Tag Archives: newmexiken

A Republican for Health Care

63 Years Ago Today | NewMexiKen [hat tip]

President Harry S. Truman, in his 1949 State of the Union Address:

We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country. In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care. We are short of doctors, hospitals, nurses. We must remedy these shortages. Moreover, we need–and we must have without further delay–a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.

63 Years Ago Today | NewMexiKen

Happy Bill of Rights Day!

Tweet for freedom on Dec. 15 – From Our Inbox – MiamiHerald.com

The irony is that most of us honor the Fourth of July because we believe it’s a day on which Americans secured their freedom. But the truth is that the Declaration of Independence really only secured freedom for white and wealthy men [mjh: landowners]. It took freedom of speech, press, religion, petition and assembly — the five freedoms of the First Amendment — to lead to suffrage for women, the emancipation of slaves and equality for all. Please join in celebrating freedom this Dec. 15. It’s long overdue.

Tweet for freedom on Dec. 15 – From Our Inbox – MiamiHerald.com

No modern committee, especially one full of attorneys, I’m sorry to say, could come up with such a succinct yet powerful document. Two hundred-twenty years later, we are still striving to get there, but we have the map. The Constitution is a living document subject to the times. Claiming “original intent” is the height of arrogance and ignorance.

The Bill of Rights | NewMexiKen

Originally 12 amendments were proposed to the legislatures of the 14 states by the First Congress. [read more…]

The Bill of Rights | NewMexiKen

When I hear “Ponzi” I assume the speaker is an idiot …

“The first modern social insurance program began in Germany in 1889 and has been in continuous operation for more than 100 years. The American Social Security system has been in continuous successful operation since 1935. Charles Ponzi’s scheme lasted barely 200 days.”

Social Security [via NewMexiKen]

Yesterday, Krauthammer wrote a column about the SSA Ponzi scheme. In the last paragraph, he concluded it was morally necessary and good. That’s the paragraph no conservative will quote.

Obama, Raygun Democrat, Moderate Conservative – or just too smart for fools like me?

In keeping with disappointment with Obama’s performance:

Obama & the Fake Debt Ceiling Crisis: This President Is Really Just Smarter Than You Are | Black Agenda Report

What if Barack Obama is a Reagan Democrat in every meaningful way, right down to a fanatical belief in trickle down economics? What if the president counts on corporate media and his army of careerists and sycophants to shut down and cover up cracks in the Obama consensus through which reality might leak? What if Obama is not weak, or timid, or vacillating or waiting for us to “make him do it”? What if what we’ve seen is all there is, all there ever was?

The truth is that Barack Obama’s actions are entirely rational, understandable and even predictable if you suppose him to have been a vicious, vacuous and cynical right wing operative from the very beginning. …

Still don’t believe it’s the job of corporate Democrats to push the corporate agenda further than Republicans ever could? When Bush 2 couldn’t even pass his own bankster bailout in September of 2008, he called Barack Obama in off the campaign trail to round up a sufficient number of Democratic votes, including votes in the Congressional Black Caucus, to pass the Bush bailout. Before even assuming office, Barack Obama was carrying out Republican policies even Republicans could not enact. Upon becoming president himself, Barack Obama quintupled down on the $3 trillion Bush bankster bailout with a further $16 trillion, the largest transfer of public wealth to private hands in the history of humankind.

So if you’re an Obama supporter, and you’re disappointed that your president won’t fight for you — if you’re an Obama supporter and you wonder why the president won’t stand up for Medicaid, Medicare and social security — here’s the answer. The president really, really is smarter than you. He knows what side he’s on and you don’t. He knows that the two-party system is a veal pen, where as long as “he can play good cop to the Republicans’ ever worsening bad cop, the game is fixed, and not in your favor.

Look out! Over there! It’s President Michelle Bachman!

[hat tip to dangerousmeta]

Obama & the Fake Debt Ceiling Crisis: This President Is Really Just Smarter Than You Are | Black Agenda Report

The Cult That Is Destroying America – NYTimes.com

The reality, of course, is that we already have a centrist president — actually a moderate conservative president. Once again, health reform — his only major change to government — was modeled on Republican plans, indeed plans coming from the Heritage Foundation. And everything else — including the wrongheaded emphasis on austerity in the face of high unemployment — is according to the conservative playbook.

What all this means is that there is no penalty for extremism; no way for most voters, who get their information on the fly rather than doing careful study of the issues, to understand what’s really going on.

[hat tip to NewMexiKen]

The Cult That Is Destroying America – NYTimes.com

Raygun is too liberal for today’s GOP

Best line of the day | NewMexiKen

“Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans benefits. Interest rates would skyrocket, instability would occur in financial markets, and the federal deficit would soar. The United States has a special responsibility to itself and the world to meet its obligations.”

President Ronald Reagan
September 26, 1987

[hat tip to Best line of the day | NewMexiKen]

“[T]he idea that if families are tightening their belts, the government should do the same, is as deeply intuitive as it is deeply wrong.” Paul Krugman

I wasn’t surprised the Albuquerque Journal gave so much space to Mike Frese, “Corrales resident”, to repeat the hoary nonsense about the national debt as a ‘family problem.’ Family is the metaphor for conservatives – especially, Christian conservatives – because father knows best. Feel free to read Frese’s column in its long-drawn-out, ham-handed entirety, if you need your invalid metaphors spelled out in detail.

Be sure to read Winthrop Quigley’s entire column – as usual, he explains things quite clearly.

ABQJournal Online » Flirting With Federal Debt Disaster

By Winthrop Quigley / Journal Staff Writer on Tue, Jul 19, 2011

It is possible some of these politicians really don’t understand what we’re dealing with. Every time one of them compares federal finances with household finances – arguing we should tear up the credit card and balance the checkbook and live within our means, just like families do – the intellectual dead end has been reached.

The federal government is nothing like the family household. It is a very large, poorly run business with a micromanaging board of directors (Congress) and a weak CEO (the president).

The business is failing. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling is the equivalent of pre-bailout General Motors reneging on its commitments to pay its steel suppliers and fund its employees’ retirement plans. …

If the prospect of suddenly unemployed federal workers in every state and unpaid military personnel under fire in Afghanistan doesn’t impress Congress, perhaps this will: In September 2008, the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing cratered the global economy because suddenly no one knew if the institutions making up the world’s financial systems could or would honor their obligations.

Lehman Bros. had $639 billion in assets, about as much as it takes to run the government for slightly more than two months. It had debts of $619 billion. The failure of a firm that was in the black to the tune of $20 billion nearly destroyed the global financial system. You don’t want to see what happens if Uncle Sam becomes the next Lehman Bros.

ABQJournal Online » Flirting With Federal Debt Disaster

 

[hat tip to Line of the day | NewMexiKen for the Krugman quote]