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Big Brass Blog is a group blog founded in February of 2005 by Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend and Melissa McEwan of Shakesville (formerly Shakespeare's Sister). The mission of this collaborative effort is to stand as the premiere forum where strong, enduring voices of Progressivism provide what liberal politics has been missing: the unapologetic, unrelenting voice of liberalism in the darkness visited upon our world by Right-wing extremists, their ruinous policies, and their hypocritical beliefs.
For a good portion of my teen and young adult life I lived in the Lompoc area. We started with Vandenberg AFB and then moved to Vandenberg Village which was halfway between the base and Lompoc. As we would travel to visit Solvang, the La Purisima Mission was on our left and across from the most spectacular field of flowers just as you left town. This quiet and beautiful place, so packed with history, is on the Governor's list of state parks to be closed. How much more can this state lose and still offer a quality of life that makes it worth it for an individual to live here and pay higher taxes while corporations pay practically none?
Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of dealing with Nevada state employees. It seems that if you call for information about their Medicaid program your name goes on a list and pretty soon all these associated agencies start calling you and offering their services. When I first started looking I thought we were going to move to Las Vegas but still couldn't afford it. The other day Medicaid called to check and see if I needed any help filling out the paperwork and I told them we were moving to Reno instead. Two hours later the Reno office calls me and then yesterday an Alzheimer's group called and asked if they could send me an application for a grant for my mother to help make the move less traumatic and to help her out. It's like being in the Twilight Zone but in a good way. Oh, and did I mention that the energy company bills you for the deposit and if you can't pay it in one month they give you two? They don't even have a state tax, do they put happy pills in the water?
Having been a child of the military and a veteran myself, I can say that universal health care works. Sometimes slowly but it works and is much better than nothing at all. Health care is a right for everyone and should not be reserved for the very rich or the very poor. Unfortunately those in the middle have to either do without or pay so much that they have to do without other things in their lives such as saving for their child's college. I've had insurance in the past but no longer qualify due to asthma and a tendency for kidney stones and have had to rely on the county health care system when either of those flares up. All other problems I'm managing by myself but as I age that will only go so far. Whatever the solution is, it shouldn't be to prop up the insurance companies and their mountains of paperwork.
Good thing DiSH has its moving program though they might not be any more financially stable than any other highly overpriced television provider either. Tumbling dice is the best way to describe our economy. And the reason they are still tumbling is because the board is slanted downhill.
Consumer spending may be up while income is down, but what did they spend what they don't have on? The article never says. It was too happy that the savings rate was above 4% for two months in a row. The only people making money off of me are the banks. Two days ago BofA said they would probably decide my case in my favor (photos, persistence, plus merchant fraud helped) but they still haven't refunded the $500 (or the $140 in fees yet) and California lowering my check by $101 with less than 24 hours warning has made me even more resolved to get the heck out of here. If I'm going to make less money, I would rather know it ahead of time.
The House Republicans made a big deal about their new budget proposal today on the hill. They held a full press conference at the same time President Obama was answering questions during a live streaming web chat format. Rep, John Boehner was holding an 18 page pamphlet in his hands and calling it "The Recovery Road to Recovery. He was accompanied by "Britney" Cantor and pretty boy Paul Ryan to do the honors of getting down to the business of conservative ideas instead of being the "just say no to Obama" party. Well, their plan is not a plan. It has no information in it. The only person that made out today was the printer they used to copy this up. Contessa Brewer got a bit bothered by their ponzi press conference as much as I did.
Today, House Republicans released their budget plan, entitled �The Republican Road To Recovery.� They claim the plan �curbs spending, creates jobs and lowers taxes, and controls the debt; and it will soon have our economy growing again.�
For an �alternative budget,� however, it is very short on numbers, including no mention of deficit implications. And the plan for creating jobs and sparking economic growth is actually undoing the stimulus and then cutting additional spending:
Republicans propose to undo the recent reckless and wasteful Democrat spending binge included in the so-called �stimulus� and omnibus bills. In addition, Republicans would cut overall nondefense spending by reforming or eliminating a host of wasteful programs deemed ineffective by various government entities.
Of course, stimulus dollars are already on their way out the door, so it�s difficult to envision how one would �undo� the bill.
Earlier this week, President Obama challenged Republicans who have been ripping his budget proposal, saying, �Critics tend to criticize, but they don�t offer an alternative budget.� Today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) released a GOP budget called �The Republican Road to Recovery.� �Here it is, Mr. President,� he said, proudly waving it in the air.
Except this �budget� is short on one key detail: numbers. The AP calls it �a glossy pamphlet short on detail and long on campaign-style talking points.� The budget proposes heavy tax cuts to the wealthy, which have time and again exploded the deficit. Today, MSNBC�s Norah O�Donnell challenged Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) to say what the deficit impact of the GOP plan would be. [snip]
Pence is unable to specify what the deficit would result under his plan because his plan simply doesn�t say so. The plan contains three charts: �Gov spending as percentage of GDP,� �Future Debt Burden, and �Deficit Under Democratic Budgets.� Yet there is no chart about the GOP budget. [snip]
In a press conference today, reporters pressed Boehner on why the plan was so short on numbers. �What�s your goal?� �To do better,� said Boehner. �How much?� �You�ll see next week,� he said.
The Republican "Road to Recovery" budget alternative, rolled out today by John Boehner, has been criticized by left and right for its lack of specificity and its promise to eliminate the national debt while significantly cutting taxes. FiveThirtyEight.com, however, has received an advance copy of additional details prepared by the Minority Leader's office. Although some elements of the proposal are still under discussion -- Eric Cantor is said to want to eliminate North Dakota rather than Idaho, while Thaddeus McCotter has suggested using the balance of TARP funds to purchase scratch-off tickets -- the final plan can be expected to contain most or all of these components.
All of these Blue Dogs love to tell anyone who would listen, how they put their people first (who do they mean?) and they just believe in being "conservative." A nasty word, that, since "conservative" has delivered the US with the highest debt in our history. These Blue Dogs formed their own club years ago, and today it is known as a coalition. Get that? A coalition is a group alliance, when they should be forming an alliance with the party whose name they carry, and not the party they usually vote with, and the same party that helps to put them into power and probably gives them money . . . that has to stop.
Truth be told, we Democrats have been bitten in the ass many times by these Republican Blue Dogs . . . these people are not Democrats. Why would any Democrat, any real Democrat, support the very criminal Bush GOP that has brought this country down in just eight years with their help, and join them in trying to see that the Democratic administration will fail? Why must we Democrats always have to clean up after these Republicans? People wonder why they don't come up with any ideas . . . running the US government was never their intention. Taking what they could get away with was. [snip]
I've always been amazed at the Democrats for not realizing that the Blue Dogs are the Republican Party's idea of controlling both parties in US government. A real Democrat would caucus, discuss and then, as in a Democratic way, which is what the Democratic Party is . . . go with the majority of their party for the good of this country. With Republicans, it's never been about the good of this country, or conservatism, it's always been about control.
A "real" Democrat would not place their most important votes with the same party that has taken the US down as a leader in the world, sold us all out to China, placed this country into two invasions/occupations with a total of dead fellow human beings somewhere around a million (The GOP military would never count bodies, and today Bush's most important objective, Iraq, he won't discuss or mention. How's that for respect?), including American military deaths and our own National Guard, and millions of lives ruined. And, with this country on our ass today, with jobs out of the country, and people going hungry, they are "proud" to vote in solidarity with the Bush GOP in Congress today? [snip]
It's years past the time for Democrats to get serious about who in the hell is in this party. You vote like a Bush GOP Republican, you run on that ticket. What we don't need in this country today, is a "dog eat dog" attitude by the very people who helped to bring the US, once a great and vibrant country -- and can be again -- down, with their greed for power and personal gain, and call it, of all things laughable, "conservative." Many of our Republican government officials should have gone to jail years ago for what they have done. How many American citizens can still hold a job after running their company into the ground? Only if you are a very large contributor to the political coffers.
While Wall Street companies who receive taxpayer's money and then spend it frivolously on planes, parties and bonuses, the people who were put out of work by the aforementioned's poor fiscal policies are now in eight states facing some type of legislated drug testing in order to collect benefits. In Tennessee if you are unfortunate enough to be born into poverty and are forced to either use welfare to survive or die, there is a bill proposing that if you win the lottery you only receive $600 of it. So, if a poor person won a million dollars they could have $600 and still live in the ghetto. Besides the fact that it is poor financial planning to hope that the lottery will end your poverty, this bill is more about punishing people for being poor than it is about helping them get out of poverty.
Drug testing is not the only restriction envisioned for people receiving public assistance: a bill in the Tennessee Legislature would cap lottery winnings for recipients at $600.
And the commenters. Well, it's more than obvious that they still have jobs and money in the bank. I have never agreed with random drug testing for any reason. I understand that pilots, truckers and other moving vehicle operators need to be tested as an issue of public safety, but why should a person who wants to be a dog sitter at Petsmart or a person unfortunate enough to need to apply for food stamps be tested? The tests aren't cheap, sometimes they aren't even accurate and the sheer number of people being tested to qualify for state or federal programs will set up another bureaucracy at a time when state budgets are already past their limits.
This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to kick people when they are down and to increase the amount of governmental control over individual lives. It's interesting how Gingrich and the rest of the Republicans can babble on and on about Obama instituting a dictatorship when what Republicans are really trying to do is control your "life" from conception until death.
And since when did unemployment become welfare? Just by definition it says that you were working and money was paid into the system on your behalf. And while you were working they took money out of your check for Federal, State, sometimes Local and here in California, Disability taxes. Grrr.
If I remember it correctly, the top issue in the 2008 election was the collapsing economy, with energy, health care reform, the Iraq war and other issues following in the distance. On all of these questions, Obama prevailed because he convinced more voters that reversing Republican policies is a better solution than sticking with the status quo. Obama didn't win on a platform of "planning to meet the GOP halfway across the charred ruins of American prosperity".
What Republicans can't really handle, of course, is confronting the reality that it was their misbegotten approach to the economy -- mass deregulation, complete "free markets," and tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts -- that was responsible for creating this mess.
So what we're actually seeing is the Right busily constructing its own fresh new wing of Planet Wingnuttia, the alternative reality they're coming to inhabit: Liberals conspired to cause the housing crisis, and therefore caused the economic collapse. Then Obama started the stock-market slide even before he was elected, and now his radical socialism is driving the market into the sub-1000 region.
Hoo boy. Get ready to deal with this nonsense for the next four years.
Of course, these last eight years are not the only years that the Bush led Republican Party has brought debt and military destruction and charged it all to the taxpayers of the US. It's been going on since Nixon. We Americans would like to think that they could take responsibility for their (cough) mistakes, and try to help out those who want to bring this country back into solvency. That's what most of the American people would think.
But, that's not what the members and leaders of the Bush GOP think today. In their own words, they can't take responsibility and they don't give a damn about solving problems, so why would any thinking American want to constantly pick up the tab by this greedy political party? How many years before we put a stop to this? Eh? [...]
Where were these holier-than-thou Republican voices for the last eight years? [...]
And, to this day, so far, no accountability, no act of conscience in words or deeds is heard coming from the Republican Party leaders, shock jocks, whatever. As an American, I hate what I see in this country today, when we have had a Republican run government that was responsible for a million deaths, hundreds of thousands of injuries, and the displacement of millions more people, and yet, we hear nothing of these crimes against humanity from these people. No feelings whatsoever for the crimes committed by the Bush GOP regime.
What we hear is that they do not want to help bring this country back and if they ever get into power again, we Americans can rightly assume that they will do the same things that they did to bring this country to where we are today. They show no intelligence, exchange of ideas, or remorse. [...]
Who, in this country, could possibly still want to listen to these people and their anti-Democratic Party rants, which are also anti-democracy rants, all for the purpose of shutting out real news, or all important news, and what's going on in the Obama administration about the real problems facing this country today [...] and, after knowing that these same vociferous loudmouths have supported the Bush GOP for over thirty years without fear of US law, they supported them in complete silence . . . not a word was heard.
This intense, impatient, often self-righteous, frequently wrongheaded and at times willfully destructive criticism has come in waves, and not just from the right. Mr. Obama is as legitimate a target for criticism as any president. But there is a weird hysterical quality to some of the recent attacks that suggests an underlying fear or barely suppressed rage. It�s a quality that seems not just unhelpful but unhealthy. [...]
In the midst of the craziness, conservatives are busy trying to blame this epic economic catastrophe � a conflagration of their own making � on the new president. Forget Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George Herbert Hoover Bush and the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth and Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich and all the rest. The right-wingers would have you believe this is Obama�s downturn. [...]
What I know is that the renegade clowns who ruined this economy, the Republican right in alliance with big business and a fair number of feckless Democrats � all working in opposition to the interests of working families � have no credible basis for waging war against serious efforts to get us out of their mess.
The Republicans aren't interested in coming to a consensus or bipartisanship. Their idea of bipartisanship is a fairy tale where the Democratic Party adopts Republican "values". Anything less will get Republicans to cry the Democratic majority is "partisan".
The Republicans are interested in scoring political points any way they can. That means they are to disrupt the process or obstruct the process of every piece of legislation and do it while proclaiming they are sticking to their "core principles". There is no reason for you to appease these difficult and obstinate politicians.
But what occasionally bears repeating is that they don't even remember Reagan especially well. Reality may be blasphemous in some Republican circles but the inconvenient truth is Reagan raised taxes. He raised them several times. The conservative Republicans -- with Gingrich and the WSJ editorial page, I mean that literally -- who are whining incessantly about President Obama's proposed tax increases on the wealthy are the same ones who complained bitterly about Reagan's tax increases in 1982.
Brooks is right; conservative Republican lawmakers want desperately to turn back the clock to how they perceive the 1980s. But they're not only wrong about today's economy, they're not even getting the '80s right.
They were wrong about Reagan's tax increases. They were wrong about Clinton's tax increases. They were wrong about Bush's tax cuts. And now, they're wrong again about Obama's tax policy while simultaneously pushing "insane" ideas.
If they could just let the grown-ups talk for a while, we'd all be better off.
The hyper partisanship we have witnessed for the past 15 years or so has to stop. The mean spirited, all out warfare, continuous campaign style of politics is doing immeasurable damage to the country.
George W. Bush had his macho, swaggering style and a "My way or the highway philosophy!" With impetus from Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, the Bush administration, and the current GOP, engaged a scorched earth strategy all the time. It worked for him long enough to get another term and then the bottom fell out of the Bush presidency as the many shortcomings of the President�s policies and proclamations became exposed.
Now, instead of working with the new President to consider his hugely ambitious agenda, or to proffer alternatives, they choose to declare war on President Obama and work to undermine him. This is an irresponsibly dangerous game they are playing.
And here is a hint, REAL PEOPLE are suffering ... because of you.
Throwing more tax cut fuel on it won't put it out. Cutting funds for contraception won't put it out. And stamping your widdle feets and obstructing every move that the people who DIDN'T light the fire are making to put YOUR fire out ... won't put it out. [. . .]
NO ONE, but you, has forgotten how we got to this point ... in two wars, our standing in the world damaged nearly beyond repair and standing in the flaming soon to be ruins of what used to be our economy. No one has forgotten that it was you who brought us to this point. Or that you have gotten us to this point while laughing at, mocking, denigrating and calling people traitors ... the same people who now have to clean up the steaming pile of elephant poop that YOU deposited in the middle of the living room ... of our burning house.
The time when you could blame all of your mistakes on the Dems and have the public and the pundits buy it is over. No one is buying it. Ok, I'm wrong, the stupidest factions of the Village and the punditocracy are still buying it ... because they helped you light the fire. [...]
Soon it will be apparent to all sane people that being nice to you just doesn't work, that every time we give in to you, your unquenchable three year old egos just take that as a signal of weakness and demand more. With every petulant demand, with every hold you put on a nominee, with every little nit you pick, with every foot stomp, with every BLATANT obstructionist tactic you use to keep us from cleaning up YOUR mess and putting out YOUR fire ... you reveal yourself as the petulant, vengeful, idiotic spoiled little children you are. [...]
You failed. Your ideology failed. Your economic theories failed, your foreign policy failed, your theocratic social policies failed and your theories of governing failed. Everyone knows this ... except ... apparently ... you.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again ... as you have with your trickle down bullshit ... and expecting different results. Everything you are screaming for is EXACTLY what got us in to this mess. The fact that you think that doing MORE of the same will fix the mess YOU made just proves your true character and intelligence. You are exposing yourself, again, as insane ideologues living in a delusional land where things that have never, ever worked ... suddenly start to work, because you held your breath long enough. You are proving to the entire nation and the world that you are insane. Insane little children, throwing a tantrum in the middle of a house on fire ... a fire that, I remind you once again ... YOU started.
You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created. [...]
With people like Limbaugh as the loudmouth image of the Republican Party -- you need no enemies. But something far more serious has happened than an image problem: the Republican Party has become the party of obstruction at just the time when all Americans should be pulling together for the good of our country. Instead, Republicans are today's fifth column sabotaging American renewal. [...]
For the party that created our crisis's of misbegotten war, mismanaged economy, the lack of regulation of our banking industry, handing our country to rich crooks... to obstruct the one person who is trying to repair the damage is obscene. [...]
After Obama was elected, you Republican leaders had a unique last chance to send a patriotic message of unity to the world -- and to all Americans. You could have backed our president's economic recovery plan. Since we all know that half of our problem is one of lost confidence and perception, nothing would have done more to calm the markets and project resolve and confidence than if you had been big enough to take Obama's offered hand and had work with him -- even if you disagreed ideologically. You had the chance to put our country first. You utterly failed to rise to the occasion.
The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.
I realize that most of this is going to be ignored by many of those at whom this is directed, but they should consider this . . .
After eight years of trying to tell me and every other Democrat that any attitude other than getting 100% behind the US President, no matter who he may be, means you are a traitor, your frenzied antipathy toward Obama makes you all seem like the most ridiculous of hypocrites on the American political scene. You might want to think about that some.
Well isn't that just awful, the pundits have lost patience with the President. As if I care what the pundits think. I remember when they were relatively good (This Week with David Brinkley, Tony Brown's Journal and the good versions of Meet the Press and Face the Nation) and confined to their place voicing opinion, not making it. I lost all respect for them during the Clinton affair. They perpetrated and encouraged a witch hunt against a sitting President whose only results were to expose private marital discord to public ridicule and to ensure that when the bumbling idiot that is George W. Bush took over and ran this country into the ground that they could say that the country was tired and that all talk of impeachment was off the table and we must support the President otherwise we were automatically guilty of treason. One must not criticize the President. Unless he isn't the President that the wingnuts wanted, then all bets are off.
And people wonder why today's youth are so confused and who could blame them? On the one hand they were taught that it is okay to try to impeach a President for lying about having sex outside his marriage (like that hasn't been done before!) but it isn't okay to impeach a President for lying about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, allowing an American city to drown on worldwide television, spying on innocent Americans without any oversight from the court system, considered the Constitution as an old piece of paper, destroyed the military and then cut benefits to veterans, gave the orders that caused the deaths of innocent civilians in two countries, let the Grand High Poobah of the Taliban live free after the most traumatic incident this country had seen in a decade (funny how the FBI could find Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols within days but the military and the CIA can't find a 6'5" man on dialysis in a country where we've been for eight years) and I'm supposed to think that pundits opinions are the word from on high? Oh my, I'm just quaking in my boots. And what the heck is wrong with a little patience? Bush got eight years to screw up this country while the press was complicitly quiet and because Obama hasn't fixed everything that the press has just noticed is broken in the last four months while only being in office for two of them, he doesn't know what he's doing?
Maybe the President is combative because the press asks stupid questions. Repeatedly. Substance is no longer the press' forte. If half as much time was spent on researching what the public needs to know as the news spends on letting us know about the lives, loves and tweets of today's entertainment crowd maybe the President and I could take them seriously.
Our country is in deep doodoo and avoiding the issues is what the press does best and they are at the top of their game. Unfortunately these guys are so clueless that it probably hasn't occurred to them that if they reported the news in an objective manner that maybe so many papers wouldn't be going out of business for lack of readership.
As Anna Z pointed out so eloquently, why is it that nothing can be done about the AIG bonuses but the government has rules and regulations in place to deal with the last dime of a Medicaid patient because it is considered government money and must be repaid by any means possible? The rich can commit crimes and escape punishment on a consistent basis but the poor must be stripped of everything, including their dignity.
Not that the press notices these things, that would be too much like doing their jobs and they would rather be voicing their opinions instead of reporting the news. Bloviating is their specialty which is why they think everybody else does it too.
after obama last night, we turned on faux news for a bit, wondering. all was as usual, Bill-o and Rove foaming at mouth (Bill-o loves the word bloviate: ETYMOLOGY: Mock-Latinate formation, from blow ... it must sound very naughty to him): Obama is boring, Obama is professorial, Obama is pompous. A bloviateur. They reminded me of sixth grade boys, the ones who get in trouble for spitballs. People actually watch this stuff?
Yeah. Afraid some do. The Beck crowd, the Palin folk who think a great patriot is the rugged individual who can dress moose. Fight injuns. A world of TV Westerns that never existed. So much for a sense of community. A future.
Meanwhile, thank Buzzflash for having the stomach to keep an eye on them.
Tea Party Tantrums: GOP Astroturf Groups Failed to Hit the History Books Before Fomenting Revolution
Submitted by meg on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 2:47pm.Analysis
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White
This whole conservative tea party thing has really gotten out of control. The idea that these anti-tax, anti-spending conservatives are anything like the Boston colonists is downright laughable. What was sparked by CNBC stock market reporter Rick Santelli's on-air freak out over the homeowner bailout has outgrown its anger britches (The brainchild behind this cute repackaging of lusty GOP rage is probably irrevocably obscured, you'll find an interesting round up of the Santelli chase here and here).
I won�t be buying my tea from your company ever again and any time I find it in a store or online from this time forward, I will tell the proprietor to remove the product from their shelves. This whole �tea party� movement was planned back in August and is not a spontaneous event, but a planned �sleeper cell� attack by the GOP oligarchy.
The baritone voice of George Kell has been stilled.
George Kell, Hall of Fame third baseman, went on to broadcast Detroit Tiger games for 37 years. In 1959, Kell joined Van Patrick on the Tigers� television team, then teamed with fellow Hall of Famer Al Kaline for 15 straight years, from 1980-94.
Third baseman edged Williams for AL batting crown in 1949
Kell's 15-year career with the Philadelphia Athletics (1943-1946), Detroit Tigers (1946-52), Boston Red Sox (1952-54), Chicago White Sox (1954-56) and Baltimore Orioles (1956-57) established him among the game's great third basemen, not just of his era, but of all time. One of just 11 third basemen elected the Hall of Fame, he was a 10-time All-Star who set standards at his position for defense and offense alike.
A career .306 hitter, Kell is best known as a player for his American League batting crown in Detroit in 1949, winning a race with Ted Williams that went down in history for its minuscule gap and stellar hitting. Down 10 points in late September upon returning from a jammed thumb, Kell went on a finishing tear that brought him within three points on the season's final day. While Williams went 0-for-2 with two walks, Kell's 2-for-3 outing erased the gap. He was on deck against Cleveland's Bob Feller, pitching in relief, when Eddie Lake hit into a game-ending double play.
Kell not only hit .3429 that year, edging out Williams at .3427 and denying the Red Sox star the Triple Crown, but his 13 strikeouts that year stands as the lowest total for a batting champion in Major League history. He went on to post nine .300 hitting seasons before he retired at age 35 following the 1957 season in Baltimore.
Just as solid if not more so than his bat, however, was his sure glove and strong arm. Seven times, he led all American League third basemen in fielding percentage. Four times, he led the league in assists from the hot corner. [...]
Little did Kell know when he was playing that he would earn a similar regard by getting behind the microphone once his playing days were over. Hall of Fame broadcaster Ernie Harwell introduced him to the profession by inviting him to the booth while he was injured during that 1957 season in Baltimore, where Harwell was working at the time.
"He sat in the booth with me after he'd been hurt and did a couple of innings with me," Harwell told WWJ radio. "And that got him started in radio and TV. And then, when he got the job at the Tigers broadcasting with Van Patrick, and Van left, George called me and asked if I could come to Detroit."
After handling pregame work for CBS Television in 1958, Kell was back in Detroit, replacing the late Mel Ott on Tigers radio and television broadcasts. Except for 1964, he remained a voice of the Tigers in various outlets through 1996.
He was as welcome a presence as a broadcaster as he was a player.
Third base remains baseball's enigmatic position, the only one where fielding prowess stands on equal ground with hitting skill. It is the rarest of combinations and one that has sent just 11 former Major Leaguers to the Baseball Hall of Fame -- the fewest of any position.
George Kell, one of those 11, died Tuesday at the age of 86. During his playing days, his skills with the lumber and the leather produced one of baseball's most consistent players of the mid-20th century.
"He's a seven-day-a-week ballplayer," said fellow third baseman Red Rolfe.
Kell broke into the big leagues with the Athletics at the end of the 1943 season, then took over as Philadelphia's everyday third baseman the next year at 21 years old. After two get-your-feet-wet seasons in which he struck out just 38 times in 1,088 at-bats -- and finished 22nd in the American League Most Valuable Player vote in 1944 -- Kell was traded to the Detroit Tigers on May 18, 1946, for Barney McCosky.
It was a trade A's owner Connie Mack long regretted.
Kell hit at least .304 from 1946-51, going to the first of eight straight All-Star Games in 1947. He finished fifth in the MVP voting in 1947 with a .320 average and 93 RBIs, then hit .3429 in 1949, winning the batting title by .0002 over Ted Williams and denying Williams his third Triple Crown. [...]
Kell was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1983 and was a frequent visitor to the Hall of Fame. He will be missed in Cooperstown.
Estate Recovery is a claim filed against the estate of a deceased Medicaid recipient when Medicaid has paid for certain medical services. A lien may also be placed on property owned by the recipient. The claim or lien is filed to recover Medicaid dollars paid on behalf of the individual. Federal and State laws require the Division of Medical Assistance (DMA) to place a lien on property owned by the Medicaid recipient, or file a claim against the estate of individuals to recover the amount paid by the Medicaid program during the time the individual received assistance with certain medical services. Ask your Medicaid case worker for specific information regarding which services are applicable to estate recovery.
Think about what this means: The government can step in front of any heirs of a Medicaid recipient, commandeering any remaining assets, in order to get paid back. The Medicaid recipient's only fault? Being low-income and sick.
Yet we are told that the government can't do anything about stopping executive bonuses and outrageous pay. The thousands of financial industry players who have already received such excesses are NOT required to pay anything back. No property is seized, auctioned, or attached with a lien. Their homes, properties, boats, cars, jewelry, investments, and foreign assets remain intact. In spite of the fact that these people, whether through gross incompetence, greed, or deliberate fraud, directly caused industry losses on a scale few of us can imagine. And consequently, they are the biggest recipients of government welfare in the history of the world - no strings attached.
Oh wait, I forgot - the auto industry was required to gut worker pay and benefits, and must pay back what congress sternly called a "loan".
The Vermont Senate voted 26-4 yesterday in favor of same-sex marriage. It is expected to pass in the House vote.
Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, opposes the measure. Nat�rlich.
While this is an important step for equality, I never cease to be amazed by the delicate dance of politicians who try hard not to seem too gay-friendly.
�We are not condoning homosexuality,� said Sen. John Campbell, D-Windsor, as he introduced the bill to the Senate. �What we�re doing is recognizing some people are homosexuals.�
Gee, thanks! I'll take what I can get. But you know what? Homosexuality is real. It's as real and natural as your heterosexuality, Senator Campbell, just not as common. And there's nothing wrong with condoning a natural love. You make it sound as if you are passing a law legalizing cocaine and heroin. We don't condone it but we acknowledge there are addicts out there.
I can't believe I actually have more respect for a Republican response:
Sen. Phil Scott, R-Washington, said he didn�t know how he was going to vote when he walked into the Senate chamber Monday afternoon, but made up his mind while listening to the debate. �I said if I�m going to err on one side or the other, I would err on the side of basic human rights.�
But to be fair, it was arguments by Senator Campbell which persuaded Scott to "err" on the side of human rights when Campbell said this:
�You know who those �they� people are? They�re our policemen, our firefighters, our teachers, garbagemen, the guy who plows the street. They�re our children. Our sisters, brothers, they�re human beings, and as such, as it�s said in this bill, they should be treated equally,� Campbell said.
Treated equally.. but not condoned. That would just be a step too far.
condone: to regard or treat (something bad or blameworthy) as acceptable, forgivable, or harmless.
I was playing Sudoku on the ole iTouch and this song came on and as I listened to the lyrics, I literally started to have palpitations which made it impossible to beat my best time. As anybody who knows me will tell you, I despise reality television. But if one thing she did in her last few months of life benefits her children, she has done as much as a mother could, or should to provide for her chidlren. Rest in peace, may I give it as good as an effort when my back is against the last wall. I may not cry for yesterday but I will did cry for the tomorrows you will have missed.
No matter how bad one may think that their life sucks, someone else's life always sucks worse. My heart goes out to her family and especially to her children. Lindsay, Britney and Paris should get down on their hands and knees and thank the Universe every morning that Thanatos has overlooked their worthless cabooses one more time and took Natalie Richardson and Jade Goody instead.
If only Blackdog knew how much he was really going to be missed. If only he knew.
�The US government just won�t allow the correction the economy needs.� He cites the mini-depression of 1921, which lasted just a year largely because insolvent companies were allowed to fail. �No one remembers that one. They�ll remember this one, because it will last 15 years.�
At some stage � Mr Paul estimates it will be between one and four years � the dollar will implode. �The dollar as a reserve standard is done,� he says. He sees little hope for other currencies where central banks have also created too much liquidity dating right back to the early 1970s.
�Europe and the US will both have to fundamentally change their money systems,� he adds.
Unsurprisingly, Mr Paul has been viewed as a crank in Washington, dismissed as a doomsayer and a party-pooper. His bill early this year to abolish the Federal Reserve was largely ignored. And his adherence to the Austrian School of economics, which predicted that fiat currencies would destabilise the world economy, has won him few friends.
�People don�t like the Austrians because they are against big government, against armies and against the welfare state. To accept Austrian economics, you have to accept limitations of credit expansion and that is what has kept the government and financial firms in business for so long.�
I'm hoping The Dark Wraith will provide me with a few links to his articles about the Austrian School of Economics.
(If I remember correctly, Ludwig von Mises isn't one of his favorites)
The only thing I know about Austria is that the hills are alive with the sound of music!
Sure makes short work of the Naked archaeologist. Also note, Coldwater Media, who produce "programming with a distinct fundamentalist Christian perspective, particularly films attempting to debunk Darwinian evolution and promoting 'intelligent design(sic')," have invaded the History Channel.
And so the weekend's self-fulfilling prophecy that the Obama budget leads to Doomsday (thanks for covering this nonsense, AP!) sends me here to wonder aloud. How do we unplug such well endowed mental filters?
2,000 years of middlemen messing with one's birthrighted dialogue with the higher speculations (as in soul, guardian, philosophy, your-theory-here), and we're not free. It's--like everything else-- just gone high-tech corporate. All these leaders spouting scripture they can't even read. Translations made by such interested parties simply can't be trusted.
I've always felt that it can't go beyond a generation, the Pat Robertson-John Hagee empire. Beyond the certain bloody infighting, there will always be Bart Erhmans. Real scholars who actually seek "truth" -- a model that objectively examines all the evidence -- and understand what history actually is.
Of course, so much has been destroyed...
And now Gaza. So important in the ancient world. A crossroads. We have no idea what we've lost.
But keep searching the drainage ditches, holy texts overwritten, palimpsesting. Truth keeps turning up. Must be its nature.
When AIG attempted to rationalize the bonuses given as the only way for them to retain "the best and the brightest" in the workforce, it was all I could do not to lose my lunch. Those guys--who drove the corporation into the ground are the best and the brightest? Mais non.
Meet the real best and the brightest: Michael Steinman's Advanced Placement English class at Village Academy High School in Pomona, California. These are the real faces of how this economic crisis has hit America.
Steinman led his students in a discussion of the American Dream following the novel The Great Gatsby. Steinman discovered that his students' idea of the American Dream was far more utilitarian than the acquisitive Buchanans or Jay Gatsby: a refrigerator with food inside; no fear of homelessness; employment for their parents. When he discovered that every student in his class was touched deeply by the economic crisis, he encouraged them to put their stories on video. The video, entitled "Is Anybody Listening?", was sent to then presidential candidates Obama and McCain as well as uploaded to YouTube. In the video, students talk about how economic realities have infringed on their hopes and aspirations for the future. [...]
The student video, as well as the coverage both on Newshour above and ABC's 20/20 last night are heartbreaking and put real faces (as I've tried to do on this post as well) as to who exactly are the victims of the de-regulated marketplace, where hedge fund managers and CDS traders still feel they're entitled to seven figure bonuses despite the bailout. This should once and for all quell the attempts to minimize the importance of those bonuses. It's not about the percentage of the overall bailout that matters...it's that these people's actions have taken food out of these children's mouths and roofs from over their heads.
These kids are being imprisoned, harassed, and otherwise brutalized for opposing the political-military policies of their country, the State of Israel. They choose not to serve in the army of their nation. Listen to their story.
You can read more about these Israeli conscientious objectors in Ed Asner's article, "The Shministim," at The Huffington Post.
If you support them, if you feel in your heart that they are right and that their treatment at the hands of the Israeli government is wrong, go to their Website, December18th.org, and sign the letter addressed to the Israeli Defense Minister.
The President of the United States, Barack Obama, chose as his White House Chief of Staff a Zionist of "good Irgun stock" who holds dual United States/Israel citizenship: Rahm Emanuel volunteered at an Israeli Defense Forces base to serve during the Persian Gulf War, yet he found no time or obligation to volunteer service in the armed forces of the United States of America, the nation that has so richly elevated him to the halls of Congress and now to the inner sanctum of the White House despite his deep ties to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a wing of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
The kids you saw in that video have no power other than that of their own free will and the voices of those who would be outraged by their treatment.
President Obama has chosen Rahm Emanuel, Dennis Ross, Richard Holbrook, Hillary Clinton, Tony Lake, Susan Rice, and other supporters of a bellicose State of Israel to stand with him. Now, you may choose with whom you choose to stand. Do not make the mistake of believing that you can have it both ways.
I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
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