pikaomega's Comments (54)

“The good doctor's campaign in 2003/2004 was my very first taste of what became a love of the frenzy of political campaigns. I worked with MoveOn's "Call for Change" campaign in 2006 and am happy to report that the 50 state strategy was a smashing success.

As to Howard Dean's defeat in 2004, it comes down to this: he was a litmus test. The DNC was feeling out the best antidote to the Bush/Cheney cabal, seeing how far they could go and not risk the wrath of the only people that count-the press. Once Dean had been pilloried as a radical leftist, they settled on the disastrous milquetoast Kerry...and we all know how well that went.”

“Actually, they have been around since the Nixon years.

Ronnie just got them rolling in earnest.”

“Wait, I actually have to agree with him here.

The issue emerging from this health care debate is finding the grassroots progressives locking horns with the Baucus Democratic establishment politicians. It is similar to the hodge-podge coalition of dissimilar interests that coagulated in the Reagan years. Social conservative values voter plus corporatists plus Libertarians plus the PNAC neo-cons...now in the middle of that fabric being torn asunder.

Progressives have had no choice but to vote for Democrats because the Republicans lost their bloody minds (i.e. John Kerry). The "left" and the Democratic party have numerous issues that don't square-the war, public option, overreaching national security policies, torture investigations. We must make ourselves heard and be prepared to demonstrate opposition if shut out.”

“Bulls***.

I am in the middle of reading the CIA IG report right now and the thought that an investigation, especially one as cursory as that which is being proposed, would shift the ground beneath the feet of "patriotic" agent is laughable at best.

People were tortured in my name. People were murdered in my name. In my name, with my tax dollars. If you are concerned with the threats to an already dysfunctional agency then, by all means, sound the alarm for an investigation aimed at the top of this gluttonous, blood thirsty food chain. But, do not for a moment think that the American public will be lulled by your specious arguments that to expose the wrongs committed would somehow be cruel to those accused.

This is not a call for a witch hunt. This is a call for a clear, honest look at possible war crimes, the kind that spurred the Nuremberg trials in not-so-distant history. Those who are not complicit should be found so.

The CIA exists to help protect the safety and integrity of the United States, not the other way around.”

“Ah, Grizzly Adams and a giant hat.

I think eliminating ATM fees would go a long way at this point.”

“The argument that the advertiser boycott somehow circumvents Glenn Beck's First Amendment right to free speech is bogus.

If Glenn Beck, citizen, wishes to mount a soapbox in the middle of Times Square and spew forth whatever crazy nonsense that pops into his head that is well within his right. However, Mr. Beck has absolutely no constitutional right to be a widely syndicated television pundit. Period.

The Supreme Court, especially in its current incarnation, has been quite sympathetic to corporations as it relates to the supremacy of institutional interests over the rights of individual employees. Moreover, the concept of "corporate personhood" invalidates this whole notion, as the First Amendment "freedom of speech" rights of the sponsor companies takes precedence.”

“"First you get the sugar, then you get the power..."”

“The situation at hand is even more dire than the article depicts.

I work for a veteran centered, anti-war non-profit and let me assure you, in the echo chambers of the vox populi the war does not exist. I field too many requests from kids (most way younger than I and I'm only 29) who have come home after repeatedly being "stop lossed" (read: backdoor draft) and just can't handle what have become their disassociated lifes. Kids that are being called back out and beg for someone to help them find a way out. One recent request was a call from a woman whose son had just come back with severe PTSD and had gotten into a nasty altercation with police. She begged me to provide her with any resources that I had to not only help his legal troubles, but to get him the mental health care that he desperately needed.

But, again, there is no war....that died last year when the economy collapsed. War doesn't make for ratings. War doesn't sell cars or pills or whatever advertisements fill the commercial vacuum. I suppose that you can only wedge spliced clips between the real coverage of Jacko or Idol or Jon and Kate nonsense.”

“Ridiculous.

This is not about an affair. This is not about the hypocrisy, though I find it particularly galling.

This is about the fact that this man crowed about the treasonous allocation of government funds (i.e. stimulus money) to the point that he was sued by-and lost to-a 12 year old girl who pointed out that the state schools were in dire need of repair. The Governor, while simultaneously working to keep the state's 48th in the nation educational trainwreck untouched, was pilfering tens of thousands of dollars from state funds to travel to Argentina.

You have said to other posters that you are simply referring to the affair, but I find your defense of Gov. Sanford quite disingenuous in the face of this theft.

It's not the sex, it's not the cover up, it's not the hypocrisy. It's the plain and simple fact that he is a thief.”

“I am in no way blaming the Obama administration for the surveillance of my organization. As you pointed out, that was put into motion LONG before he took office.

The complaint that I have is directed at the security and law enforcement apparatus, based upon the real lack of foresight in dealing with the rising domestic terrorist activity on American soil. My point was that I know that there is a network of tools (some of dubious legality, the use of which I object to still) at their disposal that could be used to head this kind of thing off at the pass.

My hope stems from the fact that this is still very early in his term and that I do not doubt that the spike in violent rhetoric and action is taken very seriously. But, after Napolatino apologized for the "right-wing extremist" DHS report (commissioned by Bush), I am nervous about the politicization of calling this out for what it is and handling it as a matter of what it is...terrorism.”

“I find this more frustrating than one could possibly imagine.

I work for a vet based, anti-war non profit with "Peace" in the name. We have been in existence since 1985 and hold fast to a philosophy of non-violence. Still, our group and countless others like us (Quakers, anyone?) have been systematically targeted over the last eight years as "extremists" and a threat to national security. I have seen the FOIA documents stating that our office has been bugged, phones tapped and emails pilfered. We mobilized Homeland Security-who, to be fair, were very kind to us given that we did not provide more warning of our presence-during a demonstration outside of a USAF base where we were doing nothing more than holding signs thanking our service man and women.

Given this, I find it appalling that the Obama administration's applicable agencies have not taken a harder line on what is a real threat to our peace and security here at home. Do not believe that this lax attitude has anything but a political motivation since, I promise you, they have all of the tools at their disposal to track this kind of menace.”

“I read the article and the subsequent comments and it seems that many missed the point of Douthat's assertion. His point was not that Cheney would have made a good candidate, a better candidate than John McCain or that he would have been victorious over Obama. It was that a Cheney candidacy would have been the flesh-and-blood incarnation of the current tack to the hard right on the part of the GOP.

Cheney's (fictitious) run would have given the Republicans a chance to hear the ideas and ideals that they now believe are the party's future in the context of an actual bid for dominant governance. It would have given them a real time look at how their proposals would be received by the public at large and an opportunity to weigh that feedback against the perception of radicalization that now lights them. At present, they exist (as all minorities do, to some degree) in a vacuum, as the lack of power and concurrent lack of responsibility for their declarations allows them to speak only amongst themselves and do so with language that is not palatable to the majority of Americans.

The theory put forth was that the path before the Republicans is one in which they must resolve who they are and what they believe. Seeing the public sentiment that their current frothing evokes--precluded now by their self declared "victimized" status--could help many of them recognize the futility of it all.”

“Our system of governance demands that a clear eyed look into what seem to be (without leveling any pre-determined judgment of guilt or innocence) grievous violations of the most basic standards and statutes of both international and domestic law, not to mention human decency.

An investigation. Give those under suspicion a chance to refute suspicions and offer information that could help determine the rightful owners of this atrocity. Those found to be non-culpable retain their standing, those responsible--Republican, Democrat and everyone outside of these tautological allocations--should be prosecuted accordingly, citing the myriad of canonical accords woven into the fabric of American precepts of”

“I myself am wickedly Bi-Polar I, meaning rapidly shifting moods marked by extreme bouts of mania that include audible and visual hallucinations. This has landed me in the psych ward too many times for my 29 years, with my last really bad episode being last Dec. I am fairly well controlled by my daily rounds of psychotropic meds, but even with the drugs I constantly fluctuate between a point of stability and the horrifying precipice of losing my tenuous hold on sanity.

When I start to slip, I have about three days to get it under control before I spiral into madness yet again. The only thing that I have found that helps me balance out? That's right. Pot.

My daily regiment of meds includes one that exhibits massive liver damage in patients and that, along with my family history and internal damage from a wicked car wreck, leave me staring down the barrel of diabetes at best and overt liver failure at worst. But, still I take the pill because I have no other choice.

Pot is politics, nothing more. I am thankful that my situation can be somewhat contained by pharmaceuticals, but not all are so lucky. Suffering is suffering, and it says a lot about us if we continue to withhold desperately needed relief on the basis of flawed science and political cowardice.”

“Not a bad price, but the S&H charges are a killer.”

“Do not forget, Steve Schmidt is Karl Rove's protege.

The gay marriage debate is emblematic of the chaotic political climate that has crystallized since the last election. I would posit that the current turmoil is, in large part, less about contrasting ideologies--which I see as symptomatic--than the beginnings of a demographic shift in the present and emergent voting populace.

I am 29 (A "Cold-Y" Millenial who remembers Reagan and the fall of the USSR)...let me give you an idea of just why the ascension of my generation has such profound political implications. My teenage years--where I was unusually politically engaged for my age--took place through the Clinton election, the "Gingrich revolution/Class of '94" and the myriad of political folly that ensued. My first presidential vote was cast for Al Gore, with the resulting tenure of G.W. Bush cementing my resolve in the area of grassroots organizing.

The trend that is quite clearly emerging suggests the shift in influence from the Boom generation to generations X and Y. As a whole, both of the aforementioned have much more liberal (in the non-political sense) attitudes toward race and sexuality. As my grandparent's generation passes and the Boom generation ages, these more progressive stances come to represent the majority opinion on social mores.

Schmidt recognizes that these values are, demographically, almost assured to be the future conventional wisdom and, as such, sees the wisdom in hopping on the bandwagon.”

“Check out this link to the BLS statistics for March: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

This is the Alt. Measures of Labor Underutilization table. The U-6 numbers for March come in at 15.6%.”

“I'm wearing the jersey as we speak.”

“(continued from above)
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The expenditure for this plan will range anywhere from $500b to $1t and, in my opinion is shoddy at best. I fear that should this plan not succeed, the FDIC could become unable to make good on their guarantees of individual bank accounts, and we would see the populist fervor now bubbling about the AIG bonuses redirected at Obama and his administration. The political risks here are almost as important as the financial ones, as the political capital that Obama currently enjoys-and will need to pass such things as the desperately needed health care reform-will evaporate. Add that to the possibility of another trillion taxpayer dollars imperiled should the shaky fundamental aspects of the plan reveal themselves to be miscalculated.

My fear is that, while current polling suggests that the public does not hold Obama responsible for the current economic woes, the very real possibility of the failure of this plan could negate the positive public perception of the administration and imperil the desperately needed reforms that the president seeks to implement. Regardless of my support (and highest hopes) for the President, I simply cannot support what I see as very bad policy.”

“I'm sorry, but I could not disagree with you more on this point. I am a strong advocate for many of the President's policies, and while I am optimistic about this morning's plan to allow Treasury to "wind down" non-bank institutions that pose a direct risk to the overall economy, the Geithner proposal detailed yesterday leaves my blood cold.

My biggest issues with the strategy are thus: a.) yesterday's proposal, while positive in the aspect that investor bidding on toxic derivative pools will more appropriately price these assets than the banks or the government, requires too little capital on the part of the investors and no compelling interest for the banks to participate (i.e. the spread between investor bids and bank asking prices), b.) the utilization of the FDIC in providing up to 6-to-1 leverage loans which, should the investments go south, are completely on the shoulders of the FDIC/taxpayer, as the private investor assumes no responsibility for the loan, c.) the use of the FDIC to provide these loans, regardless of the precarious nature of it's own solvency, threatening the ability to insure personal bank holdings up to $250,000, d.) the premise of the plan's success being that of a stabilizing mortgage market at a time when defaults and foreclosures are still skyrocketing...”

“Two things. First, Geithner needs to be shown the door, pronto, and be replaced by someone who has not only the understanding of the very real crisis that we are mired in, but more importantly, the b*lls to admit to the mistakes that led us here and offer a rational plan to deal with the fallout. Perhaps Dr. Roubini, who has been calling this for a LONG time, or Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, who has shown the willingness to aid the efforts with his counsel. The appointment of Geithner and Summers is one of the points that disappointed me about Obama, though I remain a staunch supporter in many other areas.

Secondly, while the palpable outrage on part of the general populace to the millions in bonuses paid out to the executives that are, at the very least, complicit in this imbroglio is understandable, I find it to be a convenient straw man to absorb this populist stirring. It seems that the bigger issue comes by the way of recently disclosed information regarding the recipients of more than $90 billion of taxpayer money; most notably the billions funneled to the likes of Goldman, Merrill Lynch, Citi, Morgan Stanley, et al...the very same banks now shunning TARP funding and chafing under the "oppressive" regulations attached.

Smells like a rat to me.”

“As I keep hearing the narrative about this dearth of trust between the general public and the financial sector, one question comes to mind: who in the h*ll trusted these people to begin with? I know when I walk into a store, I must prepare myself to be fed a complete line of nonsense by the commissioned sales staff. Everything is the best, the greatest, and I will love it. No matter what I'm looking for, whatever gizmo I am led to will perfectly satisfy every one of my needs. I know that the salesperson is paid on commission, and that the rewards of the sale black out my needs as a customer. This is business, and the markets are no different.

The problem came when companies started eradicating pensions and opting instead for 401(k) plans. Why pay cash money when you can bolster your stock by pushing it into employee portfolios? Why care about the ability of a new home buyer to repay the loan you handed them when you're passing them off as securities like a game of hot potato? No, I do not trust Summers and Geithner, because they are not to be trusted. These people are no different from that sleazy sales rep. that we have all encountered, with the difference being that if you are dissatisfied with your product, it can usually be returned. Until long term vision replaces the highly lucrative drive for short term personal gains, be sure to keep your receipt.”

“The Chicago Tribune ran a piece http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-teen-domestic-violence-20-feb20,0,1424689.storyy) about the Rihanna/Chris Brown fiasco stating that while 1 out of 10 teenagers experience abuse at the hands of their boyfriend/girlfriend, many teenagers blamed the partner suffering the abuse. I urge you to read the comments to this story http://www.topix.net/forum/source/chicago-tribune/TF9E52R3Q7QFDTLTQQ), but prepare to be horrified.

Many people commenting blame the "moral decay" of youth culture, many blame hip-hop and rap lyrics as priming this kind of abuse, some come straight out and say it's an issue of black culture, many take offense that female-on-male abuse is rarely mentioned and lampoon the domestic violence statistics as feminist propaganda. As a part of that youth culture, I take great exception with the idea that only now does abuse occur. I knew women as a child who were battered, as did my mother and grandmother before me. I have had my sister beaten (while pregnant with the abuser's child) so badly that she hung out of a second story window and spent two weeks in the hospital. This is not a generational, racial or gender specific issue. The statistics show the socio-economic factors play most heavily in abuse situations, and with the deterioration of our economy, I could only wish that we treat this as the present and looming issue that it is.”

“I am really happy to finally see good explanations of just what credit default swaps are. I have been intently watching this slo-mo train wreck barreling down the tracks for over three years now (one big reason I have no credit cards or even checking account and bank with a credit union), and all I kept hearing was how vague and mysterious these CDS instruments are.

Nope, it's a scam. Sell insurance on what you don't own and can't back up, then bundle and sell those policies around the globe while keeping the fingers firmly in the ears to quash any rumblings of doubt. The fact that the Goldman CEO was in the room with (former Goldman CEO) Treasury Sec. Paulson when the first AIG deal was hammered out makes one wonder at the conflict of interest, seeing as Goldman had lots of golden eggs in the AIG basket.

Thank goodness we have the Rick Santelli's of the world watching over the integrity of we plebiscites. I'd hate to wake up one day and be staring down a billion dollar federal bailout. How could I sleep at night?

Oh yeah, on my piles and piles of money.

Stay classy Wall Street.”

“I would say so.

I can respect conservatives who are reasonable and have put thought into their beliefs. If they actually believe that their mode of governance is what is the best way forward for us as a nation and have a calm, logical argument to assert that belief then fine. I may not agree, but if one sticks to their principles and the dissension comes down to a matter of policy (policy = cost/benefit analysis of an action and its consequences) then I have to respect that. What we have now, for the vast majority of those spouting off, is not a matter of governance but a wild eyed opposition to the Democratic label. To war against a concept is a sure recipe for failure. I sincerely hope that the moderate right raises their voice against these people, as it will be the only way to preserve what little credibility they still have.”