My Congressman, Paul Broun, Jr, in a floor speech of the House, references "the great war of Yankee agression" while making an attempt to call "free Obamacare cards" worthless.
Rep. Broun invokes The Civil War
Paul Broun once again proves that his purpose is not for helping out residents of GA-10, but rather serving as arch-demagogue of the right-wing in the House. Let us not forget where he says the public option will cause a lot of people to die, calls Obama a Marxist and compares Obama to Hitler, and tells someone with depression that he can go to the ER for treatment. The hits just keep on coming for you Broun, eh?
(I do have a question for question, like the people at Media Matters: where's my card?)
-rl
March 19, 2010
March 18, 2010
What everyone else is talking about
Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office released its scoring on the Health Care Reform legislation presented to the House of Representatives. The House committee on Rules has a section-by-section summary explaining the details of the bill. I consider it impressive, given the length of the bill itself, that it was able to be condensed into easy-to-understand terms in a relatively short document.
I'm still working through the relatively short scoring document... maybe I'll post my thoughts later.
-rl
I'm still working through the relatively short scoring document... maybe I'll post my thoughts later.
-rl
March 17, 2010
Being a post wherein Dennis Kucinich says no before yes.
I would rather not write this post about Dennis Kucinich, but rather someone like Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin, being in favor of something before being opposed to it. But such are the times and such is the nature of Dennis Kucinich.
Dennis Kucinich - man of many faces - has turned face again, going against his previous pledge to vote against the current health care reform package on the grounds that it wasn't progressive enough. Kucinich's about-face should come as no surprise to Cleveland-area residents, given that Kucinich's arm was likely twisted six ways from Sunday on the plane ride from Washington to C-Hop and given Kucinich's pledge(s) to not run for Pres in 2008 during his 2006 primary campaign against Barbara Farris (sp?) that he almost immediately reneged upon after re-election.
This is not to say that I oppose Kucinich's decision itself, to support HCR, but rather I oppose Kucinich's previous unwillingness to compromise on the matter. I would personally prefer a single payer method, like Kucinich, or something akin to the Swiss model where insurance companies run not-for-profit, like a co-operative financial institution/credit union. (Heck, I'd love it if all institutions were run as not-for-profit organizations, but that's another entry.) However, unlike Kucinich, I am willing to make incremental advances to test the system, to see how well our progress works, and to retool as necessary.
I would not necessarily consider OH-10 to be a safe seat for Dems, firstly because I've become of the mindset that no party should take a constituency for granted and secondly because of the potential effects redistricting may have come 2012. Kucinich simply isn't the right fit for the area anymore, given the suburban nature of the district. If this were the 1970s and 1980s, before industrial flight kicked into high gear, I might be singing a different tune. Cleveland is in need of a strong representative in Congress, a strong leader, and what they have is a demagogue whose greatest personal legislative accomplishment may be the renaming of a post office. Personally, regardless of the outcome of HCR, I am interested to see what challenge - if any - he will face in the 2010 general election from either an independent candidate or Republican.
Oh, and hi.
Dennis Kucinich - man of many faces - has turned face again, going against his previous pledge to vote against the current health care reform package on the grounds that it wasn't progressive enough. Kucinich's about-face should come as no surprise to Cleveland-area residents, given that Kucinich's arm was likely twisted six ways from Sunday on the plane ride from Washington to C-Hop and given Kucinich's pledge(s) to not run for Pres in 2008 during his 2006 primary campaign against Barbara Farris (sp?) that he almost immediately reneged upon after re-election.
This is not to say that I oppose Kucinich's decision itself, to support HCR, but rather I oppose Kucinich's previous unwillingness to compromise on the matter. I would personally prefer a single payer method, like Kucinich, or something akin to the Swiss model where insurance companies run not-for-profit, like a co-operative financial institution/credit union. (Heck, I'd love it if all institutions were run as not-for-profit organizations, but that's another entry.) However, unlike Kucinich, I am willing to make incremental advances to test the system, to see how well our progress works, and to retool as necessary.
I would not necessarily consider OH-10 to be a safe seat for Dems, firstly because I've become of the mindset that no party should take a constituency for granted and secondly because of the potential effects redistricting may have come 2012. Kucinich simply isn't the right fit for the area anymore, given the suburban nature of the district. If this were the 1970s and 1980s, before industrial flight kicked into high gear, I might be singing a different tune. Cleveland is in need of a strong representative in Congress, a strong leader, and what they have is a demagogue whose greatest personal legislative accomplishment may be the renaming of a post office. Personally, regardless of the outcome of HCR, I am interested to see what challenge - if any - he will face in the 2010 general election from either an independent candidate or Republican.
Oh, and hi.
November 18, 2009
The Palin Chronic(les)
Disclaimer: I have not read and have no intention of reading Sarah Palin's "book". Based upon every review I've read and my own personal dislike of the former Republican Vice Presidential hopeful, my time would be better spent rubbing Purell in my eyes while gargle-singing the Star-Spangled Banner.
With that being said, I did happen upon a particularly strong and stinging review of the "book" that made me alternate between chuckling and crying. ginandtacos.com >>> GOING ROGUE.
If the "book" is even remotely close to this reviewer's presentation of it, there needn't anything else be said. Between Palin's crying foul over this week's cover of Newsweek being "sexist" and Andrew Sullivan's chronicling the odd lies of the former governor, I feel assured that the "book" is nothing more than a hubristic recounting of a political career built on preying upon the fears of the public and relying upon the unwillingness of the large media to call her out.
I wish there was some certainty within me to say that the circus will soon be over. But I have more than a sneaking suspicion that we're only in the beginning of a long and drawn-out Palin period.
-rl
With that being said, I did happen upon a particularly strong and stinging review of the "book" that made me alternate between chuckling and crying. ginandtacos.com >>> GOING ROGUE.
If the "book" is even remotely close to this reviewer's presentation of it, there needn't anything else be said. Between Palin's crying foul over this week's cover of Newsweek being "sexist" and Andrew Sullivan's chronicling the odd lies of the former governor, I feel assured that the "book" is nothing more than a hubristic recounting of a political career built on preying upon the fears of the public and relying upon the unwillingness of the large media to call her out.
I wish there was some certainty within me to say that the circus will soon be over. But I have more than a sneaking suspicion that we're only in the beginning of a long and drawn-out Palin period.
-rl
October 30, 2009
New layout
As my 2 loyal readers know, I've been posting with less and less frequency since the election of President Obama. This isn't because I've grown dissatisfied with him, as I feel quite to the contrary. Blogging (writing more generally) used to be a fervent passion of mine and still does arouse my passions from time to time. However, with my work schedule being how it is, I find it increasingly difficult to read and research many of the nuclei which become an entire post.
I'm trying to avoid claiming that this a tremendously serious endeavor for me, as it has always been more of a hobby. But this hobby of mine has become harder to pursue, owing to time constraints and an increasingly firm unwillingness to say or do anything that will put my employment in jeopardy.
Does this mean that this is it? Bloggin Ryan is saying arrivederci to the blogosphere? Of course not. I mean, I just tried to clean out my template a bit. That shows some willingness to keep face and keep pressing on, yeah?
What it does mean is that the infrequent posting will remain as such for the foreseeable future... (with some spurts, undoubtedly).
Moving on.
November is National Novel Writing Month and the good people at the aforelinked NaNoWriMo encourage writers of all stripes to put down pages, unedited, for the entire month of November. It sounds like a brilliant good time and personally, I'm going to try to cobble together some pages to submit.
That's pretty much all for now, my dear 2 readers. Have a safe Halloween weekend!
-rl
I'm trying to avoid claiming that this a tremendously serious endeavor for me, as it has always been more of a hobby. But this hobby of mine has become harder to pursue, owing to time constraints and an increasingly firm unwillingness to say or do anything that will put my employment in jeopardy.
Does this mean that this is it? Bloggin Ryan is saying arrivederci to the blogosphere? Of course not. I mean, I just tried to clean out my template a bit. That shows some willingness to keep face and keep pressing on, yeah?
What it does mean is that the infrequent posting will remain as such for the foreseeable future... (with some spurts, undoubtedly).
Moving on.
November is National Novel Writing Month and the good people at the aforelinked NaNoWriMo encourage writers of all stripes to put down pages, unedited, for the entire month of November. It sounds like a brilliant good time and personally, I'm going to try to cobble together some pages to submit.
That's pretty much all for now, my dear 2 readers. Have a safe Halloween weekend!
-rl
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