“Summer afternoon – Summer afternoon… the two most beautiful words in the English language.” –Henry James
Occupy. #NatGT: “The hundreds of thousands who participated in Occupy protests last fall did not trek to Philadelphia.” And? The value of a conference is in the deliverables: A vision statement, a web site, relationships formed, lessons learned. We shall see.
Montreal. Carré rouge: “Mathias Bressan was blocked by a bodyguard when he tried to offer a red square to Premier [Charest]. His colleague, Thomas Prédour, told the media yesterday that he then took back the red square and attempted to ‘discuss’ with the Premier. ‘He retorted that if I advanced, I would be handcuffed and escorted from the congress and that I would see what Quebec is all about.'” Oh? … New media, study: “[With twitter, [i]t’s like people on the ground had CB radios and were able to communicate amongst themselves, previously an advantage for police, but it has become an advantage for protesters.” … Electoral politics: “The Quebec Liberal Party [is] opposed to the installation of voting booths in CEGEPs [defined] and universities.” One reason why.
IA. “Roughly 150,000 people, or about 5 percent of Iowa’s population, will not receive Medicaid coverage [under ObamaCare]. Governor Terry Branstad … does not intend to go along with Medicaid expansion.”
NJ. “Soon after, someone in [Gov Chris] Christie’s party put his arm around the 49-year-old and escorted him in the other direction.” No doubt (Susie Madrak).
NY. Fracking, academic integrity: Deans vs. Profs. Note that Big Oil is unlikely to have bought off the English Department. … Drones: “‘Wait, you guys practice tracking enemies by using civilian cars?’ a reporter asked. One Air Force officer responded that this was only a training mission, and then the group was quickly hustled out of the room.”
OH. Privatization: “[SB314’s] other 144 pages finalize the privatization of the state’s economic development activities, a controversial move that puts billions of taxpayer dollars into the hands of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats not subject to OH’s ethics, public records or public meetings laws.” What could go wrong? Note Ds cooperated with Rs to pass the bill. The blogger, partisan though not Kossackian, can’t understand this.
PA. Fracking: “It wasn’t a spill. It was ‘a release.'” … Voting: “More than 758,000 registered voters in PA do not have photo identification cards from the state Transportation Department, putting their voting rights at risk.” … Tinpot tyrants: “The state paid a Fayette County woman and her lawyer $85,000 to settle her claim that five state troopers from the barracks near Uniontown pepper-sprayed and urinated on her while she was shackled.” Only $85K?
TN. “The Memphis branch of Planned Parenthood received a federal grant that will [offset half] the loss of [$748,000 in] state funding last year.”
TX. Common humanity: “It made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation.” (Cf. FL lifeguard: “[We] should have jurisdiction to help someone.”) … “In a nation that only ranks 37th in health care out of all the world’s nations, TX ranks 50th out of all the states. TX delivers the poorest health care in a nation with the poorest health care of any developed nation.” … Corruption: “Houston City Councilwoman Helena Brown subtracted hours from employees’ timecards in apparent violation of federal law, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.”
VA. Corporatization: “I’m not kidding. Gov. McDonnell this afternoon announced the appointment of ‘Carly Fiorina of Lorton, Chairman of Carly Fiorina Enterprises and Former Chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard’ to the James Madison University Board of Visitors.”
Outside baseball. General Welfare: “[In Madison’s] draft of the VA Constitution, he included rights to free education and public land.” … Voting: Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, chair of FairVote was on Maddow Thursday evening, July 5, to talk about Proportional Representation. (Take that, Sid Vicious!) … Social tip: “[T]here’s an unexpected naïveté among the truly powerful; they assume that anyone who has arrived at their desk has survived the scrutiny of handlers.”
The economy. Nobody knows anything watch, Nate Silver: “We just do not have anywhere near enough to data to make confident claims about exactly which economic variables are important” to election polling.” … Bob Dole: “Things are going to get better. Be optimistic.” Off message!
Robama vs. Obomney watch. “[OBAMA:] When you hear all these folks saying, ‘Oh, no, no, this is a tax, this is a burden on middle-class families,’ let me tell you, we know because the guy I’m running against tried this in MA and it’s working just fine–even though now he denies it.” …. Romney: “Although his health-care mandate bears a striking resemblance to Obama’s, Romney has tried to convince voters throughout the campaign that they’re not at all the same.” So, we should vote for Obama because he passed Romney’s plan? Or we should vote for Romney because he didn’t? Or we should vote for neither, because Obama/RomneyCare is full of #FAIL and leaves billions on the table?
Libertarian Party. “[Gary] Johnson … and Buddy Roemer … have both qualified for additional federal matching funds for the primaries. In the July installment, Roemer gets $66,491 and Johnson gets $130,059.”
The trail. Those pesky independents! “Most voters have well-defined opinions about Obama. Romney is the variable here. And undecided voters have almost no opinion about him whatsoever.” If Romney doesn’t watch out, Obama’s going to strap him to the roof of his own car. … Alternatively: “[Most independent voters] can probably tell you that Mitt Romney’s economic plan is to repeal Obamacare and shrink the government. It may not make much sense, but it’s clear. Ask what Obama’s plan is, and they won’t be certain. They will know, however, that what he has done hasn’t worked. And by the fall, many independents will have made up their minds.”
Romney. “[ROMNEY:] There’s a lot of misery in America today. And this kick in the gut has got to end.” I know! Tax cuts! … Oppo? “To date, there has been no legitimate explanation for Mitt Romney having cast a vote in the January 2010 Special Election for the U.S. Senate between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley. At the time of his vote (which he has admitted doing) he owned no house in MA, and yet he was registered to vote from the address of his son’s unfinished basement in Belmont, MA.”
Obama. “[OBAMA:] So we’ve got to grow the economy even faster.” Even? … Advance work: “Dozens of supporters passed out from the extreme heat at an Obama campaign event in Pittsburgh on Friday. It didn’t appear that the president cut his stump speech, which went on for more than half an hour, short because of the heat.” Good thing nobody died. Why no water? … Advance work? “At one point, [Obama] consoled a crying woman, Stephanie Miller, who was telling him a story. Miller, reached by phone afterward, said her sister, Kelly Hines, died from colon cancer four years ago because she could not afford proper health insurance. She had no employer-provided coverage. ‘Even after she was diagnosed with cancer, she was told her income was too high for Medicaid,’ Ms. Miller said. ‘I thanked him for the getting the Affordable Health Act passed.” Tactically, I’d hate to think this incident was anything other than spontaneous. But see NC 2012-06-30 at “Lynn Sweet.” Morally, “We are all Kelly Hines,” and all should be covered, which ObamaCare does not do.
* 63 days ’til the Democratic National Convention ends with a banquet of giant bags of Krispy Kreme donuts on the floor of the Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC. When I get older, losing my hair… And my ability to count…
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Readers, thanks for all the comments, some of which I am still thinking about, and some of which are incorporated here.
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From PA voter ID link:
“Voter ID – which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania – done,” Turzai (GOP house leader) told the crowd….
Weren’t the voter ID laws to combat fraud?
From TX Chronicle article:
As shocking as deducting hours from an employee’s timecard is, it’s equally shocking to see 39 hr part-time employees (thus no benefits).
Only in Texas…..
Re: Iowa’s Branstad refusing Medicaid expansion funds
I don’t believe the states can turn down the Medicaid expansion money. In Iowa, for example, that would be 5% that remain uninsured and receiving care at state and local expense. Providers who now are absorbing some of the cost (and charging more to paying customers for the rest) will also be putting pressure on. In addition, it means turning down $800million/yr in additional money flowing through the economy, almost all provided by the federal govt. The stakes are even higher for a state like TX. These governors may be nuts but they also seem to mostly be coming out of the states with the most to lose. They won’t be able to withstand the pressure to take the money, anymore than they could turn down stimulus funds. This is all posturing on their part.
I mostly disagree, because Republican legislators (who control the Iowa House and may control the Iowa Senate after November) can’t afford to be seen as accepting any aspect of Obamacare. Iowa’s fiscal condition is relatively strong, so I don’t think the GOP legislators will care that shifting more people into Medicaid would save state government money. Any Republican who goes along with the Medicaid expansion is guaranteed a primary challenge in 2014.
I agree with your point about providers putting the pressure on, however. If anything can bring Iowa’s Governor Branstad around, it’s lobbying from a well-funded group like hospitals.
Re: Occupy
Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch is interpreting Occupy Wall Street’s lack of response to the Barclays scandal as a sign that the movement is dead.
“Since what is now going on is being described as “the greatest financial scandal in the history of Britain” — the Barclays imbroglio – I have a question to ask. Where are those tents outside St Pauls? Or ones in solidarity this side of the Atlantic? Where are the vibrant reminders that – as has happened in the Barclays case – there is most definitely one law for the 1% (none, in fact) and another for the 99 %?…”
“People have written complicated pieces trying to prove it’s not over, but if ever I saw a dead movement, it is surely Occupy…”
“….After a while it seemed as though, in Tom Naylor’s question in this site: “Is it possible that the real purpose of Occupy Wall Street has little to do with either the 99 per cent or the one per cent, but rather everything to do with keeping the political left in America decentralised, widely dispersed, very busy, and completely impotent to deal with the collapse of the American empire.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/06/biggest-financial-scandal-in-britains-history-not-a-single-occupy-sign-what-happened/
Please, Alexander!
The MBS and foreclosure scandals directly affected the 99%. Although the LIBOR scandal has and probably will have unpleasant consequences for the 99%, for the moment, it’s mostly bankers screwing other bankers. If only they’d all just kill each other (without conscripting armies, that is).
You know, I have been trying to follow and understand the Libor scandal. But I really don’t understand it. Recently there has been a spate of articles lecturing people for their lack of attention to this scandal. But these lectures never seem to boil things down in a way that makes it easy to understand who has won and who has lost in the carnage. People who have spent their whole lives working in finance or reporting on finance seem to overestimate the degree to which ordinary people can quickly understand mazes of financial products and the complex markets for them.
Occupy consists of a lot of young people who have a reliable sense that something is very wrong, but who do not always have a solid grasp of how things work. If people who do understand how things work understand why people in Occupy should care about the scandal, then they should explain it to them, instead of lecturing them.
I would be willing to bet that Andrew Cockburn’s knowledge, such as it is, of Occupy comes solely from the media.
Cockburn might get his news from the media, but his conclusions are dead on. Last December, while the protests were still underway and hope had not been entirely crushed, I wrote up Occupy from an astrological point of view. The conclusions were not good:
http://www.astroamerica.com/newsletters/2011-december06.pdf
http://www.astroamerica.com/newsletters/2011-december13.pdf
(The articles are on pg. 2 in both cases.)
Rereading these now I find them to be larded with astrological gibberish and so largely unintelligible to the untrained. Which might not be a bad thing, since people think astrologers are incapable of intelligent thought. Read the real deal.
Lesson: If you wanna have a protest movement and mess with people’s lives, PLAN THE DAMN THING. Get your date and time right. Occupy was an opportunity wasted. Another opportunity will not come around again soon. I’m not an expert in electional work, but I know some excellent people who are. One in New York itself. This also applies, by the way, to the submission of petition forms, as you may read here:
http://www.astroamerica.com/newsletters/2011-january11.pdf
Intelligence is cyclical, it comes and goes. Some decades are smarter than others. Astrology is the answer to a lot of problems, but I despair that people will find and use it, that we practice and study for little purpose.
For the uninitiated, such as myself, please explain astrology. How is the answer? Doesn’t it involve sitting around and waiting for preordained events to overtake you?
Astrology requires study. With astrology one leaves behind the world of beliefs and enters the world of analysis, of reason, of explanation. Of the unexpected and strange. Astrology has always been a form of power and always will be and because of that, it has always been repressed by those who have power and who wish their abuse of it to remain hidden. The current scientific condemnation replaced the earlier religious condemnation at the precise moment when religion had been shattered, at the end of the 30 Years War / beginning of the Enlightenment.
In its turn, Christian condemnation replaced earlier Roman condemnation at the moment when power was transferred from the Emperor to the Pope.
The study of astrology results in empowerment, plain and simple. The study of astrology enables you to leave the 99% who are ignorant and join the 1% with knowledge. Regrettably, it will not make you rich, nor will it make you popular. You have to supply those on your own.
Hey Yves, Get it right. You are complaining about Alexander Cockburn, not Andrew Cockburn correct?
I don’t know what “the movement” is “dead” means. In the same way that I distrust metaphors of the government as a household, or metaphors of the government as a family, I distrust both the term “movement” and the idea something like “the anti-war movement,” say, or “the civil rights movement,” say, are living beings and hence capable of death.
Further, if one believes (as I am coming to) that our constitutional order, hence the State, is being driven to change its nature, it follows that social formations that seek to humanize or train or improve the old constitutional order must change concepts, vocabulary, tactics, strategy to match the new. So there might not even be “movements.”
If I had to choose a metaphor for Occupy, the indignados, the Arab Spring, the printemps erable, it would be one of those underground mine fires in Pennsylvania that smolder underground for decades and occasionally break into flame at the surface. The fires continue to smolder because the conditions underground allow them to and its impossible to put them out.
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As far as the Philadelphia National Gathering, if you think of it as a Conference, which is how the organizers conceived of it, the numbers are perfectly respectable.
From the Barcalounger:
The only view I really share with the rather jaundiced Guardian C-I-F author is in the matter of dress: I don’t know why, in general, “the left” en masse has to dress in such a sloppy and unserious manner. Why not dress up and look good? I think of the blacks in suits being savaged by Bull Connor’s dogs. That was serious. The general motley-ness conveys ineffectuality and also makes collective symbolic statements, a la the red squares, harder to convey visually. Comments purely tactical, no value judgment express or implied…
But Lambert, “the movement” is “dead” are instructions to the 99%.
Re: Sick in Massachusetts
Lambert’s #FAIL link goes to the Physicians for a National Health Plan site that links to the Harvard SPH report with the following comment:
In Massachusetts, “Forty percent of sick adults in the state said the out-of-pocket costs of medical care are a ‘very serious’ (16%) or ‘somewhat serious’ (24%) problem for them.” Obviously the financing system is not serving well those individuals with major medical needs.
Readers might wish to note that 78% of the “sick adults” polled also felt that health costs are a “very” (50%) or “somewhat” (28%) “serious problem for Massachusetts”.
Certainly it’s bad enough that 40% of sick people face serious personal health care costs, but it’s also bad that 78% of the people who have recently had first-hand dealings with the health care system find the entire cost structure to be a serious problem. Leading the list of culprits these people deem extortionate are drug companies and costs (86%), insurance companies and premiums (78%), and hospitals (73%).
Yes, I’m not sure whether “Vote for me because I implemented RomneyCare,” or “Vote for me because I implemented RomneyCare, which failed, as it was guaranteed to fail” is the more effective slogan. I guess we’ll find out!
And MA is considered a “rich state” with high “professional” employment, lots of those elite colleges and universities happy to be “well-endowed” by BigCorp.
As of 2010, MA had the highest per capita income among US states, north of $58,000
Re: Sick in Massachusetts
More on RObomneycare from PNHP…
Now Massachusetts addresses the costs, but not really…and…
Jonathan Gruber: “We don’t know how to fix it.”
Gruber is the MIT economist who advised Romney and Obama to pass health insurance legislation without any reasonable assurances the cost control measures would actually work. Now…well…the “just fine” description, as we’ve seen from Obama in the past, only applies to those who can afford to go his, or Romney’s, fundraisers.
So whoever you vote for, make sure they know you want them to sign on to supportH.R. 676.
“Do you embarass easily?” No. Not that Dr. Gruber.
No. Not Karl.
The confusion is understandable, though.
But I’m not feeling very loosened up.
Yes, this is the reason saltwater economists like Paul Krugman and Prof. Gruber endorsed the ACA. Professor Krugman knows the plan is flawed, particularly the absence of effective cost controls, but it establishes the principle of universality and the cost controls would be done in the future. The idea is we get what we can now and we improve it later.
Too much left to chance, in my opinion. Maybe they’re correct, but the ACA may just be a delaying action to postpone the collapse of the health insurance system.
Better to expand Medicare to cover the entire population. It works, the infrastructure is already in place and it is popular. Of course, that’s a non-starter with the parasitic insurance companies and their Wall Street friends.
“we get what we can now and improve it later.” Like the EU miracle?
ObamaCare is a neo-liberal policy that puts the the problem — health care for profit — and the problematic institutions — the health insurance companies — at the heart of the putative solution. That is what the Heritage Foundation designed it to do, as a way of preventing single payer (which even Milton Freidman, God rest his soul, if any, supported).
It’s not a matter of “improving” ObamaCare. It’s a matter of ripping its heart out (the health exchanges, the rental extraction mechanism) and then burning the body and scattering the ashes (the health insurance companies, the rentiers).
Saying you can get from ObamaCare to Medicare for all is like saying you can get from New York to LA via Vladivostock. You can indeed, because the world is round, but why go the wrong direction in the first place?
Obama care is simply a one way street leading to privatization of the golden cash cows; SS and Medicare.
BTW, Romney care sucks. The insurance companies are killing anyone who doesn’t have a job. Shooting them like fish in a barrel.
Don’t hold your breath for “improvements” on either of the twins.
Ha. Good comment Lambert.
Ditto. Succinct. Worth catapulting.
Messrs. Krugman and Graber presumably have well paying jobs with excellent health benefits and therefore enjoy the luxury of being able to laud and praise an empty lunch-box like the “concept of universality.” Many others need affordable single-payer NOW, and the “concept of universality” is neither providing real time coverage or real time cost controls to those lucky enough to have (usually lousy and always overpriced) coverage.
The Alyona Show had a good interview with Chris Hedges last week. At the end of the interview, he talked about the occupy movement and told this story from Kissinger’s memoirs:
Democrats protect the system by channelling popular energy away from movements and into the electoral process. Elections themselves are characteristic of oligarchy and are incompatible with democracy, as Aristotle pointed out in Politics. To quote Hedges, “It’s only through movements that we’re going to regain any kind of power and begin to push back against this system.”
Disagree – the Dems deflect energy, yes, but not from “movements” per se to “electoral politics” per se but from 3rd party movements to Dem electoral politics …. They don’t much really care about “apolitical” movements, except insofar as they are opportunities for channeling energy into Dem politics. The concern is that movements will eventually become political – and they figure they need to control the direction that politics will take …. If those movements make it clear they pose no electoral threat – why bother …
That’s not what I’ve seen at all. Dem apparatchiks are blanketing occupy groups, stuffing candidates and talking points into the agendas, contriving makework initiatives to encourage the kind of hopeless incrementalist notions that perpetuate the rot. By fall they’ll have them all putting up lawn signs.
All Partly Puppies are alike in their conventionality.
If you have any links on this, please send them to me. lambert_strether DOT corrente AT yahoo DOT com.
I know I’m swimming against the tide here but I really don’t like Chris Hedges.
He’s setting himself up as the savior of Occupy and I don’t trust his advise or his motives.
And I’m someone that once liked what he had to say.
Chris Hedges has called for radical action but then condemned the radicals that showed up and sicced the police on them. So if Hedges has his way there will be no one at Occupy because he’s demanding an impossible standard.
He wants to scare the politicians into action but yet he is preemptively clearing the ranks of radicals. He demands that people throw wrenches into the gears and he demonstrates by getting arrested but when others do similar actions he condemns them for being “violent” anarchists.
It’s a well-constructed mindfuck. He’s playing religious leader but then setting up his flock to fail.
He’s not leading his flock to freedom but to a pen.
Occupy continues to do good work but it is not the mass movement we need to bring change to the country.
As for Romney and Obama, if you are in the 1%, it’s a win either way. The rest is atmospherics for the rubes.
I’m voting Obama. He was in Ohio Thursday with the very first honest campaign sign ever…”Betting on America”!
He’s done an excellent job working for the house.
They gamble with depositors’ money, they run the house, the public loses when they win, the public pays when they lose, and Obama’s job is to protect them.
Typo? Shouldn’t that be “Betting in America”? Subtitle “Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya? What are the odds I won’t blow you away?”
It’s just a little ole Minstrel Show.
From the matching funds link –
“the FEC has approved a little more than $18 million each for the Republican and Democratic conventions.”
WHAT? We are paying for their lousy conventions? ARRRGH! And no money for the Green convention? Time for a lawsuit! Discrimination against disabled parties! Disabled by the bloody gov’t!
As far as passing out from the extreme heat (hot air) at an Obama event, what else is new? Good reason to stay away from them – all those concussions from hitting the pavement are bound to affect your thinking processes ….
I’m actually serious about that “good thing nobody died” comment; heat stroke in 100-degree heat is no joke, and medical teams would have a hard time getting through the crowd, especially if impeded by security.
Of course, if you regard the “live audience” as cattle or props, then such matters aren’t a concern, and but so it’s been Obama’s genius all along not to care enough to fake it and to make the chilly seem cool.
sounds like Henry James was a stuffy-ass member of the 1%, probably with some servant to cool him with a fan of feathers when it got above 80.
The two most beautiful words in the English language on a summer afternoon are: “Air Conditioning”, followed by “Surf’s Up” followed by “Bass Ale” haha.
I can’t believe anyone left in the USA will vote for Obama. I saw one Obama lawn sign today. Last go-round they waz like grass, everywhere you look. It’s only July, that’s true. But I didn’t see any Romney signs.
If even 20% of the electorate votes, I’ll be surprised. Who has time? Who can be bothered? I guess the White House staff will vote. And a few fanatics out there who still think Obama as president is revenge for Southern Man and the attack on Fort Sumpter. And who’ll vote for Romney? Maybe some of his limited partners on whatever tax dodge he’s part of.
That’s a few thousand people, total. “Oh that’s right, I forgot, did they have the election today? Did anybody win? No? Really? Huh? Wow, what are they gonna do now? They don’t know? Why not? Not enough people care, so they can’t figure out what to do? Really? They decided to try it without a president for a few years? That makes sense, One person in government less to bribe. Anyway . . .” haha. Yankee Doodle Dandy.
c, it has been shown that Air Conditioning generates more heat than it removes from the environment. Now, think: Excessive Air Conditioning in Dubai, Qatar, The Shard in London, Blackwater Renamed, the Bush-Cheney-Amway profiteers in the most COVETED power-spots of “over there” since Aaronsohn. That’s a lot of man-made heat to keep the Global .01% in Winter Wonderland.
Now, think: Is it likely that Air Conditioning will become “too expensive” for the 99% in the U.S.? Since when did sheep need Air Conditioning?
Enjoy your cold beer in the COOL while it lasts.
“Air Conditioning” wins the Interent!
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Seriously though… Not sustainable… Ditto the chilled Bass Ale…
Yes, absolutely, Romney committed voter fraud. Brad reported that months ago. Why is no one talking about that???
Well, it could be that the spectrum of stories our famously free press covers is rawther limited. It could also be that the election…. Well, it’s rather like a WWF cage match where some things just aren’t done. (Like the Rs going after a tiny little fish like Solyndra instead of, say, the largest upward transfer of wealth in world history… Or failure to prosecute robosigning banksters for accounting control fraud… Or… Or…)
Or possibly Brad’s morsel of oppo never reached the right readership…. Which could be one of the things posts like this are for… Even if morsels are distributed in a thoroughly post- or even a-partisan way….
For T. S. Eliot the most beautiful “word” was: cellar door. Probably because it sounds French!
docG, it’s that “d’Or” sound that enriched him, a Son of the Sun.
Cue the Homer Simpson jokes…
He probably had a British accent.
In American vernacular the equivalent would be “sell a doe“.
No, that’s Mencken.
Old Deep South Pol “Buddy Roemer” pushed through again. This is so contrary to reason, that he must be the Bilderberg pick for 2012. (a Southern SteppinF like Jimmy Carter).
Long ago, I was showing a visitor around the countryside outside Shreveport, and we noticed a big billboard advertising Buddy Roemer’s first run for Congress. His Daddy had sprung for a high-powered ad firm, and it was a slick production, featuring a big image of Buddy with that Kennedy-style windblown hair. When we got closer, we saw that Buddy himself had pulled off onto the shoulder, gotten out of the car and was just marveling at the billboard, basking in his reflected aura. At first it felt like we were intruding on a private moment, but he barely noticed us.
There was a innocence about political narcissism in those days.
Buddy Roemer, colorful replica of America’s past…
Roemer was one of the legislators that Bill Black identified as not being corrupt during the savings and loan crisis.
I don’t know how qualified he is for the presidency, but I believe the intentions behind his singular focus on cleaning the corruption and money out of Washington are sincere.
AFAIK, Black is correct. Roemer’s later career, after I intruded on his private movie, had the same tragic flaw as Jimmy Carters. He used a stint in Congress as a stepping stone to the Governer’s office, where he was judged ineffective because he couldn’t get along with the Legislature. It may be that he couldn’t operate in an atmosphere of corruption. Another possibility that he wasn’t nasty enough to inspire the requisite amount of fear.
Like China, Louisiana swallows up any attempt at reform.
Doesn’t his Type 1 diabetes make him unlikely to bear the hyperdistress of the Presidency in “fighting trim?”
Let’s be honest, neither presidential candidate resonates the American people & both political parties continue to send millions of dollars to each political party.
The people are not represented. Congress has an approval rating of 7% & still they do not listen to our desires.
I can only recommend a great book out about a small town in America that stands up to federal tyranny cause it’s about each of us taking action to save the country. I recommend it.
http://www.booksbyoliver.com
Are we here for the governments convenience or is the government here for our convenience? It’s our government & not corporations. Great article that’s well document. Thanks.
SR, book written by robots. A mass commercial sucker play.
Yeah, it looks like standard right-wing clap-trap.
Ah yes, lets destroy the Federal Government, bankrupt the states, give capital owners all the power.
I could see the capitalists hiring millions of Asians to come over and “police” the dictatorship.
Aren’t they doing that already? “Global police” in the Homeland?
Yep. I definitely like these links seperated out. Easier to shift cognitively into Lambert’s paragraph style + leads to a more focussed comments section.
Do others agree?
yes
Good, thanks for the feedback that led to the improvement. The feuilleton takes a light hand….
Lambert, “Carly Fiorina of [etc.] is a “Corporate Entity,” right? That Governor of Virginia is DETERMINED to earn his keep, stuffing University Boards of Visitors with .01% Corporate Reich apparatchiks. The University of Virginia flap was “a mere bag of shells” to the Gubnah.
It’s hard for me to believe that all of this summertime political advertising is moving many undecided voters. I understand the strategy of trying to define Romney early, because Obama can only win a “choice” election, not an “are you better off than 4 years ago” election. But are people really tuning in to boring campaign ads in July?
Most of the Romney and Obama tv ads are boring, not eye-catching.