Man. This is scarcely worth a comment much less an issue.”

“Women's magazines like their Men's counterparts: Sports and automotive periodicals are diversions, with a few notable exceptions both addressing the lower reaches of human growth and understanding. We are as a species, one supposes, always been been motivated by the more trivial existential trappings subordinating the intellectual and substantive media to others we often deride as effete, elitist, or nerds.

Ironically much of the criticism of Ms. Kennedy has been an alleged failure to demonstrate her political underpinnings; so, upon sitting in an interview with the reportorial elite, she was confronted with meaningless trivia from her interviewers. Her response was humorous and an iconic putdown of the quality of those questions; they were nonsense and totally unrelated to her civic insights, concerns and political positions and certainly not senatorial qualifying queries.”

“Enough already! The progressives' preoccupation with ascribing substance to the social views of a person delivering an esoteric "invocation" to a "Being" for some vague involvement in a secular process by a sectarian spokesman representing a particular sect in a pluralistic society whose constituent "believers" span the full spectrum of metaphysical mindsets is astounding. Liberal bloggers and columnists who feel moved to focus on this perfunctory part of the inauguration in are engaging the same irrelevant polemics as the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Fallwells on the right.”

“OOOPPS! "anything" in the third line should be "nothing but embarrassing". Sorry.”

“Clemons: Why on earth in contemporary international reality in the IT age would any talented public figure desire to be ambassador to Britain. More significantly? The dearth of senatorial personalities whose image in international circles is anything but embarrassing since the long gone era of Vandenberg, Fullbright, and Lodge is all too apparent. The Kennedy reputation and projection of American humanitarian, literary, and artistic values which she exudes as opposed to military dominated bombastic hegemony would be an infusion of light into the intellectual darkness which unfortunately pervades the sad image of that brach of government. Ambassadorships, have been reduced in stature to rewards for political contributions in the age of global economics.”

“Articulator: You articulated well the high standards of epistemology by which New Yorkers select their representa­tives--Cha­rles Rangel for one and, oh yeah, that recently deposed governor who so impressed his constituency with his knowledge of organized prostitution. NY certainly has a lot to be skeptical about, but given the collective insight which characterize your skeptical circle of friends you surely "knew" their souls.”